how to record community service/volunteer hours

[paradigms]

Hi all,

I am involved in two separate community service endeavors at the moment. I have a total of 3 hours travel time/week. Should I include these hours? I feel like I am "cheating", but at the same time it is a good deal of time that is dedicated solely to getting to where I need to be. Any thoughts?

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[MedPR]

Hi all,

I am involved in two separate community service endeavors at the moment. For the first, I only am committed to 1 hour/week at the moment, but it takes me an hour of total travel time. The second has me doing 8-10/week, and takes me 2 hours to travel back and forth. Should I include these hours in my "weekly total"? I feel like I am "cheating." I don't like the idea of bs'ing the amount of time that I am involved, but it seems that I should at least hold the travel time as partially included, because of the concept of volunteering, in which one sacrifices their time for the sake of another, or others. Any thoughts?

Do whatever you want. Hours don't really matter anyway.

 

[HalfListic]

Do whatever you want. Hours don't really matter anyway.

I agree, hours per week are not a big concern. (as long as they aren't ridiculously short).

Some things that do seem to matter to schools:

-longevity with any certain project. Being involved longer with a program seems to be more impressive.

-Any leadership experience you have in the project.

 

[paradigms]

I agree, hours per week are not a big concern. (as long as they aren't ridiculously short).

Some things that do seem to matter to schools:

-longevity with any certain project. Being involved longer with a program seems to be more impressive.

-Any leadership experience you have in the project.

I should be involved at these for at least a year and a half before I apply. My hospital volunteer work I have been doing off and on for at least a year and a half, so it will be about three years there. Honestly, I got tired of restocking linens. I have a some good clinical experiences there, like some outpatient surg observations, rad/onc shadowing and tumor boards. I saw some stuff in the ER as well, but eh idk. I much prefer some family doc shadowing and community service work. I just wish that I started it sooner. The community service work has become very important to me. I am afraid that it won't look it because of the length of time that I will have done this work for (1.5 years).


Edit: I will most likely be interning with at least one of the community service organizations that I am volunteering with. At least it is something.

 

[TriagePreMed]

Hi all,

I am involved in two separate community service endeavors at the moment. I have a total of 3 hours travel time/week. Should I include these hours? I feel like I am "cheating", but at the same time it is a good deal of time that is dedicated solely to getting to where I need to be. Any thoughts?

My opinion is that it is cheating. You're not doing community service during that time and nobody is obligating you to go that far.

 

[gmcguitar4]

They don't care about the numbers. Just give an estimate and be able to discuss the experience. But yea, travel time isn't volunteering. Similarly, I leave home to travel to work at 8am and get there by 9 and leave at 5 and get home at 6, yet I am only paid for those hours that I am there.

 

[CapCrunch]

My opinion is that it is cheating. You're not doing community service during that time and nobody is obligating you to go that far.

What stops someone from fudging their volunteer hours? It seems like such an arbitrary process.

 

[BuddyTheElf]

Like everyone else has said, it doesn't really matter. No school checks into this stuff (at least none that I know of). Personally, I would count it. It's not your own free time, it's time dedicated to getting to your volunteer site. Just my opinion, though. Like I said, it doesn't really matter to know the exact hours, just approximate. And be able to discuss your volunteering at length in case it comes up during an interview (and you'll need to write about it on the AACOMAS application).

 

[abolt18]

I never included travel time. Arrival time to departure time = volunteer time. Also to record them, I just wrote everything in a notebook every time I did something. (service, volunteering, shadowing, club stuff, tutoring)

 

[MedPR]

What stops someone from fudging their volunteer hours? It seems like such an arbitrary process.

Integrity.

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[HalfListic]

Integrity.

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and sometimes carpal tunnel...those applications are long enough without adding fake stuff.

 

[paradigms]

Thank you; yeah I never have included travel time over the past couple of years. I may speak with the organizations that I volunteer with about it.

To be honest, adding on another hour per week, in which I do around 10 hours of volunteer work (sometimes up to twenty though), will add maybe 70 hours over the next year and a half, but relative to the amount that I will "accumulate", and already have, 70 hours isn't a huge amount. It will be negligible.

For me it is about the experience, taking a leadership role in organizations that are seeking to positively affect the conditions of a large group of people, and given that this group is so large, they are therefore seeking to positively affect the conditions of those who physicians see on a daily basis. Knowing the individual experiences of a large group, defined by their economic status, is something that I have realized is extremely important. It should be that a genuine passion or interest in something should be followed by a large amount of hours put into it. But, I suppose that I will have enough experience to speak in depth on everything, and since this is the goal of even doing service work in the first place, the amount of hours really falls to the way-side, provided that I have in fact gained sufficient experience.

 

[TriagePreMed]

What stops someone from fudging their volunteer hours? It seems like such an arbitrary process.

Integrity is the correct answer, but even as an appeal to logic why fudge those hours? I volunteered a long time at a hospital for a few hours on each shift. Do I think if I added 100 hours on top for the same period of length I'll magically be given the red carpet to medical school? No, so why risk doing that when you can get caught and not get in at all?

 

[CapCrunch]

Integrity is the correct answer, but even as an appeal to logic why fudge those hours? I volunteered a long time at a hospital for a few hours on each shift. Do I think if I added 100 hours on top for the same period of length I'll magically be given the red carpet to medical school? No, so why risk doing that when you can get caught and not get in at all?

Woah, woah..I'm not saying I would fudge the hours, just curious as to what measures are in place to make sure it doesn't happen. I have more than enough community service- to the point where I need to slow down to make time for other things.

 

[TriagePreMed]

Woah, woah..I'm not saying I would fudge the hours, just curious as to what measures are in place to make sure it doesn't happen. I have more than enough community service- to the point where I need to slow down to make time for other things.

I wasn't saying or implying you would fudge hours.