Need your opinion

[Min:))]

I will be a junior this fall and am planning on taking the MCAT in January. I'm taking 13 hours and volunteering once a week.

Should I scribe for one/sometimes two days a week in order to gain more clinical experience (I'll do around 80 hours of shadowing before applying anyways)?

OR should i wait till after the mcat and only work for 4 months as a scribe before submitting my app?

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[Catalystik]

I will be a junior this fall and am planning on taking the MCAT in January. I'm taking 13 hours and volunteering once a week.

Should I scribe for one/sometimes two days a week in order to gain more clinical experience (I'll do around 80 hours of shadowing before applying anyways)?

OR should i wait till after the mcat and only work for 4 months as a scribe before submitting my app?

Shadowing is a passive observational activity. What active clinical experience have you acquired already? When did you start that activity? Do you also have some nonmedical community service you can list on the application?

 

[Min:))]

Shadowing is a passive observational activity. What active clinical experience have you acquired already? When did you start that activity? Do you also have some nonmedical community service you can list on the application?

Just shadowing for clinical experience and I started it a month ago. Yes, I have over 500 volunteer hours outside of medicine. I just wanted to see if it's worth scribing an extra few months or devoting all my time towards the mcat.

 

[ciestar]

Just shadowing for clinical experience and I started it a month ago. Yes, I have over 500 volunteer hours outside of medicine. I just wanted to see if it's worth scribing an extra few months or devoting all my time towards the mcat.

Shadowing is a passive activity and is not enough to convince an adcom you want to spend your entire career working with sick people

Also, 80 hours clinical experience is on the low side.

 

[Catalystik]

Just shadowing for clinical experience and I started it a month ago. Yes, I have over 500 volunteer hours outside of medicine. I just wanted to see if it's worth scribing an extra few months or devoting all my time towards the mcat.

I would say it's essential to your application being taken seriously to start some active clinical experience ASAP, hoping that 11 months worth will be sufficient to convince adcomms that you have adequately tested medicine as a career (assuming you start in July 2018 and apply in June 2019). So, yes, it will be worth it to start 1-2 days per week for the extra months.

About 50 shadowing hours would be enough, so long as they include a primary care physician.

500 non-medical volunteer hours is well above the average. So good on you.

 

[Min:))]

I would say it's essential to your application being taken seriously to start some active clinical experience ASAP, hoping that 11 months worth will be sufficient to convince adcomms that you have adequately tested medicine as a career (assuming you start in July 2018 and apply in June 2019). So, yes, it will be worth it to start 1-2 days per week for the extra months.

About 50 shadowing hours would be enough, so long as they include a primary care physician.

500 non-medical volunteer hours is well above the average. So good on you.

Thanks for the help but the word "hoping" is really scaring me haha