Extracurriculars for DO schools?

[Morsetlis]

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Well, we should all have a general idea by now of how much EC and the variety of it "required" by MD schools. Generally, according to the MSAR book, over 70% of an incoming class will have volunteer experience. The same for clinical experience and research experience. In anecdotal data from this forum, from friends, accepted people, adcom members, and blah, I've found that most successful MD candidates have ALL three: volunteering, clinical exposure, and research.

What about DO schools? Would the same variety of experiences be "required", would the same amount of commitment be expected, or how would the experiences needed differ?

I already know about many DO schools' requirement of a DO letter of recommendation.

 

[ShinyDome19]

Well, we should all have a general idea by now of how much EC and the variety of it "required" by MD schools. Generally, according to the MSAR book, over 70% of an incoming class will have volunteer experience. The same for clinical experience and research experience. In anecdotal data from this forum, from friends, accepted people, adcom members, and blah, I've found that most successful MD candidates have ALL three: volunteering, clinical exposure, and research.

What about DO schools? Would the same variety of experiences be "required", would the same amount of commitment be expected, or how would the experiences needed differ?

I already know about many DO schools' requirement of a DO letter of recommendation.

From my experience, my guess is that the volunteer and clinical experience are probably weighted much more heavily at DO schools than MD schools. Research was definately the strongest part of my application; however I think that research experience, since a lot of schools dont have research facilities, is likely to have very little effect or be dependant on the school. When I interviewed at LECOM-E, which has some research labs, one of my interviewers was a PhD and was somewhat interested in my research (~4 publications and several posters, etc at this point in time). Other DO schools, which do not advertise their research, didnt even offer me an interview; one didnt even send me a secondary...I am not sure why I didnt get any love from most schools (MCATs are about avg for DO and GPA was avg)...However, during my interview at LECOM-E, I told them that my clinical experience consisted of working 70 hr weeks (~3000 hours) as an EMT and a year (250 + hours) of volunteering at a free clinic + a few hours of shadowing...the interviewer replied with - "Thats all you've done?" and was definately not impressed. Interestingly an adcom at an allopathic school told me that my clinical experiences were about normal for their admissions.

Still managed to get accepted though..so who knows.

 

[Morsetlis]

Sheesh.

Interviewers like that annoys me. Of course, they're probably more informative than those who just nod.

 

[rugger14]

sure having all 3 is always a plus, but there is no magical formula for ADCOM's. Basically just do what you love. Show you are committed to a few things. Different ADCOM's will be impressed with different things. People don't realize it, but a lot of DO schools have a lot of research going on. Obviously maybe not as much as schools attached to big universities, but you have PhD's teaching you and of course many of them are doing projects. Several of our DO profs are also conducting research. Long story short, do things you enjoy and it wouldn't hurt to have a wide variety of experiences👍

 

[Morsetlis]

My only concern is that I was basically told I failed to get MD acceptances due to a lack of clinical experiences. Now I have about 200 hospital volunteering hours (ER, med/sur, nursing stations) plus 500 shadowing hours, as well as EMT-B internships. I hope I don't get the "that's all?" interviewers, heh. (Other EC's include 1 yr of research/pub, various non-medical volunteering, many missionary trips, TA, tutoring.)

I'm just hoping that DO schools don't focus so much more on clinical experiences...

 

[Morsetlis]

Bump.

 

[lokiperson]

My only concern is that I was basically told I failed to get MD acceptances due to a lack of clinical experiences. Now I have about 200 hospital volunteering hours (ER, med/sur, nursing stations) plus 500 shadowing hours, as well as EMT-B internships. I hope I don't get the "that's all?" interviewers, heh. (Other EC's include 1 yr of research/pub, various non-medical volunteering, many missionary trips, TA, tutoring.)

I'm just hoping that DO schools don't focus so much more on clinical experiences...

