Going into Sophomore Year...

[GenghisKant]

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Hi team,

Firstly, my sincere thanks for this community. The SDN has both upped my prep-game and made my path much, much clearer.

I'm entering my second year of a pre-med program with a 4.0 GPA and I wanted to run my plan for sophomore year past the community to make sure I'm not missing anything, or if there is more I can do.

- Defend the 4.0

- 200 hours of emergency department volunteering at a local hospital. This year, I want to truly try to understand what I'm getting into, I'm apprehensive about the ED - and that's why I applied, I want to see the worst of what hospital staff face.

- Shadowing experience (family practice, cardiology, neurology). I have a few physicians to shadow, how long should I ask for, I don't want to inconvenience them?

- Assist in some research, ideally, I'd like to get published, obviously. But at the end of the day, I just want to participate in the scientific method - rather than just reading about it.

- Run a marathon (running is my relaxing outlet).

Anything else I can do? I feel as though I'm handling my study-load pretty comfortably at the moment, I'm still catching an episode or two of Netflix, which tells me I could probably do more.

Many thanks, again, I'm indebted to this forum and it's contributors.

GK

 

[eteshoe]

Seems solid. Though you don't need to do 200 hrs in just one yr - you can spread it out. Especially if the end goal is defending that 4.0. Shadow each specialty for 5-15 hrs. Remember to have some fun.

Also if you do research - you will never reach the point where you are not still reading science lol.

 

[GCS-15]

Is your college associated with a clinic? You should try to get some clinical experience. Also, volunteering would be nice. Make sure it's something you're genuinely interested in though.

 

[GenghisKant]

Seems solid. Though you don't need to do 200 hrs in just one yr - you can spread it out. Especially if the end goal is defending that 4.0. Shadow each specialty for 5-15 hrs. Remember to have some fun.

Also if you do research - you will never reach the point where you are not still reading science lol.

Thanks for the reply!

The 200, I just figured I'd do four hours a week, but I picked that rather arbitrarily. Thanks for the shadowing advice, that's definitely doable.

So true about the reading!

 

[GenghisKant]

Is your college associated with a clinic? You should try to get some clinical experience. Also, volunteering would be nice. Make sure it's something you're genuinely interested in though.

Luckily, it is! I've got a year's worth of clinical internship next year, which I'm pretty excited about.
Good call on the volunteering, there's a health volunteer program also associated with the college, so I'll definitely take advantage of that.

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

Awesome plan. "Defend the 4.0" is one of the funnier and least douchey ways I've heard that phrased. Do all of that and you've got a very good app going

As for shadow hours I think the best move is to do a 5-15 with a few various docs (I did nephro, cardio, And GI) then pick one doc to shadow with as much as possible and get a strong rec letter out of (for me this was transplant surgery, logged like 150 hours + a good LOR). If you can maybe relate whatever volunteering you do to the shadowing so you can string them together in your application.

Good luck!

 

[rednote]

I'm assuming you want to apply to top tier. You're doing a great job so far. Here's what I would do/add on.

1) leadership - I would encourage getting involved in a club or organization that you are interested in. (Not your stereotypical premed club. Student run volunteer organization, college science journal editorship, cultural clubs etc..)
2) LOR - think about letter of recommendation starting now. Go to office hours, talk to professors, be proactive, don't be just another face.
3) TAing - I would recommend TAing. I think it's a great experience and shows your leadership and teaching skills as well. You also would likely get great letters from whoever you TA for.
4)MCAT - Do not study for it yet but be familiar with what you are going to be tested on. When you are taking the relevant classes that are going to be in MCAT study extra hard to retain the info long term not just to get an A. If you had lower verbal SAT I would recommend reading books and subscriptions of NYT and Economist from now.
5) Volunteering - As mentioned above try to do some volunteering for something you are passionate about. Long term consistency would help here. I would also recommend non clinical volunteering as well.

 

[GenghisKant]

Awesome plan. "Defend the 4.0" is one of the funnier and least douchey ways I've heard that phrased. Do all of that and you've got a very good app going

As for shadow hours I think the best move is to do a 5-15 with a few various docs (I did nephro, cardio, And GI) then pick one doc to shadow with as much as possible and get a strong rec letter out of (for me this was transplant surgery, logged like 150 hours + a good LOR). If you can maybe relate whatever volunteering you do to the shadowing so you can string them together in your application.

Good luck!

Thanks! Great idea about the shadowing process. Honestly, the more pre-med school exposure to the actual task of medicine I get, the better, I figure - so that's great advice.

 

[GenghisKant]

I'm assuming you want to apply to top tier. You're doing a great job so far. Here's what I would do/add on.

1) leadership - I would encourage getting involved in a club or organization that you are interested in. (Not your stereotypical premed club. Student run volunteer organization, college science journal editorship, cultural clubs etc..)
2) LOR - think about letter of recommendation starting now. Go to office hours, talk to professors, be proactive, don't be just another face.
3) TAing - I would recommend TAing. I think it's a great experience and shows your leadership and teaching skills as well. You also would likely get great letters from whoever you TA for.
4)MCAT - Do not study for it yet but be familiar with what you are going to be tested on. When you are taking the relevant classes that are going to be in MCAT study extra hard to retain the info long term not just to get an A. If you had lower verbal SAT I would recommend reading books and subscriptions of NYT and Economist from now.
5) Volunteering - As mentioned above try to do some volunteering for something you are passionate about. Long term consistency would help here. I would also recommend non clinical volunteering as well.

Thanks so much, this is all brilliant. I don't know about top tier schools, I'll just be happy to have someone think I'm decent enough to be accepted. That and all the clinical hours are mostly to make sure I can take the pressure. I feel like it would be easy to just do the coursework and not actually, really understand what I'll be asking to put myself through.

Leadership's a great idea, it'll just be about figuring out what I enjoy. Honestly, I really hate to see people drop out, so perhaps something in an organization that deals with that would be good. I've put that on the task-list for Monday.

I was sweating LOR, but luckily, I've got a lot of professors who I get along with, plus the Dean of my school seems to think I'm worth something when we met to discuss research the other day. Will pursue.

TAing sounds like the best idea. I love most of my classes and so, would love to be more active in them.

The MCAT and I are vaguely familiar, I went a bit crazy in first year and bought the Kaplan set, so I'll keep an eye on that. I'm a voracious reader and actually have a NYT subscription, so great to hear that'll come in handy and not just make me look like some kind of weird, newspaper-reading throwback to my neighbours.

I used to teach English in Korea, so I'll look into picking up a few English teacher hours at the local library.

Thanks again!

GK

 

[hmockingbird]

For leadership, if you have some type of job or volunteering role where you are a leader that could also count.

For shadowing I would maybe aim for 3-4 days with each person/specialty, even 4 hours at a time would be fine. Not enough to overwhelm them (or you) but you want to have more than just one day if you can.

If you can't TA, I think any campus job would show balance. I worked at our dorm desk for 3 years and got to do my homework most nights so it was a win/win.

Finally you are allowed to have time for Netflix 🙂 You need something to help you relax at the end of a busy day after all!