Can we include the amount of volunteering hours we had in high school in our volunteering experiences in undergrad?

[doctorrr-t]

Long story short, I volunteered for hundreds of hours at a hospital throughout high school. Since my current college is in a different state, I had to stop volunteering now, but I'm thinking of returning to the same hospital or maybe other hospitals to volunteer again. As a pre-med student, am I allowed to include the hours I spent volunteering back in high school right now or do I basically start from zero and start counting my hours from undergrad and beyond? I'm simply asking because when applying to medical schools, I believe it's expected to provide them with a general amount of time committed to a certain extracurricular activity, so I just wanted to know how I would "measure" my time.

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[gopher1997]

consensus is only to include hours post high school. You can mention that you started in high school in your explanation section for the activity, but I would only include hours you did post-high school.

 

[harvard_of_the_west]

As a general rule of thumb, avoid using experiences from high school in your application. This includes your volunteer hours. I think it’d be fair game to mention you began volunteering there in high school, as it shows commitment to the organization.

 

[Shunsui]

Use the hours in my opinion. But make it clear you started in HS and continued it through UG. Maybe list or give approx of how many hours were spent in HS too. I would ask Goro on this one tbh


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[KnightDoc]

Use the hours in my opinion. But make it clear you started in HS and continued it through UG. Maybe list or give approx of how many hours were spent in HS too. I would ask Goro on this one tbh


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The consensus is professional schools really don't care about HS honors, experiences, hours, etc. No reason to mention it. It won't make good college (or post-grad) ECs better, and it certainly won't mitigate subpar college (or post-grad) ECs.

 

[Jungkookie]

If you're thinking about applying to Canadian schools, you can list activities going back to the age of 16 on your work/activities. But for US you should avoid HS stuff. Maybe you can list the additional hours you completed during high school in the description of the activity.

 

[Catalystik]

I volunteered for hundreds of hours at a hospital throughout high school. Since my current college is in a different state, I had to stop volunteering now, but I'm thinking of returning to the same hospital or maybe other hospitals to volunteer again.
1) As a pre-med student, am I allowed to include the hours I spent volunteering back in high school
2) do I basically start from zero and start counting my hours from undergrad and beyond?

I'm simply asking because when applying to medical schools, I believe it's expected to provide them with a general amount of time committed to a certain extracurricular activity, so I just wanted to know how I would "measure" my time.

1) Any activity that includes hours after HS graduation took place "in the college years," and is legit to include on a med school application.

2) If you stopped the activity while still in HS, but later return to the same site, you can enter two timeframes using the Repeated feature (for AMCAS) and include the HS dates and the college dates with their separate Total Hours. Be sure to have plenty of hours that are more recent.

Even if you don't return to the same site or if you did not volunteer there the summer after HS graduation, you can still refer to that experience as part of your Path to Medicine in the Primary Statement or as a brief bit of backstory in the Activities section narrative about the college-based clinical volunteering you will have done.