Medical Can I use my gap year to fix poor ECs? Do I even need to fix my ECs?

[Catalystik]

Do not expect future hours to hold any weight. They all too often fail to happen.

I find your shadowing hours sparse and suggest at least 40 total hours, 50 hours being the average listed. Be sure a primary care doctor is on the list.

Of the 300 volunteer EMT hours, what percent involved patient interaction. What was your role? Is this community or campus volunteering?

What is the focus of your charity? Do you personally interact with recipents of your efforts? Any other nonmedical community service? Hours of involvement?

Hobbies or Artistic Endeavors? Teaching (coaching, TA, tutor, mentor)?

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[Catalystik]

1) 40-50 shadowing hours is what I am planning for as well. I believe I can make that happen during this winter break before I apply.

2) Of the 300 EMT hours, around 50% are direct patient contact. It is a high volume call area since it has a large jurisdiction. I would say every other hour of a shift there is a hour-long call. It is volunteer work, but it not on campus, it is for an entire small city. I was also recently promoted (after I made this original post) so I think that might help. I was originally only there to assist with the ALS crew, but now I am leading BLS calls.

3) The focus of the charity is fundraising for care packages for the homeless and then distributing them. I personally lead in the various fundraisers and personally create and distribute the care packages. So yes, I personally interact with the recipients of the charity. We have done fundraisers in multiple countries and I am hoping to use part of the time during my gap year to have at least 1 or 2 more events near home.

4) As for other nonmedical community service, I did 2 days of Habitat For Humanity volunteering, building houses. However, since it was only 2 days, I did not feel that was important to include.

5) As for hobbies: gymnastics, rock climbing, and running. But these are not things I have many accomplishments in, just things I do for fun.

6) Unfortunately no teaching experience but I am applying for 2 TA positions for next semester.

7) As I mentioned, I'm aware my ECs are subpar. I appreciate the advice you already gave me! Do you think this is salvageable with any adjustments?

1) Sounds good.

2) With 150 contact hours, you're in good shape. Be sure to specify this, as many adcomms might otherwise assume you sat around waiting for calls for a greater percentage of your total hours. Congrats on the promotion.

Some in-house patient contact hours would be frosting on the cake. I urge you to consider it. You might have an "in" at the hospital to which you make runs, but if on-boarding would take too long or require too many tests, titers, and vaccines, consider instead, hospice, skilled-level nursing home, VA, family-planning, free-, or low-income clinics. Other viable options exist as well. Volunteering in an office where you shadowed is another option.

3) Excellent. What inspired this endeavor? Who will you use as a Contact to validate the activity, since this will be one of the lynchpins of your application?

4) Yes, I agree that 16 hours doesn't seem worth listing (though you still could do so), but maybe you'll be inspired to add more time. Or, if you have other short-term nonclinical volunteerism, you could group them all together in one space so the hours have more impact.

5) Be sure to list them as they make you more interesting in a sea of look-alike applicants and can often be used to jumpstart an interview conversation.

6) So, it could happen. Teaching is another valued activity for med school applications.

7) Yes.

8) Side note: if a grant application you wrote resulted in funding, this is worth mentioning.

 

[Goro]

What's the nature of the charity?

You need more hours shadowing. Get them up to 50.

The whole point of a gap year is to fix holes in your app, whether ECs or academics.

Over all, looking good.

 

[Catalystik]

1) In response to (3), my dad was a large inspiration for the charity. Seeing the way he interacted with the homeless around our neighborhood and helped them definitely played a significant role in shaping my personality. Even just the fact that he knew the names of homeless people and would say "Hi" to them inspired me (maybe a bit subconsciously because I was young at the time).

2) I have a volunteer who helps with the fundraisers that could validate this activity.

3) However, I was told not to use her for a LOR since she is still an undergraduate student (this advice came from my school's pre-health advisor).

4) In response to (4), I was considering doing more Habitat for Humanity hours. However, since the 16 hours comes from my freshman year, and the rest (maybe around 50) would come from my senior year + early gap year, I figured this gap in time would look odd. Do you think that is the case or should I just do it anyways?

5) In response to (8), the grant I was working on resulted in a multi-million dollar grant. However, this had absolutely nothing to do with my contribution and I take zero credit for it. There were many people working on the grant and I had an exponentially small role in its drafting. Not to undermine my role, but rather to be realistic, the grant would have been approved regardless of my contribution. The experience was what I was there for. But the Undergraduate Research Award I was granted resulted in $150 in funding from my university. Should I mention the amount even if it is small?

1) I suggest including this motivation in the description of the activity.

2) Good.

3) I agree.

4) I don't think it will look odd, since you were otherwise busy during the hiatus. Also, H4H involvement carries through on your theme of involvement that assists the homeless. The AMCAS application allows you to enter two separate time spans (through a "Repeated" feature), each with its own Total Hours, which I suggest you use.

5) It might be better just to refer to having the experience of involvement with a grant writing team. I would not mention that small amount.