How important are volunteer hours?

[Alectrify]

I'm currently a junior and am planning to apply in the upcoming cycle. I am president of a hepatitis B outreach chapter, but our events are limited to those held by the organization that sponsors our chapter and those that my chapter creates by itself (which takes a long time to plan). Basically, I have about 20 hours so far from doing outreach events with my chapter, but I have nothing else. I have yet to gain shadowing hours (which I will plan to get during spring break and early summer). I recently got a paid tutoring job on campus, but I doubt that will count as "volunteer hours". I feel that I am still contributing to my community, but the "hours" that I have so far do not accurately reflect that. How will admissions view this? How important are hours? Thanks.

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[brochacho3]

I would say they are pretty darn important. I have pretty average stats but I had LOTS of volunteer hours and about 100 shadowing hours to make up for that. Ended up with 5 pre-December interviews and 2 acceptances on December 1st. I think my extra-curriculars had a big part to do with that. Just my two cents.

 

[sgv]

20 sporadic hours is nothing. You need just a few volunteering activities that you participate in regularly, a couple hours, every week. Go volunteer at a clinic, hospital or shelter. Get at least a 100 hours. There's no magic number but a 100 hours looks better than 20 hours, which anyone can do in a weekend. But it took you 3 years to get just 20 hours...I hope you've been doing other stuff...

March, April and May. 3 months x 4 weeks/1 month = 12 weeks. 100 hours/12 week = 8.3 hours/week. You would need to spend 8 hours/week of service until the end of May to rack up 100 hours...Use your spring break to knock a big chunk out of it.

They prefer to look at long term commitment but you got no other choice but to cram some hours.

You might be a great dude or gal but on paper, you may come of as being more self centered and uninitiated than you really are

 

[Auosh]

Does anyone know how to get volunteer hours I've applied in different places and no one called me 🙁

 

[Macabalony]

I have a below average sGPA and a decent DAT score but some killer volunteer hours and I got a few interviews. We are talking a few activities with 500+ hours.

 

[Faux]

Does anyone know how to get volunteer hours I've applied in different places and no one called me 🙁

where do you live? I signed up at my local food bank. All I had to do was pick a time slot.

 

[RamsFan1991]

I highly regret not having a lot of volunteer/community service. I put all my time into research in hopes of not only contributing to the health of society in some way, be it small, but showing I can put my mind to something and follow through with it to the end (publication or presentation at conference to present findings). Unfortunately, thousands of research hours and 3 publications later, I got rejections from four schools, only had one post-december interview, which resulted in a wait-list, and 5 schools including my in-state school that haven't said anything to me since July. I called one of the schools I got rejected from to ask why I got rejected and it was the lack of my volunteer/community service hours. It's a downright tragedy that my application and my painstaking amount of research was so easily overlooked by these schools because community service is that much more important to them. Research may not directly and immediately help people/communities, but what is healthcare without research? How else do we find answers in the long run that can potentially save millions of lives?

 

[BeaverLover]

I highly regret not having a lot of volunteer/community service. I put all my time into research in hopes of not only contributing to the health of society in some way, be it small, but showing I can put my mind to something and follow through with it to the end (publication or presentation at conference to present findings). Unfortunately, thousands of research hours and 3 publications later, I got rejections from four schools, only had one post-december interview, which resulted in a wait-list, and 5 schools including my in-state school that haven't said anything to me since July. I called one of the schools I got rejected from to ask why I got rejected and it was the lack of my volunteer/community service hours. It's a downright tragedy that my application and my painstaking amount of research was so easily overlooked by these schools because community service is that much more important to them. Research may not directly and immediately help people/communities, but what is healthcare without research? How else do we find answers in the long run that can potentially save millions of lives?

Just out of curiosity, how many hours? I'm in a similar situation in terms of hours

 

[Auosh]

where do you live? I signed up at my local food bank. All I had to do was pick a time slot.

I live in Pennsylvania and does the food bank help with ur application I thought we have to volunteer in hospital or something.

 

[Hannah Banana]

I live in Pennsylvania and does the food bank help with ur application I thought we have to volunteer in hospital or something.

Premed? Yes it would help your application but this is pre-dental.

 

[Auosh]

Premed? Yes it would help your application but this is pre-dental.

I meant if it'll help with my Med school application later.

 

[ICUrunning]

I meant if it'll help with my Med school application later.

This is the predental forum. Ask your question in the pre-med forum.

 

[Auosh]

This is the predental forum. Ask your question in the pre-med forum.

I'm new to this, thank you 🙂

 

[Faux]

I meant if it'll help with my Med school application later.

variety never hurts!

 

[2THDDS]

Does anyone know how to get volunteer hours I've applied in different places and no one called me 🙁

doesn't have to be dental related, medical related. it could literally be anything.
they want to see you that you care about your community and people...
that's all.

Food bank, rescue squad(if they are willing to train you), tutor kids, etc, etc.

