Email concerns

[orangeapple123]

I am concerned because I just asked the volunteer coordinator—who can account for much of my clinical experience—for her contact information to put on my med school application. Her email is a gmail, and therefore not blatantly associated with the hospital. I have a phone number as well. But I’m concerned putting the gmail on my application will quickly cause any admissions team to think it’s fake and throw out my application before even checking. Am I overthinking things? I am pretty exhausted from studying for the MCAT.

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[Nugester]

You are overthinking it imo. I'd be more concerned if said person didn't check that email regularly in the chance of fact checking.

 

[KnightDoc]

I am concerned because I just asked the volunteer coordinator—who can account for much of my clinical experience—for her contact information to put on my med school application. Her email is a gmail, and therefore not blatantly associated with the hospital. I have a phone number as well. But I’m concerned putting the gmail on my application will quickly cause any admissions team to think it’s fake and throw out my application before even checking. Am I overthinking things? I am pretty exhausted from the MCAT.

TBH, while many people might tell you you are worrying about nothing, this would concern me as well. Why doesn't the coordinator have an organization e-mail? I'd try to find someone with a legit, organization e-mail to serve as your contact because, yeah, unless you work for Google, having a gmail e-mail address does look a little suss, because anyone could do that and claim to be anyone associated with anyplace. 🙂

If the place is so small that they don't have their own domain, there is nothing you can do, but, in that case, you might lose a little credibility. Probably not enough to sink an application, but you have correctly spotted an issue. If your organization isn't big enough to have a web presence and its own domain name, there is always the possibility that the entire entry on your application is a work of fiction, and adcoms are fully aware of this.

 

[Nugester]

In the worse care, this organization should have a general volunteer specific email posted somewhere, so use that.

 

[CorgiLoaf]

Half the emails I listed in my application this year were personal gmails/yahoo and I came out fine.
If adcoms are interested in your app but suspicious, they can just have another staff member quickly google your hospital and make a phone call.
No one's going to toss out your app for using a gmail unless it was going into the reject pile anyways. Put the phone number instead if it'll calm your nerves.

 

[deleted1025488]

Nothing to worry about...worst case scenario they get suspicious (already high unlikely) and then just....call/email your coordinator who will then confirm your involvement? lol

 

[bmmd]

I was under the impression nobody even checks unless your hours don’t make sense. I highly doubt anyone cares

 

[KnightDoc]

I was under the impression nobody even checks unless your hours don’t make sense. I highly doubt anyone cares

You are correct that nobody is background checking the hours during an initial application review. The risk that OP is worrying about is that a gmail account makes it look made up (which it could be with a gmail account!) and that a reviewer just assumes it's BS and moves on.

I'm not on an adcom, but I've seen my share of BS in my day, and this is exactly what I'd do if I had to work through a pile of 5,000+ applications looking for 500+ people to call in for an interview, and I came across something that didn't look right. You're right, nobody would ever check to find out if maybe the organization did set up gmail accounts for its staff, let alone verify the hours!

 

[bmmd]

You are correct that nobody is background checking the hours during an initial application review. The risk that OP is worrying about is that a gmail account makes it look made up (which it could be with a gmail account!) and that a reviewer just assumes it's BS and moves on.

I'm not on an adcom, but I've seen my share of BS in my day, and this is exactly what I'd do if I had to work through a pile of 5,000+ applications looking for 500+ people to call in for an interview, and I came across something that didn't look right. You're right, nobody would ever check to find out if maybe the organization did set up gmail accounts for its staff, let alone verify the hours!

Well said