Help! w/ Med School Application

[cdnguyen]

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Hello all,

I'm new to this and I am looking for help on my Med school application! Thanks! I am currently working full-time at a biotech company as a clinical lab assistant. I'm just a little confused as to what experience would it fall under. Would this be consider as clinical experience? I'm involved in accessioning patients' sample and assisting around the lab helping R&D and the production lab.
Is what I'm doing right now even beneficial for my Med school application or should I find something else?

I am also still volunteering once a week at a hospital. I've been volunteering for a year and half now clocking in roughly 125 hours. Is that enough volunteer hours?

 

[prehealthadvisor55]

Hello all,

I'm new to this and I am looking for help on my Med school application! Thanks! I am currently working full-time at a biotech company as a clinical lab assistant. I'm just a little confused as to what experience would it fall under. Would this be consider as clinical experience? I'm involved in accessioning patients' sample and assisting around the lab helping R&D and the production lab.
Is what I'm doing right now even beneficial for my Med school application or should I find something else?

I am also still volunteering once a week at a hospital. I've been volunteering for a year and half now clocking in roughly 125 hours. Is that enough volunteer hours?

I would call the first research before I would call it clinical. But ultimately you determine what you classify it as on AMCAS.

And keep volunteering. And shadowing.

 

[SnakeDoc9497]

Don't get too hung up on how things need to be classified and what is considered beneficial to your app. Part of this whole process is realizing that there is no one route or set of suggestions that can get you in. Bottom line is to have:
1. good grades
2. a good MCAT
3. be a normal person for the interview 1 and 2 ultimately grant you

Shadowing and volunteering are important, but mainly so you can determine whether or not you like the life of a physician, and if you can devote yourself to helping others. Admissions offices aren't looking for heart-warming stories from volunteering, or the most rare and high-profile surgeries from your shadowing, merely that you have done some of both and realized their importance.

With that being said, your experience sounds like a great one, and if it were me, for what it's worth, I would call it a research experience over clinical.

 

[cdnguyen]

Don't get too hung up on how things need to be classified and what is considered beneficial to your app. Part of this whole process is realizing that there is no one route or set of suggestions that can get you in. Bottom line is to have:
1. good grades
2. a good MCAT
3. be a normal person for the interview 1 and 2 ultimately grant you

Shadowing and volunteering are important, but mainly so you can determine whether or not you like the life of a physician, and if you can devote yourself to helping others. Admissions offices aren't looking for heart-warming stories from volunteering, or the most rare and high-profile surgeries from your shadowing, merely that you have done some of both and realized their importance.

With that being said, your experience sounds like a great one, and if it were me, for what it's worth, I would call it a research experience over clinical.

I've started a little late for premed, but I'm currently on my gap year working and volunteering, all the while trying to study for the MCAT in June. I have a 3.5 cGPA and a 3.73 sGPA, my major being in Kinesiology. I screwed up freshman year, so I had to dig my way out from that. I know I don't have much clinical volunteer hours and I have less than 20 hours of shadowing, but I do have some solid LORs. So I was wondering if I should even try applying this cycle or wait it out another year to boost up all my hours, experiences, and MCAT score, if need be.

btw one of my favorite Ron's quotes: "Never half-ass two things, whole-ass one thing." He's the man!

 

[cdnguyen]

I would call the first research before I would call it clinical. But ultimately you determine what you classify it as on AMCAS.

And keep volunteering. And shadowing.

Thank you for helping! I definitely will!

 

[SnakeDoc9497]

I've started a little late for premed, but I'm currently on my gap year working and volunteering, all the while trying to study for the MCAT in June. I have a 3.5 cGPA and a 3.73 sGPA, my major being in Kinesiology. I screwed up freshman year, so I had to dig my way out from that. I know I don't have much clinical volunteer hours and I have less than 20 hours of shadowing, but I do have some solid LORs. So I was wondering if I should even try applying this cycle or wait it out another year to boost up all my hours, experiences, and MCAT score, if need be.

btw one of my favorite Ron's quotes: "Never half-ass two things, whole-ass one thing." He's the man!

I'm certainly not the best one to give advice, but your cGPA is very respectable at a lot of MD schools it seems (sGPA even more so). 20 hours of shadowing isn't a lot, but at least it's not zero. I'd say get some shadowing hours even if it's just 20 more, and keep up with your MCAT studying and working/volunteering. If I were you I would apply this cycle, but then again, that is just one person's opinion.

And yes Ron Swanson is quite the man, haha