A summer of power volunteering

[fzwarrior]

---

Members do not see this ad.

I am currently in my junior yr of premed. However, my first 2 yrs were spent at a community college as pre-pharmacy. I decided to switch to premed and thankfully just about all of those classes counted toward premed as most were science and general ed classses. However, pharmacy school does not stress volunteer and clinical experience nearly as much as med schools do. Therefore, I do not have much in the way of volunteer hours as I have worked as a cert. pharm tech for the past 3 years. My plan is to commit my entire summer to volunteering and gaining clinical experience even though I may have to stop working. GPA is high and I plan to do well on the MCAT. I am just wondering if this is going to cause any problems in the application process.

 

[willen101383]

I am currently in my junior yr of premed. However, my first 2 yrs were spent at a community college as pre-pharmacy. I decided to switch to premed and thankfully just about all of those classes counted toward premed as most were science and general ed classses. However, pharmacy school does not stress volunteer and clinical experience nearly as much as med schools do. Therefore, I do not have much in the way of volunteer hours as I have worked as a cert. pharm tech for the past 3 years. My plan is to commit my entire summer to volunteering and gaining clinical experience even though I may have to stop working. GPA is high and I plan to do well on the MCAT. I am just wondering if this is going to cause any problems in the application process.

Everyone plans to do well on the MCAT. And make sure you do meaningful things during volunteering. ADCOMS will see right through your "power volunteering" unless you actually get something out of it.

 

[Livestrong51085]

Your summer of power-volunteering, during which you'll most likely treat it as your full-time job, will fail to impress the adcoms, I'm sorry to say. They will see right though it.

They want to see you dedicate at LEAST a year to a few things that are meaningful to you. When you do those things, only do them once or twice a week for 3-4 hours at a time at the most. They want to see dedication and the ability to stick with something. In this instance, LONGEVITY is much more important than QUANTITY.

I understand your position and that you want to go to med school THIS cycle, but you are probably better off dedicating a year to getting more experience under your belt.

If you MUST apply this cycle, I would NOT power volunteer the whole summer. I would work a part-time job and then do the aforementioned amount of volunteering when you are free. Then send updates throughout the cyle of your continued dedication.

To the adcoms, power-volunteering is a HUGE turn-off and shows a complete lack of sincerity.

 

[Catalystik]

As long as you don't plan to apply until June 2011, you may be fine, if you can get some clinical experience and community service going NOW, as about 1.5 years of each is pretty typical for a med school applicant. Can you get in four hours a week of volunteering in a hospital or clinic, nursing home or hospice? Could you do some form on nonmedical volunteering regularly, like 4 hours every other week in a soup kitchen, Humane Society, mentoring or tutoring kids, homeless shelter, or something else you really care about?

The good news: any time you spent at a pharmacy window counseling/serving patients, counts as clinical patient experience of a sort, though it does not cover the need for clinical environment experience. Certainly working in a pharmacy is medically relevant and helpful.

The bad news: what's listed above isn't nearly all you need to do. Don't forget physician shadowing, ideally 60-80 hours spit among at least 2-3 types of doc. Research: 60% list it and a year is average. Not to mention other desirable activities of Leadership, Teaching, Arts Involvement, Sports, and Hobbies. And while you're getting this in, keep your GPA high and do well on the MCAT.

You will not be ready to apply in six months and if you did so you'd be wasting your money. June is the ideal time to apply to have the best chance. Anything done after you submit is not going to be regarded if your application doesn't pass screening. Plan on 2011 at the earliest.

 

[NickNaylor]

Not sure about the necessity of "arts involvement" and "sports," but as others have mentioned, a summer of power volunteering isn't ideal. It'd probably be best to wait until 2011 to apply, but you can give it a try this year. Just don't be disappointed if it doesn't go well.

 

[Verloren]

"Teaching, Arts Involvement, Sports, and Hobbies"? This is the first time I have heard of medical schools really looking at these specific, rather than just generally looking for a "well-rounded" student. Can you explain this to me?

