ERAS Question: Other Awards/Accomplishments? Doing less than 30 hours of volunteer worth putting on?

[Onigiri]

I searched reddit and sdn and heard mixed things about what to put for Awards/accomplishments? I was wondering what goes here. Some people say non-medical related others say things that are just not medical school related. For example, I was awarded a 2k$ + scholarship to be part of a learning program that was medically related but not from my medical school would this belong there?

Lastly, I have like 24 hours of volunteer from many different places. I guess its better than nothing to put on the eras app, especially if I am going for something broad like IM. How might I add 5 total hours that I did once at a volunteer event when it asks for avg hours/week? Would it be 5? Do I need to add total amount of hours volunteered in the description, if so, then could this actually hurt me haha?

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[NickNaylor]

Unless something is particularly notable for some reason (e.g., national award, competitive selection process, etc.), I would probably shy away from including one-time, brief activities in your description unless you can include it as part of a broader narrative with something else. For example, you might include an activity of "medical volunteering" and list specific things in the "description" section.

I wouldn't worry too much about actually listing the hours. It isn't that important, and people know that there are limitations with respect to how ERAS accepts data. If you're worried about it, you can always clarify the actual time worked in the description section.

As someone who reviewed applications for residency, I was pretty uninterested in this section of the application unless there was something particularly noteworthy. Most of what people included just isn't that meaningful or important.