Probably the most important question to ask is: What exactly did you do during your volunteer/shadowing hours? Quality is MUCH more important than quantity. For instance, I volunteered in an ER and was only able to bring papers back and forth between admitting and the nurses station and stock IV trays.. not what I would call quality experience. In fact, I stopped doing it after getting a little over 20 hours because I felt like it was pretty worthless. When I applied I had zero research and barely any volunteer experience, but I had over 2 years worth of clinical experience since I work as a tech in an ER. Both schools I interviewed at mentioned that they really liked seeing the clinical experience and never once mentioned anything about my lack of research or volunteer work.

With that being said, I still believe that DO schools are a little more relaxed on the situation. As long as you have some decent volunteer/shadowing experiences, good GPA, and good MCAT, you'll be alright and will probably get some acceptances. I have a friend at KCOM who had zero clinical experience, a little volunteer experience, and a ton of research when he was applying. My cousin had barely any in all 3 aspects but still got accepted.

 

[Morsetlis]

Thank you. I just need more specific examples like that.

I certainly don't have the 2 yrs of ER teching that you have. However, I have a heavy research background (basically same scheduling rights for procedure rooms and hoods as post-docs and grad students at the place I am researching at) and I've been TA/teaching for a while.

Could you elaborate on your cousin with very little of the 3 aspects?

 

[hopefulCC]

I second that. Can you elaborate on the barely having experience in all 3 aspects? I definitely fall under that category.... 🙁

 

[Cheshyre]

Hm. This thread troubles me, especially ShinyDome's post. It's not wrong or anything, but I know for sure that most premeds going to medical school straight out of college absolutely do not have anything analogous to 3000 hours of EMT work.

Here's what I've seen in the most successful applicants (MD and DO), ranked very, very roughly in priority. I say that it's rough because different schools and admissions officers prioritize differently. I heard directly from one officer that their school didn't place much priority on research. It wouldn't hurt you, but it wouldn't count for that much either.
1) GPA
2) MCAT
3) Clinical exposure (shadowing, work in the field, quality volunteering time in a medically-related area)
4) Volunteering and Research
5) LORs
6) ECs (hobbies and leadership)
7) Interview

I have multiple friends who've made it into high-end MD schools (UMich, OSU). They're good in most of these things I've listed, especially solid GPAs (3.6+) and solid MCATs (mostly in the 34-36 range, although one had a 30). I can assure you that none had 3000 hours of EMT work, but they all had at least a few hundred hours of volunteering with direct patient contact in a hospital. I'm not sure if any of them shadowed. All had at least a year of research, but I think none had publications. At least two fought their way up from a bad start in college. Except for one of them, all are friendly and great in interviews.

Keep in mind also that the process is a crap shoot. I have an acquaintance currently applying MD who has solid numbers for everything on that list but is waitlisted everywhere. My guess is that they're a bad interviewer under pressure or that they've got a toxic LOR.

In any case, as you said, volunteering, research, and clinical experience are the big three ECs. Quite simply, get them. It's not that hard. Volunteering and clinical experience are easy and can sometimes be done at one time if you have a great volunteering opportunity. Research is a little tougher. However, you can usually get some lab assistant positions usually by searching a school's faculty directory, finding some projects you like, and then emailing a ton of cover letters + resumes out. There are usually a decent amount of openings at any one time. Just make sure that if you get to interview at a lab, find out what you'll be doing. If the only job you'll be doing is washing glassware, decline it. If you have to do a few dishes on the side while learning some real lab assays/techniques, that's fine. Lab work isn't very difficult, just make sure that you're attentive to detail. Work hard if you get in - it could be a great opportunity to snag a great LOR. People will notice your effort.

edit: Nvm morsetlis - I just read that you have a lot of research. I'm leaving this post up in case somebody else finds it helpful.

 

[Morsetlis]

Bump ;p

 

[JJMountainMan]

Does volunteering on a van doing and personally performing mobile health screenings for the poor(BP, glucose, cholesterol, pregnancy tests, glaucoma, etc...) count as both volunteering AND clinical experience? This is my only clinical experience so I am trying to figure out if I need to get some other clinical work as well for my apps this summer.