App Overview/Gap Year Volunteer Programs

[UofIguy]

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[centralTX]

Possible red flags in your PS, secondaries, or LORs? It seems that you also have limited volunteering hours and limited clinical experience (hospital volunteering doesn't necessarily mean clinical exp but idk your details). I don't know much about rankings for schools outside of Texas-- did you apply broadly enough and to schools with lower stats?

As far as volunteering, AmeriCorps is a good place to start (My AmeriCorps - Home Page) but be mindful of the limited pay. Lots of different kinds of volunteering you can do with AmeriCorps. Maybe also increase your shadowing experiences, I think 40 hours is low compared to matriculants.

 

[centralTX]

Hi!

Thanks for the response - I volunteered at the cardio vascular rehab center and CCU. Would this be "clinical"? Most of what I did involved patient contact (taking blood pressure, heart rate, guiding them through the rehabilitation). I'm planning on getting more shadowing over thanksgiving break, hopefully I can send updates and improv. 3 LOR - from gen chem professor, a humanities professor, and research PI. 2 of them I know were strong, 1 of them could have been average.

I think it can be counted as clinical, but honestly it matters more about what you did than where you did it. Like I said, volunteering at a hospital may or may not be clinical depending on what you were involved with. Depends on what you did but I think that patient interaction/regular and consistent interaction with healthcare workers counts as clinical. And I think that shadowing is critical, so good job. The research PI letter sounds like a good angle. And make sure you verify which schools welcome updates before you send them in (sent to th dean of admissions btw)