how many volunteering hours is optimal for medical school acceptance?

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pmmendez

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i work two full time jobs and go to school full time, im trying to volunteer as much as i can but around how many hours is the average student accomplishing when applying in medical school?
 
However many you want. There isn't a set number. It is more important to show commitment to something. There is a spot on your application for work experiences and what not. They'll see you were working however many hours a week for whatever time span.
 
Nobody ever asked me how many hours I volunteered. Do enough to learn something important about your future profession. It's not a time commitment, it's a learning opportunity.
 
Until you've experienced something worth experiencing. If you want to experience it.
 
I'm approaching about 1600 hours for the past 2 years. But I didn't work. Work experience is good. Volunteering is nice, but you can't volunteer if you don't have the time to do so. Do what you can, call it a day.
 
armybound said:
You're abnormal.

I'd imagine the AVERAGE pre-med probably has somewhere between 20 and 50 hours.
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Wut. Are you serious? MY LIFE IS RUINED.

Technically, many of those hours were spent sitting at a fire department watching TV, eating, sleeping, and daydreaming.
 
I guess I'm abnormal. My volunteering experiences were really awesome, I even got to scrub in to surgery and cut a few sutures.

I think 20-50 is not a lot. I would like to say on average 100 hours.
 
Alwaysbehopeful said:
I guess I'm abnormal. My volunteering experiences were really awesome, I even got to scrub in to surgery and cut a few sutures.

I think 20-50 is not a lot. I would like to say on average 100 hours.
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I'll agree that 100 hours may be on the upper side of "average".

You may overestimate the average applicant, though.
 
The unique california volunteer program that i am a part of has a requirement of 240 hours before they can officially graduate from the program and recieve a letter of recommendation.

So considering majority of Pre-meds in california are part of this volunteer program I would say the average california applicant has over 200 volunteer hours.
 
IDK, I have over 300 volunteer hours both clinical and non-clinical, and I consider that to be the weakest part of my app, I applied to 25 schools, and only have 2 interviews, a bunch of rejections and bunch of holds. Maybe the average has gone up...
 
ziggydoc said:
IDK, I have over 300 volunteer hours both clinical and non-clinical, and I consider that to be the weakest part of my app, I applied to 25 schools, and only have 2 interviews, a bunch of rejections and bunch of holds. Maybe the average has gone up...
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I highly doubt any school is going to reject you based on only having 300 volunteer hours.
 
pmmendez said:
i work two full time jobs and go to school full time, im trying to volunteer as much as i can but around how many hours is the average student accomplishing when applying in medical school?
Click to expand...

News flash:

X volunteering hours + Y work hours + Z research hours / (cGPA/2 x sGPA) > 350 = guaranteed acceptance

Sorry. This formula is not real, and does not actually exist. If it did then there would be no questions about getting in. While volunteering, work, research etc are important, it is much more important to show commitment to something. Do whatever volunteering you can, and make sure that you learn something from it that you can use in your essays and interviews.
 
truth...
and also the number of hours will vary based on how old you are. If you are applying for entrance right out of college then naturally your number of hours may be fewer than those applying a few years out

In the end, med schools seem to have very few "checklists"...instead they get an overall impression of you based on scores, ECs, and PS and generally look at the complete package. They want a compelling story...regardless of whether it's in volunteering or not
 
cubssox2000 said:
News flash:

X volunteering hours + Y work hours + Z research hours / (cGPA/2 x sGPA) > 350 = guaranteed acceptance

Sorry. This formula is not real, and does not actually exist. If it did then there would be no questions about getting in. While volunteering, work, research etc are important, it is much more important to show commitment to something. Do whatever volunteering you can, and make sure that you learn something from it that you can use in your essays and interviews.
Click to expand...

Why would you divide by GPA? That gives an incentive to get your GPA as close to 0 as possible, lol.
 
I would say I have around 30 hours or so, but this was in a hospital. I've volunteered to a whole buncha random work-days through campus activities, it doesn't have to be a hospital, as long as you're giving up your time to help others.

Also, I think if you have other areas of your application that are strong, it can help a weak volunteering effort. For example, I've worked in a lab about 10-15 hours a week for 2 years, for college credit. That's a LOT of time considering being a full-time student, so placing time towards this can somewhat overshadow a low number of volunteering hours I'd assume?
 
average is generally 4 hrs/week. this is reasonable and not too few. remember your gpa is the most important thing, so school/studying should take up roughly 40 hrs/week, research about 10 hrs/week, other ECs prob 4 hrs/week.

just my view of the situation. obviously you want to have more than 4 hrs/week so you can be above average, but there's no reason to go >10 hrs/week


Note: "average" here does NOT refer to SDN average... that would be like 30 hrs/week
 
Beta Cell said:
Why would you divide by GPA? That gives an incentive to get your GPA as close to 0 as possible, lol.
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Haha. True. i guess I should have added some base limits to GPA. However, if you divide by 0, then your chances of getting into med school is undefined. Clearly it would be a first :laugh:.
 
cubssox2000 said:
Haha. True. i guess I should have added some base limits to GPA. However, if you divide by 0, then your chances of getting into med school is undefined. Clearly it would be a first :laugh:.
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Yeah, as close to 0 as possible gets you that asymptotically awesome admissions chance.
 
pmmendez said:
im trying to volunteer as much as i can
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you answered your own question. if you're doing the best you can then it's the best you can do and you will be fine. 👍
 
Regardless of hours you worked, the experience matters. But then, the experience you need to get comes from the hours you spend. Volunteer as much as you can as long as it is interesting for you.
 
