Longtime volunteering EC

[NP545]

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Ever since middle school, I've been involved in a biweekly religious gatherings in which I sort of volunteer with setting up, cleaning, and supervising kids. I've had thousands of hours with this and wanted to know whether I should include it on my MD school app. Obviously I started this even before I got an interest in medicine, and now it occurred to me that it may be listed as a non clinical volunteer experience. I've been continuing it since then and enjoy being involved. Should I even bother listing this (writing 999 hours) or should I leave it off because this is something which I do for religious/non-medical reasons?

 

[Pacna]

Definitely include.

 

[Planes2Doc]

Ever since middle school, I've been involved in a biweekly religious gatherings in which I sort of volunteer with setting up, cleaning, and supervising kids. I've had thousands of hours with this and wanted to know whether I should include it on my MD school app. Obviously I started this even before I got an interest in medicine, and now it occurred to me that it may be listed as a non clinical volunteer experience. I've been continuing it since then and enjoy being involved. Should I even bother listing this (writing 999 hours) or should I leave it off because this is something which I do for religious/non-medical reasons?

Yes!!! Leave it on! It's always considered okay to leave something on your application from before college as long as you continued it into college. This will show that you are genuinely altruistic, and those thousands of hours will be killer on your application!

 

[el_duderino]

You've been actively leading and volunteering in your community for thousands of hours over many years, and you think it's not worth including in your app??

The ECs section of AMCAS isn't meant to be a place you list all reasons you're so awesome at health care or medicine already. You're not. The EC section is meant for you to paint a picture of WHO YOU ARE and WHAT YOU DO. They want to see that you have familiarity with the profession (shadowing) and that you actually want to be around sick people (clinical volunteering or clinical work), but it's just as important for them to see that you're actually a decent and interesting human being. Things like community service, sports, and hobbies are a big part of that.

 

[accueil]

Ever since middle school, I've been involved in a biweekly religious gatherings in which I sort of volunteer with setting up, cleaning, and supervising kids. I've had thousands of hours with this and wanted to know whether I should include it on my MD school app. Obviously I started this even before I got an interest in medicine, and now it occurred to me that it may be listed as a non clinical volunteer experience. I've been continuing it since then and enjoy being involved. Should I even bother listing this (writing 999 hours) or should I leave it off because this is something which I do for religious/non-medical reasons?

FYI 999 hours is no longer the limit on hours, so include however many you actually did.

 

[NP545]

I'm not really sure how many hours it exactly amounts to... at least 1,000... should I just limit it to 1000 or 999 instead of going overboard with more than that?
Also, for the contact information/reference, it is a gathering between 10-20 families every week in alternating houses so whose contact info should I give- my parents, another parent's? If they call to confirm, Im not sure whoever the recipient of the call would say I did 1000 hours volunteering because they may not have been there since I was.

I don't want to list something with insanely high hours only to have it create a red flag when the adcoms get suspicious of the large hours and call the reference...
On a screening, would adcoms look at this high amount of hours and assume I was lying and automatically reject me?
Finally, I was not in a leadership position with this activity, just a regular member/volunteer, still worth mentioning?

Thanks

 

[accueil]

I'm not really sure how many hours it exactly amounts to... at least 1,000... should I just limit it to 1000 or 999 instead of going overboard with more than that?
Also, for the contact information/reference, it is a gathering between 10-20 families every week in alternating houses so whose contact info should I give- my parents, another parent's? If they call to confirm, Im not sure whoever the recipient of the call would say I did 1000 hours volunteering because they may not have been there since I was.

I don't want to list something with insanely high hours only to have it create a red flag when the adcoms get suspicious of the large hours and call the reference...
On a screening, would adcoms look at this high amount of hours and assume I was lying and automatically reject me?
Finally, I was not in a leadership position with this activity, just a regular member/volunteer, still worth mentioning?

Thanks

Why would they be suspicious? You've been doing it since MIDDLE SCHOOL; of course, you would have a ton of hours. I had a similarly longtime commitment that was hard to estimate the number of hours. Just provide your best estimate. If you know it was at least 1200 hours, put 1200 hours, etc.

As for if you should mention it, why not? Are your 15 spots filled? ADCOMs don't have magic powers to learn about you; they only know what you tell them. If you've been doing it for 8+ years, I would assume it's important to you. If it's important to you, I'm sure ADCOMs would like to know about it as well.

 

[Lamel]

I don't even think hours are the concern with this, it could be 100 or 1000, the fact that you've stuck to something for so long says a lot more.

 

[NP545]

The longetivity is due to religious purposes. There also also annual gatherings in sightseeing places like California or Minnesota which I try to attend as well.
I'm not sure what I could say if an adcom asked me to elaborate on this activity.... "It's an involved religious event that I volunteer to supervise little kids along with setting up/cleaning up" doesnt sound like much and may look to be anti climactic for something with 1000 hours... lol

Could @Goro or @LizzyM shed some light about an adcom's view towards this activity?