How to count hours and classify experience for AMCAS?

[agirlwithdrdreams]

My childhood summer camp is a big part of my life, my love for children (want to be pediatrician) and who I am as a person. I spent a week there every summer for 8 years, then did a leadership program through them, and have volunteered as a staff for 3 summers as well as working there for 1 summer during high school. I will not be working there this summer, but will be volunteering for 1-2 weeks.

That being said, I am unsure about how to classify this experiment? Part of it is work and part of it is volunteering that I started in high school and continued in college.

About the volunteering aspect... I know that nothing you do in high school counts unless you continue in college, but would this be one of those cases. I volunteered for two weeks each in the summers of 2016 and 2017 (high school) and in 2020 (college). [Worked in 2019 between college years 1 and 2] Can I count it as volunteering?

Also this is a tricky experience to count hours. Technically for those 6 days that the campers were there, we worked every hour of every day (except 1 hour break). We also slept in cabins with the kiddos, and although sleeping doesn't usually count as work, there were many nights were I stayed up and got 2-3 hrs of sleep at best due to crying kiddos, etc. (I know it's not healthy, but it was worth it). So do I technically count like 20 hours of work every day the campers were there?

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[LizzyM]

Going to start from the bottom: Don't count anything as 168 hours per week. Adcoms see right through that. You can maybe say 98 hours (average of 14 hours/ day) and describe your need to be available 24/7 for campers but don't try to claim that you got 4 hours sleep per night for an entire week.

If you were a volunteer for 3 summers and will be volunteering this summer, list it. You can write in the description of the volunteer service that you had previously worked there during HS but don't use a slot to describe a job you held in HS. What you do as an adult is more important than things you did as a child.

 

[agirlwithdrdreams]

You can write in the description of the volunteer service that you had previously worked there during HS but don't use a slot to describe a job you held in HS.

I am so sorry if I didn't make this clear:

I was in high school from 2014-2018 and volunteered during 2016 and 2017
I was in college from 2018-2022 and worked 2019 and volunteered 2020 and hopefully 2021. So I worked there during college, not high school.

 

[LizzyM]

OK. So list the activity for 2019, 2020, and 2021 (you can list several distinct time periods), tag it employment and say in the description that you were actually a volunteer in 2020 and 2021. Better to do it that way than to tag it "volunteer" when you were actually paid for the biggest of the time commitments. Don't waste two spaces on this one place.

 

[agirlwithdrdreams]

Perfect -- will do! Thank you so much!