Does anyone think it's bad/wierd if you have like 50 volunteering hours from random places?

Also, how would you list this on your application?
 
armybound said:
or you can just have 0 research hours and it won't matter what your GPA is.
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I forgot to put the parentheses around the first three terms. Sorry.

Since you are all complaining, here is an updated, yet still Completely Fake equation.

((X + Y + Z) / 15) x (A + B) > 1000 = guaranteed acceptance
When:
X = Volunteering Hours
Y = Work Hours
Z = Research Hours
A = cGPA
B = sGPA
Limits: cGPA>3.0 ; sGPA>3.0

Better? :laugh:
 
Slowpoke said:
The unique california volunteer program that i am a part of has a requirement of 240 hours before they can officially graduate from the program and recieve a letter of recommendation.

So considering majority of Pre-meds in california are part of this volunteer program I would say the average california applicant has over 200 volunteer hours.
Click to expand...

What program might that be? I'm a California resident and I don't think I've ever heard of this "unique volunteer program." Thanks.
 
cubssox2000 said:
I forgot to put the parentheses around the first three terms. Sorry.

Since you are all complaining, here is an updated, yet still Completely Fake equation.

((X + Y + Z) / 15) x (A + B) > 1000 = guaranteed acceptance
When:
X = Volunteering Hours
Y = Work Hours
Z = Research Hours
A = cGPA
B = sGPA
Limits: cGPA>3.0 ; sGPA>3.0

Better? :laugh:
Click to expand...
Lol, guess we dont have to take the MCAT anymore?! SCORE!
 
My guess at the average: 100 hours of clinical volunteering, and 1 or 2 other jobs that may or may not include research.
 
if you count my time as a volunteer firefighter (mind you, the above poster alluded to our daily activities), I must have roughly 3k-4k hours. but that place was my life for a while 🙂
 
Slowpoke said:
The unique california volunteer program that i am a part of has a requirement of 240 hours before they can officially graduate from the program and recieve a letter of recommendation.

So considering majority of Pre-meds in california are part of this volunteer program I would say the average california applicant has over 200 volunteer hours.
Click to expand...
Considering that you don't need their letter of recommendation (which, unless you personally know the volunteer supervisor isn't going to say much) you could do a lot less than 240 if you feel like it.
 
For 9 months i volunteered at the surgery information desk, have 107 hours... Do i need to volunteer more????
 
armybound said:
I'll agree that 100 hours may be on the upper side of "average".

You may overestimate the average applicant, though.
Click to expand...


Although there is no set-in-stone rule as to how many hours of volunteering are required and you may be right, the average applicant may have only 30-50 hours - I believe the average matriculant probabably has a little more than that.

However, since I don't sit on an actual medical school committee or personally know anybody that does take my advice with a grain of salt. Individual medical schools will obviously vary on how much importance they place on that.

I, however, being an older applicant in my thirties with a mortgage and quite a number of other bills requiring me to work full-time have had several conversations with 2 different premed committees about this vary issue. The take home message from both of these committees, was that 100 clinical hours was an un-written rule and that I must get at least that. The advisor from one of those committee told me that their medical school would not even look at your application if you didn't have approximately 100 hours regardless of age, or other factors requiring you to work full-time.
 
tchan said:
What program might that be? I'm a California resident and I don't think I've ever heard of this "unique volunteer program." Thanks.
Click to expand...

+1
are you sure it's across ALL of California?
no one I know is doing their volunteering as part of a "program"

EDIT: are you talking about the clinical care extender (I think that's what it's called) program? I really doubt more than a minority are a part of that program since spots are pretty limited :/
I always saw that more as an internship...
 
LuciusVorenus said:
+1
are you sure it's across ALL of California?
no one I know is doing their volunteering as part of a "program"

EDIT: are you talking about the clinical care extender (I think that's what it's called) program? I really doubt more than a minority are a part of that program since spots are pretty limited :/
I always saw that more as an internship...
Click to expand...

haha they have to beg to get in to the program, and once they are in, they basically wipe old peoples sh**ty asses and clean up their crap for at least 52 weeks. the person who writes their letters of rec is basically their peer (he might be like 2-4 years older)
 
Yudid said:
For 9 months i volunteered at the surgery information desk, have 107 hours... Do i need to volunteer more????
Click to expand...


