Thank you! Tulane was actually my second choice school, my first being UNMC since I'm actually from Nebraska. Since I was OOS for Michigan, I only applied to U of M (my undergrad -didn't get in). That being said, Michigan is a pretty decent place to be from, since you have like 6 IS med schools. I chose Tulane because of the location, their emphasis on community involvement, and most importantly student testimonies. Pretty much everyone I know who went to Tulane, and current students had positive things to say about the school, and their classmates. Tulane is huge on fostering good relationships between students. They do not have class ranks until 3rd and fourth year, and go out of their way to facilitate peer bonding. Plus the location is awesome and I can drink wherever I want
.
So I used SDN a TON in high school, and then a lot my freshman year. It started to make me a little neurotic so I quit during my sophomore year. I came back while I took the MCAT, and during the application process. While I was on a couple waitlists, I only checked the school specific threads, because the other ones made me feel bad.
Now I'm back on again and hope I can contribute positively to this forum. Overall I think it was helpful by keeping me on the right path, but reading into it too much can be detrimental to your sanity, especially the WAMC threads that think they are screwed with a 3.9 / 36 MCAT or whatever the new equivalent is. My recommendation would be to use it and abuse it until it is no longer helpful to you. It's tough to help others on this site as a sophomore or Junior because you really haven't gone through the process that other people need help on.
I was apart of maybe 5 clubs total and I was only really active in two of them. I definitely would recommend finding a club you like, best way to do that would be to find out what clubs your friends are in that are somewhat philanthropic and join those. I was on the board for Habitat for Humanity at my (also large) college. I like the whole building houses thing, but I was super into hanging out with my best friend, going to bars to work on budgets/meeting agendas, and going to Habitat parties. Med schools do like to see leadership, but if you were able to find something just as meaningful outside of college then I can't imagine it would hurt you too much. Also, I joined Habitat halfway through my sophomore year, so don't think you don't have time or anything.
No problem! Anything to contribute to the site that helped me out.