Advice on weak areas of resume please!

[Yhorm the Giant]

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[MightBeACylon439]

First question: if non of what you listed is REAL community volunteering, what exactly qualifies as community volunteering?

Advice regardless of the answer: focus on the MCAT, focus on the MCAT, FOCUS ON THE MCAT.

Also my own 2 cents- one of mine and my classmates favorite pastimes is to discuss crappy advice given to us by advisors and how great it felt to ignore it, so just be careful about what advisors tell you.

 

[raewants2beadoc]

That sounds like plenty of volunteering to me?? Or am I missing something...?

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[Clydesdale]

I agree with everyone above OP, you have enough volunteering experience. Sometimes more dreams are ruined than made by listening to these advisors!


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[Yhorm the Giant]

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[Yhorm the Giant]

This was last week, and since the grade change my cGPA is now a weak area whereas before it wasn't, now everything else has to be super shiny perfect

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[Yhorm the Giant]

That sounds like plenty of volunteering to me?? Or am I missing something...?

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Yeah sorry I edited it, the work with the mentally disabled wasn't volunteer it was paid, that might be the missing part, otherwise that'd be plenty

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[psu228]

Yeah sorry I edited it, the work with the mentally disabled wasn't volunteer it was paid, that might be the missing part, otherwise that'd be plenty

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Not sure if you're interested in practicing medicine in a rural area or not, but a lot of schools have that in their mission statements. I actually think your background growing up in a smaller community/being an eagle scout could play into that if you felt like bringing it up.

Don't be so concerned about the cGPA. Your upward trend is ridiculous. 90 credits of 3.8 work makes it obvious you aren't the student who dug himself into a bit of a hole years ago anymore. Honestly if you do well on the MCAt (510ish) you could be competitive for MD schools with your stats.

I would try to add a volunteer outlet in a healthcare setting between now and when you apply this summer. You have 6 or so months to do this, even if you only did 4 or 5 hours a week between now and then, you'd be looking at around 100+ hours which should suffice. I just started a similar volunteer op and it was pretty easy to find.

Good luck on the MCAT! I'm taking the June 16th date too.

 

[dwgrubbs1s]

What they said. Volunteer hours look good. Dedicate your efforts to the MCAT now. Study study study. Practice practice practice.

 

[ERinspired]

Shadowing/a physician letter maybe?


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[Yhorm the Giant]

Thank you guys for the encouraging replies! It's helpful, and I think between my advisers advice in the grade replacement policy changes it just has me stressed out, but I'm just focusing hard on the MCAT and found some volunteering that is really really hard time and something that I enjoyed to do, helping prepare some people for the Special Olympics, and have a physician ready to shadow as soon as I get my TB tests. Got luck to you too psu228

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[bears1992]

Thank you guys for the encouraging replies! It's helpful, and I think between my advisers advice in the grade replacement policy changes it just has me stressed out, but I'm just focusing hard on the MCAT and found some volunteering that is really really hard time and something that I enjoyed to do, helping prepare some people for the Special Olympics, and have a physician ready to shadow as soon as I get my TB tests. Got luck to you too psu228

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I have heard that some adcoms really only care about the last 120-90 credit hours. PNWU specifically said they only consider the last 90 credit hours. I think those are great volunteer hours and along with the research experience, upward trend and high science gpa, I think if you apply broadly (20-30 schools) you'll have no problem getting some IIs. I would spend all your time on the MCAT and forget about adding more EC's. At this point, 50 hours of volunteering in Somalia are not going to help you as much as an extra 4-5 points on the MCAT.

 

[Yhorm the Giant]

Thanks for the advice bears! I'll definitely add them to my list, especially since my last 90 credit hours are pretty good. That's a good point, I am definitely already pretty swamped by mcat, regular classes and work schedule. I just remembered something I had honest to goodness forgotten about. When I was...16 I think, I was arrested for trespassing. I was at an elementary school at night with my friends, we are from a town of less than 1000 people with a gas station and that's it for purchasing stuff, so we would go for walks or go camping or just hang out. We went on the roof, which you didn't have to climb anything to get on, people did it all the time, cop came, arrested us, called our parents and waited for them to get there, said he's let it go for years and finally wanted to set an example. Yay us. Had to go to the county where the guy dealing with my arrest made me write a 1 page, double spaced paper on what we could have done for fun instead, he was obviously annoyed he even had to deal with it. The whole thing was dumb, and was when I was 16, which is 11 years ago. Do I have to include juvenile stuff on my application?

 

[bears1992]

Thanks for the advice bears! I'll definitely add them to my list, especially since my last 90 credit hours are pretty good. That's a good point, I am definitely already pretty swamped by mcat, regular classes and work schedule. I just remembered something I had honest to goodness forgotten about. When I was...16 I think, I was arrested for trespassing. I was at an elementary school at night with my friends, we are from a town of less than 1000 people with a gas station and that's it for purchasing stuff, so we would go for walks or go camping or just hang out. We went on the roof, which you didn't have to climb anything to get on, people did it all the time, cop came, arrested us, called our parents and waited for them to get there, said he's let it go for years and finally wanted to set an example. Yay us. Had to go to the county where the guy dealing with my arrest made me write a 1 page, double spaced paper on what we could have done for fun instead, he was obviously annoyed he even had to deal with it. The whole thing was dumb, and was when I was 16, which is 11 years ago. Do I have to include juvenile stuff on my application?

I've got something similar (bb gun indecent resulting in felony charge when I was 17 but it's expunged). I know AAMC says you do not have to include any convictions/arrests for juvenile or expunged cases. My advice, with a lowish GPA, you will really need to excel at everything else on the app (MCAT, good upward trend, good EC's... all of which you already have) and any mention of an arrest might be the small negative that gives an adcom a reason to toss your app. I completely agree that that arrest has nothing to do with your character or abilities as a doctor (who hasn't trespassed as a teenager?) but I would really try to get it expunged. In my state (Florida) you can expunge anything from your juvenile record when you turn 24.

Each state is different with how they handle it but most of them make it illegal for entities (except law enforcement, law school, etc. medical school is not one of those exceptions) to force you to admit to an expunged case. If you can get it expunged, I would absolutely leave it off your app and answer no to any question about arrest or conviction. An expunged case means it never happened. It will come up when you get your license (FBI background checks find EVERYTHING) so you should put down an arrest/conviction when you apply for your license but at that point you have graduated medical school. Plus a trespass conviction at 16 would not cause any problem for a license.

If you can't get it expunged, then just include it on your app and own up to it but I know some apps specifically ask for non-juvenile offenses. Also find out if it was a conviction or if the charge was eventually dropped. Some apps only ask for convictions. If you do put it on your app, do not blame anyone else but yourself. own up to it 100% and say you learned from your mistake. Do not say anything about how everyone else does it all the time or the cop was a douche or that your friends made you do it.

Also, PNWU typically only accepts students from that area. I was just using them as an example as a school that really only considers your last 90-120 credits.