How many entries do you have under Extracurricular/Volunteer/Community Service?

[rryn]

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Hi guys, I'm sure all of you must be busy filling out your AADSAS application.

Just out of curiosity, how many entries did you guys put under Extracurricular/Volunteer/Community service category?
Or does anyone have any idea how many entries, on average, applicants add?

The limit is 10, which is the biggest number allowed of all categories in the Professional Experience section.

I currently have 5 added, and one of the activities I put under Work Experience can also fit into Extracurricular, so I was wondering if I'd better move it to EC category.

Thanks in advance for your inputs! 🙂

 

[gn4]

You can put it in both if you want

 

[wb1]

You can put it in both if you want

I will just add that fun job of your to the extracurricular activities!

" Do not repeat any activities listed in the previous section. "
http://www.adea.org/dental_educatio...s/Pages/WorkExpereinceandMilitaryService.aspx

 

[UltimateHombre]

You can put it in both if you want

I don't know how i feel about this....

It seems like if you were paid for it, or it was a structured internship program, it needs to go into the work experience and stay there.

 

[Papasmurf1234]

I don't really think it matters how many extracurricular activities you have. It's more about the quality and what the LOR will say about your performance in those activities. Student A might have spent 4 hours a day doing research for an honors program while Student B might have gone to 5 different club meetings throughout the year. Which would look better?

If you just put down 10 different clubs but no LOR from any of them, the adcoms will probably think you just listed it to look competitive.

 

[Hawkteeth]

I say do it, I heard 6 activities is the magic number. You don't want too many or too less.

 

[Baba Yaga]

I don't really think it matters how many extracurricular activities you have. It's more about the quality and what the LOR will say about your performance in those activities. Student A might have spent 4 hours a day doing research for an honors program while Student B might have gone to 5 different club meetings throughout the year. Which would look better?

True.

If you just put down 10 different clubs but no LOR from any of them, the adcoms will probably think you just listed it to look competitive.

Uhhhh, with a limit of 4 LORs and many schools requiring 3 professors + 1 dentist, you don't have much room for a club specific LOR.

Furthermore, I don't know what school you went to but at my college, the clubs were student-run. I'm not about to ask my peers for an LOR. That would look weird.

 

[Papasmurf1234]

True.



Uhhhh, with a limit of 4 LORs and many schools requiring 3 professors + 1 dentist, you don't have much room for a club specific LOR.

Furthermore, I don't know what school you went to but at my college, the clubs were student-run. I'm not about to ask my peers for an LOR. That would look weird.

Every club has an adviser that is usually faculty. If you were truly involved in the club I don't see why you wouldn't ask him or her for a LOR.

You can find the list of LOR requirements here:

https://ppa.byu.edu/sites/ppa.byu.e...ter of Recommendation Requirements (dent).pdf

As you can see, most schools require 2 science and a dentist/nonacademic.

 

[Baba Yaga]

Every club has an adviser that is usually faculty. If you were truly involved in the club I don't see why you wouldn't ask him or her for a LOR.

You can find the list of LOR requirements here:

https://ppa.byu.edu/sites/ppa.byu.e...ter of Recommendation Requirements (dent).pdf

As you can see, most schools require 2 science and a dentist/nonacademic.

Oh yeah, I know some clubs have advisors, but in my personal experience the faculty advisor(s) (when they existed...not every club had one) weren't too involved (weren't present at board meetings or club meetings, didn't need to give input about major decisions but someone did inform them to be polite), so that person could say "so and so held x position" but not necessarily the nitty gritty specifics of what tasks I took on outside of that framework unless I told them. At that rate, I feel like I have other people who know me better, whom I can ask.

I actually also have significant leadership in an organization that is completely student-run, so really there was no advisor. So it does depend on school policy I guess (seems like my school had more lax policies on advisors? Idk, I assumed it was the same for other schools' student-run orgs).

Idk, several of my schools require 3 academic letters...I don't want to limit myself in that way because I want to apply broadly and my top choice requires 3 science letters, so I'm not about to not submit those. My second choice asks for a dental letter, so that's the other one that's going in there.

I'm sure what people actually decide to do is very personalized based on their school list, and I would never suggest someone should limit themselves in terms of which schools they apply to just to get a club advisor reference. If that works for you, that's great, but there's rarely a one size fits all in life.

I'm definitely having someone who supervised me on an activity write a letter (a research advisor...counts as academic because this person was a former professor of mine), but if schools want to "prove" that I did what I did in terms of club activities, they are more than welcome to ask for contact people or do google searches.

Many people do the 3 academic letters + a dentist, so I don't think it'll be unusual. I'm not about to forego applying to a school I really want to attend, let alone my top choices of schools.

 

[Papasmurf1234]

Oh yeah, I know some clubs have advisors, but in my personal experience the faculty advisor(s) (when they existed...not every club had one) weren't too involved (weren't present at board meetings or club meetings, didn't need to give input about major decisions but someone did inform them to be polite), so that person could say "so and so held x position" but not necessarily the nitty gritty specifics of what tasks I took on outside of that framework unless I told them. At that rate, I feel like I have other people who know me better, whom I can ask.

I actually also have significant leadership in an organization that is completely student-run, so really there was no advisor. So it does depend on school policy I guess (seems like my school had more lax policies on advisors? Idk, I assumed it was the same for other schools' student-run orgs).

Idk, several of my schools require 3 academic letters...I don't want to limit myself in that way because I want to apply broadly and my top choice requires 3 science letters, so I'm not about to not submit those. My second choice asks for a dental letter, so that's the other one that's going in there.

I'm sure what people actually decide to do is very personalized based on their school list, and I would never suggest someone should limit themselves in terms of which schools they apply to just to get a club advisor reference. If that works for you, that's great, but there's rarely a one size fits all in life.

I'm definitely having someone who supervised me on an activity write a letter (a research advisor...counts as academic because this person was a former professor of mine), but if schools want to "prove" that I did what I did in terms of club activities, they are more than welcome to ask for contact people or do google searches.

Many people do the 3 academic letters + a dentist, so I don't think it'll be unusual. I'm not about to forego applying to a school I really want to attend, let alone my top choices of schools.

I see. I wasn't really ever too involved in clubs because I didn't like them back in high school. But all my LOR are from professionals that know me pretty well so I'm a different case.
IMHO, your personal letter should at least reflect one activity from where you are getting your LOR from. It'll tie in much better.

 

[Baba Yaga]

I talked to a friend of mine who is applying to medical school about this today and he was like, "Well the two clubs I was involved with didn't have advisors. I put down who I thought/guessed would be closest to an advisor and know about my involvement as a contact person. I honestly wouldn't know whom to ask for a recommendation for those specific activities if I had to get one, but I did my best on the application."

I actually also checked the policies for recognition of student groups on my campus and nowhere does it say anything about having an advisor, so maybe that's why the student groups don't always have ones. The ones that do tend to be more academically oriented, if that makes sense. As a result, I also always thought that having an advisor was an exception more than a rule. Again, perhaps it's just on my campus, but I assumed it would be the same on other campuses.