Extracurricular Evaluation

[jhanago]

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So, I am a incoming Junior to my university and need a quick evaluation/advice on my extracurricular involvement... Any other things I should get involved in or things I should look into?..

O GPA is ~ 3.8
BCP GPA is ~ 3.8
Science GPA is ~ 3.7
Non Sci GPA is ~ 3.9


Volunteer:

• 100+ hours/10 months volunteering in a chemistry lab
• Countless hours tutoring individuals/friends in Chemistry, Biology, and Math.
• Currently volunteering 4 hours/day in a dental office. (Will end at 100+ hours/1 year)
• Mentoring a young lady for the last year. (Now dating her so probably not a good idea to list i think)

Job:
2 quarters paid tuition in English, Chemistry, and Biology

Leadership:
Starting an event thing where students would make sandwiches for homeless people and pass them out over christmas break. In process of getting sponsorships from bread companies/meat companies

Clubs:
Badminton Club
Hip Hop Club


Shadowing:
Currently doing 8hrs/week shadowing. Should end at 80-100 with a General Dentist and 50-60 with specialists.



Do you guys have any advice for me? Like things I should stop or start?

 

[jhanago]

Guys? Any help is appreciated..

 

[Destiny11]

Volunteer:

• 100+ hours/10 months volunteering in a chemistry lab
• Countless hours tutoring individuals/friends in Chemistry, Biology, and Math.
• Currently volunteering 4 hours/day in a dental office. (Will end at 100+ hours/1 year)
• Mentoring a young lady for the last year. (Now dating her so probably not a good idea to list i think)

- tutoring friends is iffy, definitely no for the lady friend (ethical boundaries), and I wouldn't consider any of these as community service.

Job:
2 quarters paid tuition in English, Chemistry, and Biology

- This is fine

Leadership:
Starting an event thing where students would make sandwiches for homeless people and pass them out over christmas break. In process of getting sponsorships from bread companies/meat companies

- I hope you are not making the sandwiches now...

Clubs:
Badminton Club
Hip Hop Club

- Asian clubs. Any official leadership roles in these?

Shadowing:
Currently doing 8hrs/week shadowing. Should end at 80-100 with a General Dentist and 50-60 with specialists.

- This is fine

 

[jhanago]

Well I mean kids enlisted me to help them with school through word of mouth. I would help a kid and they tell their friends, which in I became friends with all my tutees. Is that still ok?

And what kind of community service should I do?

 

[rickblas]

Besides the obvious such as Dental shadowing etc....any other extracurricular activities you want to do are really fine....the only thing is that you should be doing them because you LIKE THEM, not on how others will evaluate you on them. Sure community service looks good but do you really like gathering sandwiches to give to homeless people? is this really fun? Why don't you try and find somewhere to paint a school in an impoverished area or volunteer in an animal shelter to play with animals that haven't had human contact in months. For example, I would NOT work in a soup kitchen because I just wouldn't like to but I have volunteered at an animal shelter once and painted a school which, in my opinion, is way more fun! no matter what anyone thinks.

So basically: do what you LIKE and do things you think are fun! be true to yourself in your activities; don't do them just to impress people or beef up your dental school app (besides the obvious which you should do like dental shadowing).

Just my 2cents...

 

[jhanago]

Any more advice?

 

[schen140]

my advice: ur extracurriculars are good in number and diversity, so as an applicant you are in good shape and shouldnt worry too much

couple points: the term "volunteer" is tossed around alot, but when application time comes around and you are asked about volunteering activities, you should treat the term synonymously with "community service." so voluntering in ur dentist's clinic is more like shadowing...sure u might be helping him out with some trivial tasks, but it's more of him doing a favor for u, and its definitely not community service. neither is helping out in a chem lab. both of these are good extracurriculars to have (shadowing, and lab experience), but so far ur blank on community service

also, why do you need to organize this event to make sandwiches for homeless people? why not just donate money to organizations that are already providing this food instead. wouldnt it be more efficient and effective that way? unless you have a good reason for this question, it would seem like ur sole motive for creating this event is to have something to put under "leadership" in ur application.

last thing is, if u really like to tutor people, join an official tutoring club, so that you can make use of that activity and put it on ur application later. if it's informal tutoring then u cant really write it down

hope that helped

 