 

[2THDDS]

I meant if it'll help with my Med school application later.

this is why nurses hate pre-med kids..

lol j/k

 

[Auosh]

Thank u guys I appreciate ur help ️️

 

[DentalDoge]

Yeah, I literally walked into a hospital and was like "yo, I want to see surgeons cutting people up. Healing people and junk."

And they let me go see surgeons cutting people up and junk ... for 200 hours.

 

[Auosh]

Yeah, I literally walked into a hospital and was like "yo, I want to see surgeons cutting people up. Healing people and junk."

And they let me go see surgeons cutting people up and junk ... for 200 hours.

Are you serious lol

 

[Doom132]

Volunteer at a homeless shelter. They will seriously take anyone that they can.

 

[DentalDoge]

Are you serious lol

Not exactly haha. But pretty close. I was there so much that I couldve walked into any OR on the floor at any time and the surgeons are always like, 'Come on in! We're doing [insert procedure here] today'. But Im a little scared of neurosurgeons though, so I try to get permission for them.

I counted all of those as volunteer hours on my AADSAS application.

 

[Auosh]

Not exactly haha. But pretty close. I was there so much that I couldve walked into any OR on the floor at any time and the surgeons are always like, 'Come on in! We're doing [insert procedure here] today'. But Im a little scared of neurosurgeons though, so I try to get permission for them.

I counted all of those as volunteer hours on my AADSAS application.

Lol that's fantastic i wish i can get in to the OR but we don't have surgeons that welcome you to just look what they are doing 🙁

 

[2THDDS]

Are you serious lol

i am sure he isn't that stupid lol

 

[DentalDoge]

Lol that's fantastic i wish i can get in to the OR but we don't have surgeons that welcome you to just look what they are doing 🙁

Friendships in places go a long way.

 

[2THDDS]

Lol that's fantastic i wish i can get in to the OR but we don't have surgeons that welcome you to just look what they are doing 🙁

It's all about knowing people when you want to observe cases.
If you just straight up ask the doc, they will be like "who the f is this kid, get out of my face." (well, not all, but that's how they could feel if you just show up out of nowhere")

Go through the charge nurse on that floor, clinical coordinator, nurse manager, or even intern educators.
They interact with surgeons and staff all the time about their cases and what not, so if you show genuine interest, they should be able to put you in there, especially if it's a teaching hospital. They are there to teach kids and make em future practitioners.

 

[Auosh]

i am sure he isn't that stupid lol

I might do what he said just to get some volunteering hours lol.

 

[Auosh]

Friendships in places go a long way.

True i have an internal medicine friend and i did some shadowing with him but one shadowing is not enough🙁

 

[Auosh]

It's all about knowing people when you want to observe cases.
If you just straight up ask the doc, they will be like "who the f is this kid, get out of my face." (well, not all, but that's how they could feel if you just show up out of nowhere")

Go through the charge nurse on that floor, clinical coordinator, nurse manager, or even intern educators.
They interact with surgeons and staff all the time about their cases and what not, so if you show genuine interest, they should be able to put you in there, especially if it's a teaching hospital. They are there to teach kids and make em future practitioners.

Teaching hospitals is a really good idea I'll look around my town if we have any. You guys helped me alot ️

 

[Auosh]

.

 

[yeslek88]

I only listed 40 hours of volunteering on AADSAS, and I received 6 interview invites. However, I did have a bunch of other "supplementary" activities:

-1200+ hrs research volunteer
-2 years working in a dental lab
-140 shadowing hours

I did really well on the DAT (23AA), but my GPA was 3.3 and science was even lower, so its not like my stats were able to offset my lack of volunteering. Maybe they counted my research hours as volunteer hours. IDK! I guess what I'm trying to say is don't let anyone tell you with 100% confidence what will or will not get you accepted or what is or isn't a red flag, because (like me) they don't know.

 

[sgv]

I highly regret not having a lot of volunteer/community service. I put all my time into research in hopes of not only contributing to the health of society in some way, be it small, but showing I can put my mind to something and follow through with it to the end (publication or presentation at conference to present findings). Unfortunately, thousands of research hours and 3 publications later, I got rejections from four schools, only had one post-december interview, which resulted in a wait-list, and 5 schools including my in-state school that haven't said anything to me since July. I called one of the schools I got rejected from to ask why I got rejected and it was the lack of my volunteer/community service hours. It's a downright tragedy that my application and my painstaking amount of research was so easily overlooked by these schools because community service is that much more important to them. Research may not directly and immediately help people/communities, but what is healthcare without research? How else do we find answers in the long run that can potentially save millions of lives?

You're a clinician first. If you go to dental school, the only expectation that the public has of you is that you're a benevolent clinician. From the school's perspective, what you plan to do with your degree afterwards does not matter. Their only mandatory obligation to remain a CODA approved school is to produce ethical clinicians. Research is ancillary. If you were applying to PhD programs there would be obviously different expectations. Maybe your GPA was the prob.