Yes, you should get more, and consistency is important as well. You don't want a semester during which you didn't volunteer. It, of course, doesn't mean that you HAVE to volunteer every semester, but it's a good idea to do that. I'd estimate that the average matriculant probably has ~200+ volunteering hours over a 4-5 year college career.
 
dingyibvs said:
Yes, you should get more, and consistency is important as well. You don't want a semester during which you didn't volunteer. It, of course, doesn't mean that you HAVE to volunteer every semester, but it's a good idea to do that. I'd estimate that the average matriculant probably has ~200+ volunteering hours over a 4-5 year college career.
Click to expand...

Thanks alot 😉 I am already 1 quarter off so it is probably the time to look for new volunteer opportunities...
 
Slowpoke said:
The unique california volunteer program that i am a part of has a requirement of 240 hours before they can officially graduate from the program and recieve a letter of recommendation.

So considering majority of Pre-meds in california are part of this volunteer program I would say the average california applicant has over 200 volunteer hours.
Click to expand...

Are you in that Clinical Care Extender Program? If so, do you care to share any more specific details about it?
 
Total volunteer hours I have is around 60... and 40 are at a hospital (sophomore atm)
 
pmmendez said:
i work two full time jobs and go to school full time, im trying to volunteer as much as i can but around how many hours is the average student accomplishing when applying in medical school?
Click to expand...
I say as much as you want. But wow you have two full time jobs, and go to school full time. How are you managing that? I can't even manage one full time job.
 
armybound said:
Oh, ok.

Well in that case, I'll change my advice to this:

You're abnormal.

I'd imagine the AVERAGE pre-med probably has somewhere between 20 and 50 hours.
Click to expand...

According to the SDN Medical School Admissions Guide, the book by Christian Becker, the average volunteering for applicants to Utah is 4 hours per week for 4 years. This would be a bit over 800 hours total. Clinical exposure, whether volunteering or not, is 4 hours per week for 3 months.

Incidentally the minimums are near the averages for most extracurricular categories except volunteering. Average clinical is 48 hours, minimum is 32. While average volunteering is ~800 hours, minimum is 36.

Well, I guess we all know Utah is abnormal. :meanie:

But that doesn't say what the median is. There are likely people who do not work who are pulling the average up. They would expect less volunteering from somebody who has to work.
 
LiveUninhibited said:
According to the SDN Medical School Admissions Guide, the book by Christian Becker, the average volunteering for applicants to Utah is 4 hours per week for 4 years. This would be a bit over 800 hours total. Clinical exposure, whether volunteering or not, is 4 hours per week for 3 months.

Incidentally the minimums are near the averages for most extracurricular categories except volunteering. Average clinical is 48 hours, minimum is 32. While average volunteering is ~800 hours, minimum is 36.
Click to expand...
Utah is an unusual example for two reasons:

1. University of Utah has posted some fairly detailed data about minimum and average time commitments (either in hours per week or hours per year) a med school applicant should have for extracurriculars, volunteering, physician shadowing, etc. Many other schools do not have such explicit requirements - although they are often implicit.

2. Many of the criteria on the link above are designed to favor applicants of a certain religious background. They obviously can't discriminate on the basis of religion. But, if someone is an active and devout member of a certain religion that is common in that state, they'll very likely meet all of the community service, leadership, and other hours requirements.

LiveUninhibited said:
Well, I guess we all know Utah is abnormal. :meanie:
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Well, yeah. :laugh:

To get back to the OP, I would say that you should look at a minimum of 100-200 hours and the time duration would ideally be over months to years. Numbers like 100, 250, etc. are also often used by many volunteering programs as their own internal requirements in order to provide a letter of reference or other benefits.
 
DrAnteater said:
haha they have to beg to get in to the program, and once they are in, they basically wipe old peoples sh**ty asses and clean up their crap for at least 52 weeks. the person who writes their letters of rec is basically their peer (he might be like 2-4 years older)
Click to expand...

hahaha
good thing Hoag is too far to apply for me anyways (since I'm assuming you go to UCI too 😛)

not the kind of patient interaction I'm looking for
that's for sure
 
I think it is important to not view volunteering as something to check off your list, but rather something you do to expand your horizons. I had lots of volunteering before I was a premed, but I never truly viewed it as such. I then got into this mindset that I was "required" to have certain volunteering experiences to be successful. I did them and was miserable but did see the pros of volunteering. I then switched to things that I enjoyed more, such as mentoring kids, teaching and helping with the humane society. It honestly never felt like a chore after that. It was something I looked forward to doing after studying.

Show commitment, have some fun and do what you can. Schools aren't stupid. They can see in your application that you had little time because of other activities. I ended up having about 200+ hours (probably more). What was I doing for most of those hours? I was hanging with my little brother (big brother/big sister), teaching science/german/whatever else, walking/washing dogs and helping my elderly neighbors rebuild/cleanup after a hurricane.
 
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