Can include/count shadowing hours from high school?

[Poetic Silence]

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I did a lot of shadowing my last two years of high school. I shadowed a district attorney, a hospital administrator, tagged along in the wards with the respiratory therapists for a week (learned how to use and read a pulse oximetry machine) and even scrubbed in for a surgery to observe the general surgeons and anesthesiologist in their natural habitat.

It would be a shame to throw all that out when it played such a large role in my decision to pursue medicine.

 

[neuro nephrons]

lol

 

[Poetic Silence]

I've done much more since, of course, but this was the foundation for me. These would be experiences I'd want to talk about in my interview because they were so new to me at the time.

 

[NYCMS2]

Put it down - but they do care about recent activity more.

 

[Poetic Silence]

Thanks. That's all I need.

 

[BigBlueBear]

I actually would disagree with above poster--I think you should only put it down if you continued it into college. If you haven't, talk about it in your PS.

(But I am just a premed, so as always, take my advice with a grain of NaCl)

 

[sector9]

You can talk about it in your PS but I wouldn't consider it Work/Activities material

 

[theseeker4]

You can talk about it in your PS but I wouldn't consider it Work/Activities material

This. You can talk about it in your PS if it had an influence on your pursuing medicine, but filling work and activities spots with things you did in high school seems desperate to fill in slots, unless you continued an activity into college. There is no advantage to putting them in EC slots.

 

[NYCMS2]

I actually would disagree with above poster--I think you should only put it down if you continued it into college. If you haven't, talk about it in your PS.

(But I am just a premed, so as always, take my advice with a grain of NaCl)

Actually...for years what you wrote was the conventional wisdom on SDN (or better yet, SDN urban legend) but in reality shadowing or clinical volunteering done in high school is completely legit for listing on AMCAS activities. But again, it is a bad idea to not continue these activities in college.

 

[duress]

Actually...for years what you wrote was the conventional wisdom on SDN (or better yet, SDN urban legend) but in reality shadowing or clinical volunteering done in high school is completely legit for listing on AMCAS activities. But again, it is a bad idea to not continue these activities in college.

Whoa whoa whoa. Are you telling me SDN has finally changed their tune on that whole "significant life realizations/experiences only count if they're during your college years" business?

 

[NYCMS2]

Whoa whoa whoa. Are you telling me SDN has finally changed their tune on that whole "significant life realizations/experiences only count if they're during your college years" business?

Yup.

Even Lizzy M weighed in on it and she admitted that it was OK to include relevant high school activities.

But these kinds of myths, or biases, persist among pre-meds.

 

[sector9]

Yup.

Even Lizzy M weighed in on it and she admitted that it was OK to include relevant high school activities.

But these kinds of myths, or biases, persist among pre-meds.

Really? Link?

Last month she said

You can't rest on your laurels. What you did in HS helps you get into college. What you do in college helps you get into med school.

 

[pfaction]

to observe the general surgeons and anesthesiologist in their natural habitat.

lol wow.

 

[LizzyM]

Some adcom members may look down on an application that has HS volunteering and nothing more recent but there is nothing in the AMCAS instructions prohibiting inclusion of experiences prior to college.

https://www.aamc.org/students/download/182162/data/amcas_instruction_manual.pdf

work and activities section begins on page 57. Please correct me if I'm wrong and cite the page number as I haven't time to read the entire document today.

You can't rest on your laurels and figure that what you did in HS will get you into medical school. On the other hand, if you want to argue that Missy Franklin can't include her trip to London on her AMCAS application in 2016...

 

[Poetic Silence]

lol wow.

They're actually very mild and even tempered animals. Fortunately I wasn't harmed while gazing upon them.