Do you have to list AMOUNT of hours you volunteered on the AMCAS?

[DeMoNdOgDFM]

There are a few other threads but they are a bit old; do you have to list AMOUNT of hours on an application? If med schools are just concerned that you showed consistency in volunteering over a period of time, do they require that you list hours? Someone's 2500+ hours will just make my 150 hrs look like nothing. I simply couldn't do that much because of prior engagements.

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[deleted346323]

150 is fine.

 

[deleted346323]

AMCAS has you list start date, stop date, and hours/wk.

 

[AllDaWEI]

AMCAS has you list start date, stop date, and hours/wk.

This.

I don't see why everyone is so willing to poat the EXACT number of hours. Taking into account days off or breaks will hurt you. As lomg as you are truthful about your start date, yu aren't lying by not disclosing hours. So unless you had a non-stop commitment without breaks, you will show a greater commitment by just putting in the start date and leaving out hours.

 

[LizzyM]

Most specifically: starting month/year and ending month/year (or "to present") and average hours per week.

 

[MElobstah]

What if there are breaks? For example, I volunteer at an alzheimer's care facility in my hometown for 4 hrs/wk on my summers at home. How would I enter this?

 

[LizzyM]

What if there are breaks? For example, I volunteer at an alzheimer's care facility in my hometown for 4 hrs/wk on my summers at home. How would I enter this?

You get 15 slots. You could list each summer separately:
"06/09 - 08/09: 4 hrs wk "another entry for "06/10-08/10: 4 hrs wk" and so forth with a space to describe what you did each year (useful if you job changed over time with your increased expertise). Or you could apply in summer and list "06/09 - present 1 hr/wk" and describe in the text that you worked only summers and the experience itself was 4 hour per week for 3 months of each year thus averaging 1 hour per week over several years.

I have heard some adcom members complain that 6/09-present, 4 hrs/wk looks inflated when it is geographically impossible to be volunteering an average of 4 hr/wk "at home" while attending college far, far away so it is best to be very clear if someone just glances at start date, stop date, hours per week and location.

 

[DNM]

You get 15 slots. You could list each summer separately:
"06/09 - 08/09: 4 hrs wk "another entry for "06/10-08/10: 4 hrs wk" and so forth with a space to describe what you did each year (useful if you job changed over time with your increased expertise). Or you could apply in summer and list "06/09 - present 1 hr/wk" and describe in the text that you worked only summers and the experience itself was 4 hour per week for 3 months of each year thus averaging 1 hour per week over several years.

I have heard some adcom members complain that 6/09-present, 4 hrs/wk looks inflated when it is geographically impossible to be volunteering an average of 4 hr/wk "at home" while attending college far, far away so it is best to be very clear if someone just glances at start date, stop date, hours per week and location.

I am in a similar situation as the op. I volunteered for the past two summers and I have also been volunteering at the same place during spring semester. You recommend breaking the activity down into three separate activities then? Will all three experiences be considered if I list one as a significant experience? Are we supposed to list the total hours we have volunteered there?

 

[LizzyM]

I am in a similar situation as the op. I volunteered for the past two summers and I have also been volunteering at the same place during spring semester. You recommend breaking the activity down into three separate activities then? Will all three experiences be considered if I list one as a significant experience? Are we supposed to list the total hours we have volunteered there?

The AMCAS does not have a spot for total hours. What the experience section gets at is: when did you start? when did you finish? what were your average number of hours per week between the start date and the finish date? If you took a long break, then it can look like you are inflating what you did (6/08-present, 40 hours/wk when in fact you only worked summers).

If you aren't otherwise going to fill 15 slots and it makes sense to give each episode its own slot, then go for it. Don't take it for granted that every adcom member is going to read every work in the free text section. Sometimes they give an application a quick once over going into an interview and then they'll pop something on you like, "how did you manage to work full-time in Oklahoma while you were in college in Michigan?" and then you know that you have some explaining to do.

 

[MElobstah]

I think I will not be able to spare enough sections to give each episode its own slot. What exactly would you recommend in that case? Just bold ONLY IN SUMMERS? something else?

 

[Bluepanda87]

I'm not sure if you'd like to go this route, but what I did for an activity that was only during the schools year (summers off) was list the initial start date and final stop date (so, something like 08/08-05/10.) Then, I started the description section with a brief sentence about the specific duration (something like "Volunteered during the fall and spring semesters of the 08/09 and 09/10 academic years.") I'm sure there are other ways to do it, but it didn't seem to cause me any problems.

 

[goodnewsplease]

if you want to list the number of hours, just do it in the description.
i just did it as the very last line after describing everything.
i didn't do this for each activity, but i did it for a few.. like research and hospital hours. both were two of my most meaningful activities and so i had space for this. if you are going to take away from the description, to write in hours, i think its a waste.

ex: for research, i stated that..

april-june, 2011: 40/hrs a week- actively running experiment,
other dates- 10/hrs a week planning stages.
total: --- hours

for hospital, it was simple as writing: 750+ hours