I can't imagine someone being rejected because they don't play sports lol I think that would cut out a huge number of applicants

 

[DendWrite]

I don't think that "power volunteering" is going to be as big of a hindrance to your application as some others in this thread, but it depends on what schools you are shooting for. My question is: why can't you start volunteering now and devote even more hours during the summer? As long as you continue it into your senior year I think that you -may- be able to get by. You have a good bit of experience in a healthcare related field. You'll just have to have a compelling reason for why you wanted to make the switch from pharmacist to physician (and I think you could use some of your experiences working as a pharmacy tech and in pharmacy school to your advantage -- did you interact with docs at all during this time? It would be shadowing but it's certainly experience).

If you want the absolute best chance at getting into the best schools you can given your stats, then I'd take the gap year and do volunteering / shadowing throughout your senior year. Otherwise, I think you could probably make it happen (depending on your MCAT scores), LORs, and how compelling your reason for the switch is. That said, it is somewhat iffy...look at some MDapps profiles: you'll be going up against people who have 2+ years of volunteer experience. You just have to make yours count and be able to talk about it well.

 

[DendWrite]

"Teaching, Arts Involvement, Sports, and Hobbies"? This is the first time I have heard of medical schools really looking at these specific, rather than just generally looking for a "well-rounded" student. Can you explain this to me?

I can't imagine someone being rejected because they don't play sports lol I think that would cut out a huge number of applicants

You don't need to pick up a sports team just because you want to go to med school 😀. Seriously, just do what you like. And keep in mind that you may already have done things in these categories...arts involvement could be anything from painting to singing to acting to photography to whatever, teaching could mean tutoring kids after school, being a TA, working at your school's academic resource center to help students, etc etc.

Sports are flexible too. Do you like Harry Potter? Join the school quidditch team. Or run, or do some intermural sports or something. Hobbies? Well, these are just hobbies. Anything you like to do (make it non-medical). Everybody's interested in something. Don't give up on the stuff you enjoy just because you feel like you have to do X, Y, Z in order to get in. ADCOMs really value students who take the time to get a variety of unique experiences because that's going to make them more diverse students and ultimately better doctors because they'll be able to better interact with patients and have had more "real-world" experience so to speak.

 

[Catalystik]

"Teaching, Arts Involvement, Sports, and Hobbies"? This is the first time I have heard of medical schools really looking at these specific, rather than just generally looking for a "well-rounded" student. Can you explain this to me?

When you create an AMCAS account and begin to enter your Experiences, you'll see that there is a preset pull-down menu of different categories to select from. The ones I mentioned are among them. No one of the above is a "necessity," but the categories provide a cue to you to add entries that you may not have thought to be of interest to an adcom. "Other" is another provided category in case your activity doesn't fit anywhere else, and this is generally where Shadowing fits in. Employment, Publications, Presentations, Conferences Attended are more of them not yet mentioned, besides Research. If you have an entry for a number of these categories, chances are you will look more interesting and well-rounded than if you only have the essential activities of Clinical Experience and Community Service/Volunteer (and for me, Shadowing is on this last list, too).

 

[Verloren]

When you create an AMCAS account and begin to enter your Experiences, you'll see that there is a preset pull-down menu of different categories to select from. The ones I mentioned are among them. No one of the above is a "necessity," but the categories provide a cue to you to add entries that you may not have thought to be of interest to an adcom. "Other" is another provided category in case your activity doesn't fit anywhere else, and this is generally where Shadowing fits in. Employment, Publications, Presentations, Conferences Attended are more of them not yet mentioned, besides Research. If you have an entry for a number of these categories, chances are you will look more interesting and well-rounded than if you only have the essential activities of Clinical Experience and Community Service/Volunteer (and for me, Shadowing is on this last list, too).

Ok, that sounds along the lines of what I had been thinking. I do a lot of non-medical volunteering, I'm in miscellaneous clubs, I write fiction and poetry, and I have interests other than getting into med school LOL. I was only a little worried because the way you worded it made it seem like schools were looking for an entire set of particular things, which I think a very small number of applicants would have.