How important are ECs, research in my situation?

[retro]

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Hello all,

Just to briefly introduce myself, I recently wrapped up my first semester of med school, and I'm beginning to plan out how I should spend my 1st year (and my last) summer.

I'm aware I'll be changing my mind once I begin rotations, but I'm quite certain I'll be shooting for either ER or anaesthesia residency.

That being said, how important is my involvement in student organizations ( ie. serving as an officer in a club) when it comes to applying for residencies? How about research?

As of now, I have absolutely no involvement in class org, no research experience (unless I count the ones from undergrad). The only strength is that I'm in the top 10% of my class grade wise, but I heard the program directors don't give a flying crap about pre-clinical grades anyway.

Assuming that I go hardcore on Step 1 and score ~ 230 and above, and assuming that I have a pleasant enough personality to get along with people during my rotation to obtain fair recommendation letters...should I be worried about my lack of experience in research and class involvement? I'm debating if I should use my last summer to just chill or do something productive (research, etc).

Any word of advice would be appreciated.

 

[Stellar Clouds]

I can only speak for anesthesia, but a 230 with nothing else will get you in somewhere. Definitely not any big name programs. Doing research will definitely strengthen your application, but it's not a deal breaker. However, with that being said, I would still try to do some research between 1st and 2nd year. It will only help your application to have research experience. It should be pretty easy to find clinical research projects in your anesthesia department that aren't overly time consuming. A clinical project will help you in two ways: 1. the obvious benefit to your ERAS under research experience and 2. you will learn more about the field and find out if you do actually like it.

If you are truly in the top 10% of your class, going hardcore on step1 should get you WAY higher than a 230. A very high step 1 score will open way more doors than a single research experience.