Advice on Extra Curricular's

[zacharr23]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Hi, I'm a second-year Biopsychology major at a top UC. I currently row crew for my school's club team, work at an optometrists office, am founding a pre-health fraternity (delta epsilon mu), and do neuroscience research.

My time is becoming much harder to spread out. Rowing eats up about 40 hours a week, work eats about 10, research 15-20, and the fraternity eats about 2 hours per week. I'm planning on becoming EMT certified this summer and working a couple 12 hour shifts a week. Would I be a stronger applicant with better grades, research, working as an EMT, and founding the frat, or, what I am doing now?

This may seem like a dumb question but I want to choose the extracurriculars that help me become the strongest applicant I can be.

 

[acciobutterbeer]

Do you work with directly with patients in the optometrists office? If so, you might not need the EMT experience (although it would likely be interesting to talk about in secondaries/interviews!)

Are you able to keep up with schoolwork with your current schedule now? Grades are a huge factor and strong ECs won't make up for a poor GPA. Also, do you volunteer at all? Volunteering is super important!

 

[Med Ed]

Hi, I'm a second-year Biopsychology major at a top UC. I currently row crew for my school's club team, work at an optometrists office, am founding a pre-health fraternity (delta epsilon mu), and do neuroscience research.

My time is becoming much harder to spread out. Rowing eats up about 40 hours a week, work eats about 10, research 15-20, and the fraternity eats about 2 hours per week. I'm planning on becoming EMT certified this summer and working a couple 12 hour shifts a week. Would I be a stronger applicant with better grades, research, working as an EMT, and founding the frat, or, what I am doing now?

This may seem like a dumb question but I want to choose the extracurriculars that help me become the strongest applicant I can be.

Devoting 40 hours/week to a club sport isn't the best idea for a premed. The EMT thing was popular several years ago, then it was scribing, now medical assistants are popping up with greater frequency. The value of the fraternity thing depends on what it actually does.

Here are the qualities of a prototypical successful applicant, in a nutshell:

- Metrics: high GPA and MCAT.
- Clinical exposure: some combination of shadowing and/or clinical volunteering that gives an adequate idea of what being a physician means.
- Service: non-clinical volunteering, a marker of intrinsic motivation, given that medicine is fundamentally a service profession.
- Research: important at a limited number of medical schools, optional at the vast majority.

There is always allowance made for individual circumstances, such as having to work full time or coming from an underperforming school district.

Unless you are abusing amphetamines, I do not see how your schedule permits you to become a competitive applicant in a reasonable timeframe. I would drop the rowing, find a non-clinical volunteering opportunity, get some shadowing, and continue research only if you like it and it's productive. Not sure what to say about your grades since you didn't share those.

 

[EdgeTrimmer]

Top UCs are known for grade deflation. I hope you are not sacrificing GPA for ECs. what's your GPA at the half way point (3 semesters)?

 

[djsbaseball2014]

Do not drop Rowing but cut the hours down. Pursue hobbies, in all honesty. You can make anything be valuable on your app based on how you talk about it. I feel like applicants nowadays give up on unique things because there are so many "cookie-cut" activities to do. Stop with the herd mentality and do things that you genuinely enjoy!

I started a cooking club believe it or not and that has come up in every single one of my interviews, and i talked extensively about it. Dont undervalue the power of hobbies.

 

[Rachapkis]

Don't seek to conform your extracurriculars to a template. If you are passionate about what you are doing and can demonstrate a commitment to service, you will be well on your way.

 

[zacharr23]

Devoting 40 hours/week to a club sport isn't the best idea for a premed. The EMT thing was popular several years ago, then it was scribing, now medical assistants are popping up with greater frequency. The value of the fraternity thing depends on what it actually does.

Here are the qualities of a prototypical successful applicant, in a nutshell:

- Metrics: high GPA and MCAT.
- Clinical exposure: some combination of shadowing and/or clinical volunteering that gives an adequate idea of what being a physician means.
- Service: non-clinical volunteering, a marker of intrinsic motivation, given that medicine is fundamentally a service profession.
- Research: important at a limited number of medical schools, optional at the vast majority.

There is always allowance made for individual circumstances, such as having to work full time or coming from an underperforming school district.

Unless you are abusing amphetamines, I do not see how your schedule permits you to become a competitive applicant in a reasonable timeframe. I would drop the rowing, find a non-clinical volunteering opportunity, get some shadowing, and continue research only if you like it and it's productive. Not sure what to say about your grades since you didn't share those.

Abusing amphetamines lol. I'm thinking of dropping rowing and putting those hours into finding a quality volunteer position. Is there an way to raise my GPA after undergrad for med school?

 

[OchemOficionado]

Abusing amphetamines lol. I'm thinking of dropping rowing and putting those hours into finding a quality volunteer position. Is there an way to raise my GPA after undergrad for med school?

Defintiely volunteer if you haven't already. What about shadowing hours?

You can do a postbac (DIY or formal) following graduation to boost your gpa.

 

[zacharr23]

Do you work with directly with patients in the optometrists office? If so, you might not need the EMT experience (although it would likely be interesting to talk about in secondaries/interviews!)

Are you able to keep up with schoolwork with your current schedule now? Grades are a huge factor and strong ECs won't make up for a poor GPA. Also, do you volunteer at all? Volunteering is super important!

yes I work directly with the patients. I run tests on them, do dilations, and billing.

 

[Med Ed]

yes I work directly with the patients. I run tests on them, do dilations, and billing.

Wonderful experience for your application to optometry school.

 

[zacharr23]

Defintiely volunteer if you haven't already. What about shadowing hours?

You can do a postbac (DIY or formal) following graduation to boost your gpa.

