Are my EC's weak?

[EthylMethylMan]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

White male NY resident, 3.71 cGPA, 3.55 sGPA, estimated 32 or 33 on MCAT (first-timer, so purely a rough estimate based on AAMC practice test averages). I'm applying strictly MD, not MD/PhD. The EC's I've included on my AMCAS are:

Clinical
-Worked 400+ hours as a hospital aide (basically a step below a PCA) in a hospital emergency department
-Volunteered 160+ hours in a hospital emergency department
-Going to start unpaid clinical research in a hospital emergency department this summer (doing at least 16 hours/week)

Misc. volunteering
-Volunteered for about 5 hours in total at a local inner-city humanities high school through my creative writing class; basically we helped kids in a not-so-nice neighborhood write and revise poetry
-Volunteered for about 10 hours in total helping the Chinese students of my university's foreign student association organize a Chinese New Year cultural show and I hosted it as well; they all spoke Mandarin as their first language, so I had to use my knowledge of Mandarin (I take it at university) to facilitate our conversation

Academic
-Teaching assistant for two semesters at the chemistry department of my university (~200 hours)
-Member of the Honor Society for Experiential education (sounds like BS, I know, but the standards for acceptance were moderately stringent: GPA within top 20% of class, two out-of-classroom academic experiences)
-Honors student at university

Hobbies
-Earned a second degree black belt in jiu jitsu (twelve years of formal lessons up until I started undergrad, still practice on my own today for a total of fifteen years, well over the total amount of hours allotted on the AMCAS application)

 

[Say]

No. Your EC's look fine and won't hold you back. If possible try to raise your GPA some and aim higher on the MCAT.

 

[October88]

Tour ecs are.not weak.

Most applicants will have research which you don't have. But medical schools don't want clones either.

To get into top schools you need to have exceptional ecs which you do not have.

But they are good🙂

And I think when it comes to ecs just do what you love! That's what I did🙂 like one summer when my premed frenemys were applying to really exclusive research internships I interned at a homeward shelter loved it and eventually got into my dream school.


Just do what you love and have enough clinical ecs to know what a doctor does which you have🙂

 

[EthylMethylMan]

No. Your EC's look fine and won't hold you back. If possible try to raise your GPA some and aim higher on the MCAT.

Tour ecs are.not weak.

Most applicants will have research which you don't have. But medical schools don't want clones either.

To get into top schools you need to have exceptional ecs which you do not have.

But they are good🙂

And I think when it comes to ecs just do what you love! That's what I did🙂 like one summer when my premed frenemys were applying to really exclusive research internships I interned at a homeward shelter loved it and eventually got into my dream school.


Just do what you love and have enough clinical ecs to know what a doctor does which you have🙂

That's a relief. Seeing some of the posts on here is intimidating; some people just have amazing EC's.

October, I hate to be a bother, but I took your advice and revised my school list a bit; could I send you it and get your two cents? It's cool if you're too busy; honestly, who isn't on this forum of overachievers?

 

[October88]

That's a relief. Seeing some of the posts on here is intimidating; some people just have amazing EC's.

October, I hate to be a bother, but I took your advice and revised my school list a bit; could I send you it and get your two cents? It's cool if you're too busy; honestly, who isn't on this forum of overachievers?

Send me anything... I spend a lot of time on lovely public transportation🙂

 

[A7X]

Good EC's in general, only thing you may want to beef up are non-clinical volunteering hours, you don't have too many of those.