Is volunteer tutoring for refugee youth communities sufficiently strong non-clinical experience?

[alpacalover2024]

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I have several hundred hours of non-clinical tutoring for children who have been forcibly displaced from their countries of origin and now have refugee/asylum-seeking immigration statuses. I use trauma-informed teaching techniques to not only provide homework help but also primarily provide ESL/ENL help. The large majority of my non-clinical experience has been as a volunteer tutor for underserved communities such as urban refugee ones but also K-12 students in low-resource school districts. Additionally, I teach students who are currently living in conflict-affected countries (specifically Syria) English. I've heard mixed things about the strength of tutoring on an application, so would love to know if this being the majority of my non-clinical experience could pose an issue.

My other teaching experience is more traditional TA stuff at my university but obviously I am not trying to frame that as anything other than "teaching."

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Tutoring, teaching, or mentoring is an academic activity regardless of the student characteristics. Every prehealth/premed applicant has some tutoring, teaching, or mentoring activity on their application, so it won't help you stand out. You need service orientation activities where you are not a subject matter expert, and most academically accomplished individuals need to pursue activities outside their comfort zone or don't leverage being good in a classroom setting.

Now, it's great you are working with marginalized students. That counts in a different way for file review, and I presume it informs adcoms about your purpose as a physician. I'll talk about Mission Fit with more details.

Thread 'Mission Fit for your School List Q&A - April 13, 2025 at 9:00 PM Eastern'

Mar 27, 2025

Join SDN and Emil Chuck, PhD as we discuss assessing your mission fit with health professional programs. Learn how to determine which schools have a mission that resonates with your personal values and goals as a future healthcare professional.

Post your questions for this livestream below!

• WildWing
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