TerrificQuote23
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-It was difficult for me to get more clinical hours because of COVID, but I think med schools probably recognize this.
-I've thought about sending update letters to the schools I applied to that haven't given me Rs yet, but I honestly don't have any updates. I'm still doing research and volunteering at the hospital, but I already mentioned that in a lot of my secondary applications, and I don't want to repeat that information if it would be seen as wasting the admissions offices' time.
Could it be valuable to still share this information in an update letter or should I wait until I have something more substantial to update them on?
This was likely not the best move. What are your 14 other slots? It is likely you have some “fluff” activities like clubs that can be removed. I would suggest doing more work with the food bank/men’s shelter (aim for 200 or more hours)For my non-clinical volunteering, I actually combined everything into one work and activities section because I had already filled up 14 of the 15 slots. For this, I did a total of 72 hours of tutoring middle schoolers from an underserved area over the course of three spring semesters. I volunteered for about 200 hours at the red cross. I also volunteered at the food bank and a local men's shelter, but this was only about 50 or so hours. The total amount of hours I put in for this non-clinical volunteering slot was about 320 hours. Also, one of the two leadership positions i held during my senior year was in a club that was dedicated to volunteering and creating volunteering/advocacy/educational opportunities for students to participate in the community. I spent 103 hours in that role.
Personal statement is why medicine and you should use clinical experiences for that. Relying on shadowing is not a good choice in my opinion since you are describing how you are passively watching what the doctor does. There is no interaction with patients.This may have been something I didn't do enough of. In my personal statement, I had a good portion of my essay dedicated to talking about my shadowing experiences and what that taught me/why that ties into why i want to do medicine. For my secondary essays, if the questions talked about medicine specifically, I would use my clinical experiences. However, many of the prompts did not seem to be directly tied to clinical experiences (or maybe that's just the way I interpreted it), so I would talk about other experiences (extracurricular, personal, etc.)