High School Volunteer

[MDHopefulIA]

I volunteered at Hospital of University of Pennsylvania in 2012 and 2013, i am applying this cycle, and had about 90 hours there. would it be advisable to put it on my amcas application? I consider it important clinical experience as I interacted with patients. Thanks !

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[Catalystik]

I volunteered at Hospital of University of Pennsylvania in 2012 and 2013, i am applying this cycle, and had about 90 hours there. would it be advisable to put it on my amcas application? I consider it important clinical experience as I interacted with patients.

If this represents a HS experience, consider mentioning it in your Personal Statement as part of your journey to medicine.

 

[Commer_Knocker]

For the purposes of AMCAS, nothing extracurricular you did in HS matters- NOTHING.

And yes, adcoms will roll their eyes if they see you put it.

Obviously, defining life events, tragedies, etc are a different story.

 

[Commer_Knocker]

I would disagree with that. If you have something significant or impactful that you did in high school that you then continue into college, it can be a great example of long term motivation and commitment. This would be especially true for a community service or volunteer role. While it may not be its own EC entry, it certainly should be part of any overall EC that you write up.

Then you put it on as a college activity, not a high shool one. Notwithstanding, it wouldn't be ethical to include high school hours for a combined HS/college activity in your hour count either. AMCAS specifies numerous places they're only interested in post-secondary extracurriculars. You can say, "Ive done this since HS," in your description, but that's about it.

 

[Turkishking]

I volunteered at the hospital the summer I graduated, racked up 24 hours for the entire summer . Since my freshman year, I've been actively clinically volunteering. I still count everything together.

 

[LizzyM]

I volunteered at Hospital of University of Pennsylvania in 2012 and 2013, i am applying this cycle, and had about 90 hours there. would it be advisable to put it on my amcas application? I consider it important clinical experience as I interacted with patients. Thanks !

It was as recently as 3 years ago. I wouldn't fault you for listing it as it was so recent. If you were 10 years out of college it would be a different story for me. Ideally, this is not your only clinical experience.

 

[MDHopefulIA]

thank you for the feedback everyone! I was considering it because i thougth it was pretty important for my journey to medicine, so I put it in my personal statement.

 

[Swish16]

I put HS hospital volunteering on my app with minimal clinical volunteering in undergrad and I currently go to a top 20 med school


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[MDHopefulIA]

I put HS hospital volunteering on my app with minimal clinical volunteering in undergrad and I currently go to a top 20 med school


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curious question ...lol how were your stats, bc im assuming you had a raw MCAT and GPA lmao. but thanks that makes me feel much better about whether to put it or not/ my ECs lol

 

[Catalystik]

Notwithstanding, it wouldn't be ethical to include high school hours for a combined HS/college activity in your hour count either.

It would be perfectly ethical if you open and clear about

The AMCAS application now allows one to break an activity into up to four timeframes per entry, with their separate hours. So it's easy to make clear what hours belonged to the HS years and which occurred during college, or even afterwards.

 

[MDHopefulIA]

@Goro any opinions on this and putting it the app or not? thanks!

 

[Goro]

What happened in high school stays in high school. If you continued the activity into college, then put it on the app.

@Goro any opinions on this and putting it the app or not? thanks!

 

[kb1900]

This was a piece of advice I never agreed with. I included my 200 hours of research from high school, 200+ hours of non-clinical volunteering as well. Both activities were continued into college but with much lesser time commitments for volunteeering (80 hours since hs) and my research is in a different lab and different field.

I'm a traditional applicant and this stuff was barely 4 years ago. I guess I'll let you know how it goes. I'm not really covering up holes by including these, but had the space on my activities to list them and they are a major part to my path to medicine.

 

[Commer_Knocker]

This was a piece of advice I never agreed with. I included my 200 hours of research from high school, 200+ hours of non-clinical volunteering as well. Both activities were continued into college but with much lesser time commitments for volunteeering (80 hours since hs) and my research is in a different lab and different field.

I'm a traditional applicant and this stuff was barely 4 years ago. I guess I'll let you know how it goes. I'm not really covering up holes by including these, but had the space on my activities to list them and they are a major part to my path to medicine.

For the record, I do think there is an argument that the app should be open to HS ECs. But that isn't the argument here.

AMCAS states very specifically they only want post-secondary ECs. If you defy that, you either send the message that you can't follow instructions or that you need filler; which might not be the case, but you see how it could look.

 

[kb1900]

For the record, I do think there is an argument that the app should be open to HS ECs. But that isn't the argument here.

AMCAS states very specifically they only want post-secondary ECs. If you defy that, you either send the message that you can't follow instructions or that you need filler; which might not be the case, but you see how it could look.

If an adcom wants to dock points for doing research in high school at a level that most undergraduates will never obtain because of a protocol setforwaed by amcas, so be it.

Let me rephrase: if an adcom believes that following a guidelines set by amcas trumps my communication of 'my story' in pursuing medicine then that's up to them. Most applicatants probably don't use all 15 work/activities slots. You really don't need to for a 'full' application imo, especially if you've focused your ECs on quality and not quantity. Everything is arranged chronologically with descriptions for these two ECs explaining why I put them on my application in the first place.

 

[Swish16]

curious question ...lol how were your stats, bc im assuming you had a raw MCAT and GPA lmao. but thanks that makes me feel much better about whether to put it or not/ my ECs lol

I had a LizzyM of 74


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