I volunteer at a local hospital about 5 hours a week. Can you give me some more information on a postbac? And how would that factor into my med school application

 

[Med Ed]

Do not drop Rowing but cut the hours down. Pursue hobbies, in all honesty. You can make anything be valuable on your app based on how you talk about it. I feel like applicants nowadays give up on unique things because there are so many "cookie-cut" activities to do. Stop with the herd mentality and do things that you genuinely enjoy!

I started a cooking club believe it or not and that has come up in every single one of my interviews, and i talked extensively about it. Dont undervalue the power of hobbies.

We kill a lot of dreams each year because applicants load up their AMCAS boxes with hobbies, seemingly at the expense of more desirable activities. They may provide convenient talking points for interviewers who get tired of having the same conversation 50 times a year, but that's usually where it ends. Done to excess, hobbies make you look more interested in personal fulfillment than joining a service profession. YMMV.

 

[OchemOficionado]

I volunteer at a local hospital about 5 hours a week. Can you give me some more information on a postbac? And how would that factor into my med school application

That's great. Are you around the patients?

Postbac gpa will be separated and labeled as postbac gpa on your app, but it will be calculated in your undergrad. You'll want to make sure you get the highest gpa possible here. There are a lot of options as far as post bacs. I say you should search the forums or do a quick google search to learn a little bit.

 

[chlorocruorin]

Try to get on the varsity team, adcoms love athletes 🙂

 

[zacharr23]

Try to get on the varsity team, adcoms love athletes 🙂

I am on the varsity rowing team

 

[chlorocruorin]

I am on the varsity rowing team

Does your school have an NCAA team is what I meant to say. Many D1 programs have club sports and then NCAA sports

 

[djsbaseball2014]

We kill a lot of dreams each year because applicants load up their AMCAS boxes with hobbies, seemingly at the expense of more desirable activities. They may provide convenient talking points for interviewers who get tired of having the same conversation 50 times a year, but that's usually where it ends. Done to excess, hobbies make you look more interested in personal fulfillment than joining a service profession. YMMV.

Obviously, im not saying only do hobbies, but rowing is something that makes OP stand out by being different. I found a way to combine my cooking club with service. Also put adult softball on my application and was awarded 10 II's two of which were UC II's. I'm n=1 but i think my writing and unique EC's were responsible for the mass amount of II's. My stats were average for accepted and not spectacular by any means.

 

[chlorocruorin]

Obviously, im not saying only do hobbies, but rowing is something that makes OP stand out by being different. I found a way to combine my cooking club with service. Also put adult softball on my application and was awarded 10 II's two of which were UC II's. I'm n=1 but i think my writing and unique EC's were responsible for the mass amount of II's. My stats were average for accepted and not spectacular by any means.

D

 

[Med Ed]

Obviously, im not saying only do hobbies,

OP lists zero service and your suggestion was "Pursue hobbies, in all honesty." That's good advice after getting the essential elements of a competitive application covered.

but rowing is something that makes OP stand out by being different. I found a way to combine my cooking club with service. Also put adult softball on my application and was awarded 10 II's two of which were UC II's. I'm n=1 but i think my writing and unique EC's were responsible for the mass amount of II's. My stats were average for accepted and not spectacular by any means.

Rowing is not rare.

Having reviewed thousands of applications, individual ECs do not push anyone over the line. You are conflating correlation with causation. This is especially true since your stats are square in the middle of people this school accepts.

N remains 0.

 

[Med Ed]

N=2. I only had my sport (NCAA division 1 level), community service, and shadowing and received 4 II’s. Stats were below avg

Go back to my first post in this thread (#3). The three essential components are metrics, clinical exposure, and and service. You have service (community service) and clinical exposure (shadowing). Approximately half the applicant pool has below average metrics. D1 athletes are uncommon and usually get some wiggle room due to the time commitment.

I don't see what is particularly unusual about you receiving IIs.

 

[chlorocruorin]

Go back to my first post in this thread (#3). The three essential components are metrics, clinical exposure, and and service. You have service (community service) and clinical exposure (shadowing). Approximately half the applicant pool has below average metrics. D1 athletes are uncommon and usually get some wiggle room due to the time commitment.

I don't see what is particularly unusual about you receiving IIs.

”

 

[djsbaseball2014]

Go back to my first post in this thread (#3). The three essential components are metrics, clinical exposure, and and service. You have service (community service) and clinical exposure (shadowing). Approximately half the applicant pool has below average metrics. D1 athletes are uncommon and usually get some wiggle room due to the time commitment.

I don't see what is particularly unusual about you receiving IIs.

I get what you are saying and I am not trying to fight it. I guess i should have stated to do hobbies but find unique ways to pair them with service which is what I did with my cooking club. We fed the homeless around the area and hosted cooking demos for food insecure students on campus. Hobby + service. Another friend of mine likes MMA/boxing and invites at-risk youth down to the gym to train and provide an outlet for them. Hobby + service.

My cooking club taught me more about myself and life than did any of my hospital volunteering positions. None of my 3 most meaningful activities were clinical in nature. (cooking club, research, and tutoring) Was never questioned once about it. Again not saying i didnt have the clinical experience/service but I want to encourage OP to combine his hobbies with service to develop a truly unique activity.

At the end of the day nothing is unique anymore apparently but you can do your best to try and do things you genuinely enjoy, strategically.

P.S. Pretty sure my friend wrote about rock climbing in his PS and listed it as one of hist most meaningful activities. He was accepted to USC, also had high stats but its possible.

 

[Med Ed]

By below avg I meant “lethal”

Clearly not, based on the outcome.

Aside from D1 do you have anything else that would make you particularly desirable? URM? Disadvantaged? Veteran?