Are things changing with regard to what applicants should focus on?

[Nurse2MD2018]

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Just my lowly opinion but ECs matter. Your stats will get you into the door but ECs play a role in securing your spot especially at T10-T20 schools. They can also be the determining factor when it comes to securing merit scholarships given that your competitors may have similar stats.

OP to answer your original post it may be situational/institution based. I personally didn’t have any “shadowing” hours/clinical volunteer hours on my app for obvious reasons. I didn't realize that this was frowned upon until I became a frequent lurker on SDN.

 

[scrapy]

Just my lowly opinion but ECs matter. Your stats will get you into the door but ECs play a role in securing your spot especially at T10-T20 schools. They can also be the determining factor when it comes to securing merit scholarships given that your competitors may have similar stats.

OP to answer your original post it may be situational/institution based. I personally didn’t have any “shadowing” hours/clinical volunteer hours on my app for obvious reasons. I didn't realize that this was frowned upon until I became a frequent lurker on SDN.

I think what’s frowned on is little clinical experience in general. Not that your app needed improvement, but maybe shadowing would’ve helped. Clinical volunteering would not have done anything for you though.

 

[scrapy]

Yeah there are plenty of applicants with a 3.8/512 ish stats. ECs among other things can differentiate them. And in this day and age, there are also plenty of applicants with a 3.8/512 and good/great ECs. Now things that seem to differentiate are the prestige of your undergrad and whether one of the EC’s or one of your "themes" are exceptional.