Help with Extracurricular Activities

[drdevil52]

Hello,

I want to preface this by saying that I am a second-semester sophomore at a state university. My GPA is pretty good (3.95) so far. I am just wondering whether I am doing enough where extracurriculars are concerned, I know everyone has the generic checklist of things that "need" to be done, but I want to know how competitive my extracurriculars are and if they will be sufficient for medical schools when I apply (probably going to be summer 2017).

-I volunteer at a local hospital over breaks from school
-I have a lot of shadowing experience with a friend who is a cardiologist
-I currently have a leadership position for a service organization on campus (I fundraise, plan events and talks, volunteer at various events, etc.). I have had this position going on two semesters now.
-I also tutor bilingual students at a local elementary school for a few hours each week and am planning on working at a hospice through my service organization.
-I also hope to be a TA for organic for my last half of college, but I have not been selected yet.
-As for research, I don't have a huge interest in lab research but I want to still apply some of the concepts I have learned in biology in a lab for a few semesters.
-I don't know if this would help an application, but I also practice martial arts 3 or 4 days a week for fun.

Are these extracurriculars "enough" for a medical school application? I think I have time to maybe do a little more if necessary, but I don't want to squeeze in things just for an application unless I need something more to gain interest from medical schools. I also guess it may help to mention that I do not really care if I go to a great top tier medical school, just somewhere I can get a good education and learn how to practice.

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[anoxredcat]

I think if you shadowed more variety of physicians.
I also think having martial arts on your app is excellent. It shows that you have a personality outside of academics. Brings diversity onto their med campus.
Best of luck on your TA position!

 

[Boogy'sChick15]

I agree you should try to shadow a variety of physicians. Really try to get in on some research, most schools wont even consider you if they see you have no research experience. Try to get published, that will make your application stand out from those who just have the research experience.

Also, make sure that you are getting some "clinical" experience. Not all school's consider shadowing a physician to be clinical experience. Do you work directly with patients at the hospital you volunteer at? If you don't know what is considered clinical, there is the saying that "if you can smell the patients, its clinical experience". My volunteer position consists of bathing, changing, and feeding patients, triage, vitals, transportation, intake, discharging, and assisting the nurses (for instance I've assisted the nurse with flushing a patients catheter to clear blood clots, cleaning up and bagging the bodies after patients passed away, cleaning wounds, etc.). Any of these could be considered clinical experience.

Try to maintain your leadership position, if not climb up the ladder. School's want to see commitment, and one leadership position that lasted for a while is better than multiple leadership positions that only lasted a semester.

Overall your EC's look great, and that GPA certainly helps.