Are there any statistics on extracurricular data?

[Diocletian]

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So I'm looking at the "What are my chances" threads and they're scaring me. Everyone seems to have something like 500+ hours of volunteering at a prestigious clinic, a competitive internship every summer, a name on at least one publication, 3.6+ GPAs, founded half the clubs at their school, 35+ MCATs... all at the same time.

Is there a site that provides actual statistics for these things? I know AAMC compiles data for GPA and MCAT but has there been any study on the average amount of volunteer hours for applicants, average years of research in a lab, average number of internships?, etc?

 

[Stumpyman]

Extra-curriculars are more of a qualitative item, mate. There are stats regarding how many people applied (and were accepted) with prior volunteering experience, but that's about it, as hours likely aren't taken into account.

It's more about the experience than the number of hours. Choose experiences you can learn/benefit from and you'll be perfectly fine.

 

[chillaxbro]

MSAR has percentages for matriculates (or acceptances? not sure) who did clinical volunteering, non-clinical volunteering, and research but that's all

 

[sector9]

As permavirgin said, the online MSAR states the percentage of matriculants at each school who participated in clinical volunteering, non-clinical volunteering, and research.

As a whole for MD admissions from a few years ago, 82% of matriculants listed clinical volunteering, 77% listed research, and 68% listed nonclinical volunteering. Of course, those numbers don't tell you anything about how involved the activities were. I haven't seen any solid stats for longevity although I have seen some of the adcom members here on SDN post their own guesstimates based on looking at a bunch of applications.

Also, don't try to spend too much time comparing yourself to SDN users 🙂

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

I believe it was cited on here that the average applicant has around 100 hours of EC's and the average matriculate has 150 to 200 hours or something.