Medical Including High School Experience in Med School Applications

[Question]

I know generally, it is advised that no high school experience be included in the AMCAS application; however, I believe my situation is unique enough that additional advice is needed.

In my state, we are offered the opportunity to dual enroll in college courses at a local community college, starting our junior year of high school. I chose this path and proceeded to take college classes for my junior and senior years; so that by the time I graduated high school, I also had my 2-year associate's degree.

After high school, I only had about 2.5 years of additional classes to receive my Bachelor's Degree.

My main question is if I'm allowed to include experiences from my first two years of college (freshman and sophomore year), since those overlap with high school.

— Experts please respond to this post —

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[CliveStaples]

Really it just depends on the quality of the experiences.

Were these experiences that are typical for being in high school (I.e. high school organizations)? If so, I would not mention them.

The subtext of your question is that you have only 2.5 years of experiences since high school and are concerned that this will be a disadvantage compared to people who have 4 years of college experiences. This is in fact a valid concern, but the solution is not to mention high school quality experiences. It may be an indication that you need to spend some time after college experiencing the world, making sure that medicine is for you, and gaining the necessary experiences to be the best medical school applicant you can be. There's no shame in that.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

You can, but medical schools are primarily interested in things you did while in college.

 

[GoSpursGo]

I also agree, it's more that you should take some extra time after graduating college rather than you should include HS activities

 

[PerioDont]

agreed with all of the above

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I know generally it is advised that no high school experience be included in the AMCAS application however I believe my situation is unique enough where additional advice is needed.

In my state we are offered the opportunity to dual enroll in college courses at a local community college starting our junior year of high school. I chose this path and proceeded to take college classes for my junior and senior year so that by the time I graduated high school I also had my 2 year associates degree.

After high school I only had about 2.5 years of additional classes to receive my Bachelors Degree.

My main question is if i'm allowed to include experiences from my first two years of college (freshman and sophomore year) since those overlap with high school.

— Experts please respond to this post —

You are not unique in your situation with dual enrollment.

It's fine to list high school activities if they are going to specifically help you stand out, but most applicants are not Presidential Scholars, Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship Recipients, or ISEF Grand Prize winners. They still won't be as scrutinized as items you did in college, especially prior to applying.

You can list activities you did starting in high school that carried over to college. I would focus on what you did most recently. Screeners may prorate the hours to count just the time in college (after youn started your first year) to fairly compare your experience hours to other applicants.

Ultimately I want to know whether you have an informed decision to pursue a healthcare professional career, whether you have the ability to learn from uncomfortable situations and environments consistently, that you won't scare your classmates or patients or faculty, and that you can really manage your time and priorities to know you need to do what you have to do in order to be healthy and graduate. (Note, not a complete list.)