Extraordinarily interesting thread

[HG1HH217]

For the sake of anonymity! (You have to pick your cause, right?)

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[Catalystik]

It appears to me (if you are applying after you'll have a decent amount of clinical experience and shadowing) that you will be competitive enough to apply wherever you wish and have a decent chance, provided your experiences are in accord with the school's mission.

But I'm not clear on your timing. My interpretation: Are you graduating this year, then doing clinical stuff for the summer, then doing the Fulbright for a ~year, then applying summer 2012, planning to do more clinical during the application year?

 

[minka]

blunt answer: Yes, but those schools a crap shoot as far as admissions are and no scores/EC combos guarantees a place in their class (unless you win a Nobel prize in something).

 

[bucks2010]

You should have a good app.

Leave off the HS hours. Generally the only reason to include HS activities is if they continued into your college career, i.e. you started volunteering in at a place at HS and continued on in college. A couple hundred hours from 6 years ago isn't going to help you much - you would be better served filling the slot with a more recent, meaningful activity.

 

[Catalystik]

1) If you were me, what would you focus on during this summer? I have tentative plans to shadow a cardiologist and volunteer in pediatrics (I love kids). Should I try to expand to more areas in the hospital?

2) I have 200 clinical volunteering hours from high school before I changed my mind on premed (and then changed it back to premed late in college). I have always assumed these hours are meaningless, as is everything else from highschool, but I recently heard from a med student that she included high school volunteer hours on her application. Should I include them when I apply (literally 6 years since I volunteered) or should I leave them off?

1) I'd try to get in 100 hours of clinical experience and 50 hours of shadowing, to include the cardiologist and a primary care doc, too (like a pediatrician, family doc, internist, OBGYN). If there were a chance of getting clinical experience wherever you spend your Fulbright year, consider that for 3 hours a week or twice monthly.

2) There is no AMCAS rule that you can't list HS experiences, but something from 6 years ago is unlikely to be regarded much by adcomms. Instead, you could mention it in the Personal Statement as a formative experience. Or, if the clinical experience this coming summer is substantially the same, you could mention at the end of the entry for the more recent patient activity with its own date span, hours/week and contact info in the narrative. But if you really, really want to, you could just list it on its own if you have the space to spare and feel it's strong enough to attempt to bring to adcomm attention in that way.

 

[Lil Mick]

You might have more luck applying MD/PhD, as you want to go into academia. We tend to have fewer hours of clinical work, more research experience, and experiences like the Fulbright scholarship. Your stats would be a good fit for one, as well. PM me if you want to know more about that option