Lack of shadowing=auto reject?

[Hardbody]

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I have a slight problem. I have minimal shadowing experience. Right now I have about 35 hours of shadowing (M.D.'s), and even fewer hours of volunteer time (homeless shelter). I plan to get some more shadowing in, but I am very busy and have little spare time. If I decide to apply to medical school this year will this lack of EC's hurt my app.?

 

[chiddy]

ECs are a part of your application. You also need good grades, GPA, MCAT, and letters of recommendation. Without knowing what those are, no one can really give you a good sense of if your ECs are going to hurt you or not. Although anything is better than nothing, so don't worry too much, there is no auto-reject without shadowing that I know of.

 

[Hardbody]

ECs are a part of your application. You also need good grades, GPA, MCAT, and letters of recommendation. Without knowing what those are, no one can really give you a good sense of if your ECs are going to hurt you or not. Although anything is better than nothing, so don't worry too much, there is no auto-reject without shadowing that I know of.

I just crunched my numbers and my gpa will be approximately 3.5, science-3.7 (only one upper level science class which is human physiology). The last 100+ credit hours I have nailed with over a 3.9 gpa taking heavy course loads and working many hours. My prereqs are 3/4's finished with a solid A in all classes, and this semester O-Chem 2 looks like it would take a major screw up to lose my A, Physics 2 is going to be a tight finish (I am borderline A/B, my professor does not use +/-'s). I will be taking the MCAT in August, and I am pretty sure that I will have at least a decent MCAT score.

I am also a quasi non-trad since I stopped attending school for a couple of years due to initial poor academic performance. Maybe that helps a bit, but the only part of my app. I am concerned with is my minimal shadowing hours. I am working heavy hours and taking 20+ credit hours, I have virtually no free time so it is not that simple for me to go rack up on hours.

 

[Amy B]

Shadowing is not a big part of your application. Your ECE are however. Those include volunteering at places such as free clinics, EMT, hospitals, shelters, ect....... Those are what schools are looking for. I did shadow for awhile, but i didnt even include that on my application. I had 3 years at a free clinic and also volunteered at a cancer center. Those are the things I included and I was accepted just fine.

My suggestion..pick a thing you like and a thing you can contribute a good amount of time to. The ECEs are also a way a school can look at you to see if you have even been around sick people. As a free clinic trainer, I was amazed at teh number of premeds we had come through teh clinic with the intention of going to med school, only to find out they hated being around sick people. And that's ok, better to find out early than to spend time and money to find out health profession is not for you.

Good luck.

 

[cbertino]

I just crunched my numbers and my gpa will be approximately 3.5, science-3.7 (only one upper level science class which is human physiology). The last 100+ credit hours I have nailed with over a 3.9 gpa taking heavy course loads and working many hours. My prereqs are 3/4's finished with a solid A in all classes, and this semester O-Chem 2 looks like it would take a major screw up to lose my A, Physics 2 is going to be a tight finish (I am borderline A/B, my professor does not use +/-'s). I will be taking the MCAT in August, and I am pretty sure that I will have at least a decent MCAT score.

I am also a quasi non-trad since I stopped attending school for a couple of years due to initial poor academic performance. Maybe that helps a bit, but the only part of my app. I am concerned with is my minimal shadowing hours. I am working heavy hours and taking 20+ credit hours, I have virtually no free time so it is not that simple for me to go rack up on hours.

I had no shadowing hours and I got 4 interviews this cycle. I do have extensive volunteer hours. I don't think it is all that important if you have everything else in place.

 

[yanky5]

You don't need to do shadowing. Volunteering in a hospital is a good substitute. I volunteered in a hospital and NEVER did any shadowing and I only got positive remarks about my helthcare experience.

 

[Hardbody]

Has anyone gained admission with less than 50 hours of volunteering and minimum shadowing?

Also, how bad will taking the MCAT in August hurt me? I am pretty much locked into that date now, I haven't had enough free time this semester to have taken the MCAT this month.

 

[chiddy]

Applying in August should be fine. I didn't take the MCAT last August but got my application in around that time anyway because of some problems I ran into with my transcripts/letters of recommendation. I got into my first choice school. Just make sure you have your letters of recommendation, transcript, and application complete/saved before August. Then all you have to do is submit it when your scores come out.

 

[FrkyBgStok]

i work a lot, school full time, volunteer four hours/week, shadow every once in a while, but the best is the March of Dimes. I really love their cause and I only do it once every couple weeks on sat. maybe try to get something like this cause you should have better ECs.

 

[Hardbody]

i work a lot, school full time, volunteer four hours/week, shadow every once in a while, but the best is the March of Dimes. I really love their cause and I only do it once every couple weeks on sat. maybe try to get something like this cause you should have better ECs.

Yeah, I am doing what I can do (which isn't much) but I seriously have no time. I am working full time and taking over 20 credit hours this semester, plus I have to sqeeze 5 half a$$ workouts in sometime during the week so I don't turn into a marshmellow. I have just about zero time for family at this point and I am pretty much pushing myself to my limit. I work the hours I work because I have no choice, and I take the course load I take because that is what I feel I have to do in order to get my application looked at. I am in the process of bringing my gpa up from the bottom of the ocean (and have pretty much done so), but this did not leave much time for anything else. I guess the only good thing about taking the MCAT in August is that it will buy me some time to maybe get some EC's in even thought they will be last minute.

 

[jace's mom]

I was at TCOM's Open House yesterday, and one of the profs who is on the admission review board (can't think of the correct name for that right now) said that shadowing was an absolute must. He said it was almost impossible to get invited for an interview a their school if you hadn't shadowed a DO, because not shadowing indicated that you didn't know anything about the profession (his words, not mine). However, he said even a few hours of shadowing was good...more was better, but even a little bit was much better than nothing at all.

 

[Spankete87]

I have a slight problem. I have minimal shadowing experience. Right now I have about 35 hours of shadowing (M.D.'s), and even fewer hours of volunteer time (homeless shelter). I plan to get some more shadowing in, but I am very busy and have little spare time. If I decide to apply to medical school this year will this lack of EC's hurt my app.?

It depends on what your grades and MCAT are. IF you have good grades and MCAT, what you have now should be sufficient to get you in the door. IF you have ok grades and an ok MCAT, sometimes great ECs will really boost you. The only thing that might cause you a problem is if you don't have a letter of rec from a D.O. Most schools highly recommend (if not require) a letter of rec from a D.O. So, I'd shadow a D.O. at least once and see if he/she will write a letter of rec for you. Aside from that I would set some volunteering up for the fall while you study for the MCAT and put that on your application. I really don't think you'll have too much of a problem as long as your stats are pretty decent. Good Luck and don't push yourself over the edge. 😉

 

[OwnageMobile]

Just do something you like. I think doing perfunctory chores that you use to check off items on this craptastic scavenger hunt we go on as pre-meds hurts you and can easily hurt your chances in the long run.