[schen140]

also, u asked about things that you should start or stop:

heres something u should stop: the shadowing and the volunteering, once u have 100-150 hrs. its redundant to invest so much time weekly to both activities - you only need to do one of them, and u dont need to do continuously until you graduate

btw by "volunteering" u just mean helping out with little stuff, not dental assisting, right? dental assisting is a different story and a great extracurricular to have

to answer your other question, what kind of community service u should do:

in all honesty, and i know u dont want to hear this textbook answer, but u gotta do something that speaks out personally to u. choose something that u will be sincere about; sincerity can often times be conveyed in conversations - lets say ur at an interview in the future, an ad com asks you why you did this specific community service, and u make up an answer because you dont have a reason besides wanting it for ur application - that type of insincerity can definitely be detected. whereas, if u are passionate about teaching other people and mentoring kids, you can talk enthusiastically and gratefully about ur experience as part of a mentoring club. (btw mentoring club is what i did, haha)

 

[jhanago]

Well about the volunteering in the dental office: It's not really a private practice. It's a underserved population community office. Dental hospital, if you may. So I do things like restock rooms, help out the assistants with small tasks like suction, x rays, little bit of cavity removal etc. That's why I consider it separate from overall shadowing. Because in shadowing im WATCHING the dentist but in the clinic its more the assistants im WORKING with.

And with the sandwiches... one day i was at a red light and there was a homeless guy with a sign who personally came up to my open window and asked me for money for food. I didnt believe him and said I had nothing.. I went into the store and when I came out there was an ambulance and I asked and they said he passed out from starvation. So pretty much I want to actually be the one who puts effort into helping people rather than just paying other people.

Tutoring: Well I privately tutored a bunch of kids for free and sometimes for money. Am I not allowed to put it on my app just because it wasnt a "club" or it wasn't taxed? I mean I was being paid in cash and it was a set schedule type thing.

Community Service: Other than homeless shelters, I don't know any other activities to get involved in and I kinda consider my lab work community service because I would be in each lab class helping the students out with their labs and basically running the labs.

 

[UltimateHombre]

Community Service: Other than homeless shelters, I don't know any other activities to get involved in and I kinda consider my lab work community service because I would be in each lab class helping the students out with their labs and basically running the labs.

Your lab work is a little tricky... i would consider it tutoring/TA/research, not really community service. As far as your tutoring... you want to be able to verify you actually did it. Its not exactly work, because you have no pay stubs or verifiable income. And its not an official program, so nobody could verify you were qualified or spent the time doing it. I am not trying to be negative, i am just trying to point out the need to legitimize your tutoring.

As far as places for community service try: library, YMCA, boys and girls club, parks and recreation, nursing home, habitat for humanity, volunteer at local charity events, boy scouts, elementary schools, hospitals.

Hopefully you can find something in that list to help you!! Good luck!!! 😀

 

[schen140]

Well about the volunteering in the dental office: It's not really a private practice. It's a underserved population community office. Dental hospital, if you may. So I do things like restock rooms, help out the assistants with small tasks like suction, x rays, little bit of cavity removal etc. That's why I consider it separate from overall shadowing. Because in shadowing im WATCHING the dentist but in the clinic its more the assistants im WORKING with.

And with the sandwiches... one day i was at a red light and there was a homeless guy with a sign who personally came up to my open window and asked me for money for food. I didnt believe him and said I had nothing.. I went into the store and when I came out there was an ambulance and I asked and they said he passed out from starvation. So pretty much I want to actually be the one who puts effort into helping people rather than just paying other people.

Tutoring: Well I privately tutored a bunch of kids for free and sometimes for money. Am I not allowed to put it on my app just because it wasnt a "club" or it wasn't taxed? I mean I was being paid in cash and it was a set schedule type thing.

Community Service: Other than homeless shelters, I don't know any other activities to get involved in and I kinda consider my lab work community service because I would be in each lab class helping the students out with their labs and basically running the labs.

ok ur dental clinic thing would count as community service in that case, since its in an underserved area. its still good to do another community service that is non-dental related, i think. the above poster gave a good list of options. or u could look up ur campus clubs and see which ones are community service based, and get involved with that

for tutoring, on aadsas it will ask u to list the "organization" for ur activities. so if its a personal activity that has no official organization, itd be hard to put that down as an extracurricular. then again, its up to ur discretion whether to include it anyway

for the handing out sandwiches thing, thats a good answer, so i would make it happen. this could be ur community service event. but try to make it year round and not just during christmas, because if a guy came up to u starving, it's b/c he never has anything to eat

 

[schen140]

i have a question out of curiosity...who pays for the ambulance and bills when they come to treat the homeless guy? or would they just do it for free?

edit: i looked up the answer, and it's that all hopistals are required to treat those who are injured, but once they are stabilized they can be sent away to public hospitals if they are uninsured or have no money