-
CycleTrack and SDN are teaming up to make medical school admissions more transparent and accessible! Read the announcement to learn how we’re supporting the future of CycleTrack’s free application-tracking tools .
AMCAS Work/Activities Question
Started by pilumnus
Get help with your application
Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.
This is commonly done. Your college Registrar will have a record of all collegiate awards and is a good choice for a Contact.
What if I have an award from high school I would like to include?
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
What HS award do you feel would add to your candidacy for med school?
It's called the "Principle's Citizenship and Service Award" given to a senior for outstanding promotion and dedication to community service. Mainly through my work at a hospital.
If you listed your service at that hospital, you might put the award in the same space to keep it in context. If you prefer to keep it with the other recognitions, the HS Principal seems like a good contact to list.
Okay, thank you! I was worried that including an activity from high school would be frowned upon but this clears things up.
If you listed the HS hospital experience it would be preferred that it continued into the college years (ie, after HS graduation). If it did not continue after HS graduation, you could consider mentioning that time (and the award) in your PS as part of your path to medicine.
All this said, AMCAS doesn't forbid one to list HS activities, and you could still do so. But it wouldn't get much regard from adcomms, who'd expect you to have more recent, similar activities.
Okay. I haven't done a huge number of hospital volunteer hours in college. Instead I have focused on social justice issues in other settings (~1000 hours of volunteering in my community). Additionally, I do a volunteer program focused more on quality than quantity of volunteer work. I only have about 15 hours, but it is time spent sitting with patients who are close to dying without family to be with them. This doesn't happen very often, hence why I only have 15 hours. I have a good amount of clinical experience elsewhere. Does the lack of traditional hospital volunteering in college hinder my application?
Hospital volunteering isn't a requirement. Having interactive patient experience is. This can be acquired through volunteerism in other venues, hospice being one of them, or through clinical research, employment, or curricular requirement. It is expected that you will engage in this type of experience in recent years as you'd have more mature perspectives than you did in HS.
Okay, great. I have a good amount of patient interaction. Thanks for all your help!
