Conflict between volunteer hours/work for application since I work were I do both feedback please

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abanger1

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Hello everyone, I am new to this forum and look forward to it as a new resource. I am currently working on my dental school application and it is pretty vague when coming down to the volunteer and work section. Let me explain my circumstance. I am currently a Skateboarding instructor for two cities in my area at the public skateboarding parks at the community centers. So here is what I am unsure of. I am a employee for the community centers. People pay for private skateboard lessons with me and summer camps and eventually it trickles down to me and I get a percentage. That being said I also have a much larger roll with the community centers involving the skate parks. I have been involved with one of them for about 8-9 years and the other for 6 years. I was part of the group working with the city in getting one of the skate parks built and have spent many hours helping with contest, getting them sponsors for contest, judging contest, and getting pro-skateboarders to do demos as well as performing demo's for schools in relationship to skateboarding and physics, bringing products for give away and charity fund raisers, hooking the kids up with decks and shoes who family cant afford them. None of these activities I am paid for and just for fun and to help out. I enjoy just being there with the kids skating and help keeping them out of trouble like it did for me.

With all this being said I am unsure of how I should present this in my application. I don't have like an hour sheet where every hour has been documented so I am very unsure of how many hours to put. If they want to contact the community centers and the head supervisors will vouch for me. I am not sure of which category to put in either work or volunteer. I really don't make much when doing the lessons . If you guys could give me some input I would greatly appreciate . Maybe if you have experience with the school contacting a place you have volunteered or something of similar circumstances.
 
If you get paid for anything, small or large, that's work.

Your involvement in setting up contests, etc. are all volunteer work. List them separately on your application as there are two separate sections. As for the amount of hours, just put in an estimate. You can even mention in your description that total hours are estimated. I, myself, made some trinkets and donated them, not tabulating hours. I am sure I grossly underestimated my time spent, but it worked out fine.
 
If you get paid for anything, small or large, that's work.

Your involvement in setting up contests, etc. are all volunteer work. List them separately on your application as there are two separate sections. As for the amount of hours, just put in an estimate. You can even mention in your description that total hours are estimated. I, myself, made some trinkets and donated them, not tabulating hours. I am sure I grossly underestimated my time spent, but it worked out fine.
Thank you so much for you input I greatly appreciate it. That is probably what I will end up doing. Does anyone else possibly have a experience that is similar to this?
 
If you get paid, it's work.

If you don't, it's volunteer/EC.

Just estimate your hours, I estimated all of mine and there's no way for them to check. There's no prompt for you to put down supervisors or phone numbers. AADSAS is an honor system. It's up to you to decide whether or not to be truthful on your application. I recommend not lying. Since it could invalidate your acceptance and/or student status at said university.
 
I have a similar question in the reverse:

I'm on track to get enough volunteer hours but not really shadowing at this point. Could I take my dental clinic volunteering and just parlay it into my shadowing journal instead? Would that look dumb?
 
You have just under 4 months until the next cycle opens. Plenty of time to get your shadowing up. Are there obstacles that prevent you from doing so?
Not completely, but I'm taking 4 science courses with labs, tutoring English as a second language, and being a teaching intern for organic 1 lab...

Oh by the way, that teaching internship...can that be volunteer, being unpaid but getting course credit?

I've been given a connection for dentist who's open in the evenings, but... by the time I'm done late afternoon... You know how it is. I've got about 50 hours of shadowing so far, maybe 35 of which are general dentistry. One of my top choices really wants 100-150 of general dentistry. Guess I just need to suck it up, huh.
 
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Not completely, but I'm taking 4 science courses with labs, tutoring English as a second language, and being a teaching intern for organic 1 lab...

Oh by the way, that teaching internship...can that be volunteer, being unpaid but getting course credit?

I've been given a connection for dentist who's open in the evenings, but... by the time I'm done late afternoon... You know how it is. I've got about 50 hours of shadowing so far, maybe 35 of which are general dentistry. One of my top choices really wants 100-150 of general dentistry. Guess I just need to suck it up, huh.
Yeah man, you gotta do what you gotta do. Try to shadow on Saturdays. That's what I did.

Not sure on the teaching gig.
 
Can I...do that?

There's a section on the AADSAS that allows you to check volunteer and shadow on dentistry experiences. And all the EC's, volunteer activities, and community service hours are all lumped together.

In other words, it doesnt really matter. But dont put the same thing on there twice, pick on that you think it falls under and stick with it.
 
There's a section on the AADSAS that allows you to check volunteer and shadow on dentistry experiences. And all the EC's, volunteer activities, and community service hours are all lumped together.

In other words, it doesnt really matter. But dont put the same thing on there twice, pick on that you think it falls under and stick with it.
Hey maybe it's a good time to look at the AADSAS worksheet
 
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