Not finishing projected hours

[Pooker_]

I was wondering what happens if you don't finish projected hours on your amcas application. So the three scenarios would be.
1. You overprojected and simply did not finish.
2. You changed ECs such as switching volunteer places
3. You just decided to stop for some other reason.
So if you don't finish the hours is it likely that you could have any acceptance taken away? Will they be explicit and say that you have to complete all hours put on your application?

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[500miles]

I was wondering what happens if you don't finish projected hours on your amcas application. So the three scenarios would be.
1. You overprojected and simply did not finish.
2. You changed ECs such as switching volunteer places
3. You just decided to stop for some other reason.
So if you don't finish the hours is it likely that you could have any acceptance taken away? Will they be explicit and say that you have to complete all hours put on your application?

It seems like the consensus from another thread is that the adcoms put little to no stock in projected hours. So if they accepted you, it was probably not because you promised to do 5000 hours of volunteer work at the homeless shelter. I wouldn't want to get caught up in promising something that I didn't do, but it doesn't seem an acceptance would be based off of that anyway.

 

[pug49]

No, I don't think so. I would believe they are too busy to go through and audit all of their accepted student's applications and follow through on projected hours for X activity. Maybe they could do spot checks on random EC's and call up the contact you put down, but I doubt anything else. It'd be too much work to battle a student over X amount of random EC hours and try to rescind an acceptance over that

 

[Pooker_]

No, I don't think so. I would believe they are too busy to go through and audit all of their accepted student's applications and follow through on projected hours for X activity. Maybe they could do spot checks on random EC's and call up the contact you put down, but I doubt anything else. It'd be too much work to battle a student over X amount of random EC hours and try to rescind an acceptance over that

So if you get an acceptance and the EC's were just to secure an acceptance could you stop doing them/tone the hours way down without worry?

 

[500miles]

So if you get an acceptance and the EC's were just to secure an acceptance could you stop doing them/tone the hours way down without worry?

Your assuming they based their decision off of hours you haven't done yet.

 

[Pooker_]

Your assuming they based their decision off of hours you haven't done yet.

No, but it could be a contributing factor especially if it is a late interview, if an update letter was sent, or if I'm wait-listed. I agree if I get an interview immediately then it had little to do with the "future" hours, but I'm just trying to verify as to how binding those things are viewed by adcoms and if they genuinely expect you to finish all of those hours and how it would negatively impact you if you didn't for whatever reason.

 

[pug49]

So if you get an acceptance and the EC's were just to secure an acceptance could you stop doing them/tone the hours way down without worry?

Yeah, nothing to worry about. Life happens, plans change. I wouldn't just stop / tone the hours down for no reason at all but that's just me as a person. Highly highly unlikely it will be audited or cared about whether or not you just drop the hours for no reason at all. I assume pretty much everyone overestimates projected hours

 

[Catalystik]

I was wondering what happens if you don't finish projected hours on your amcas application. So the three scenarios would be.
1. You overprojected and simply did not finish.
2. You changed ECs such as switching volunteer places
3. You just decided to stop for some other reason.
So if you don't finish the hours is it likely that you could have any acceptance taken away? Will they be explicit and say that you have to complete all hours put on your application?

Yeah, nothing to worry about. Life happens, plans change. I wouldn't just stop / tone the hours down for no reason at all but that's just me as a person. Highly highly unlikely it will be audited or cared about whether or not you just drop the hours for no reason at all. I assume pretty much everyone overestimates projected hours

Different schools look at these issues differently. I think that a blanket statement of "nothing to worry about" is misleading. Recall that schools confirming your activities often don't do so until the accepted class matriculates. If all your activity projections are 50% off, you'll probably have some explaining to do, that hopefully won't cast doubt on the quality of your character.

1) Over projecting one activity is unlikely to hurt you.

2)& 3) Substituting one activity for another is not a problem and is probably the best approach to prematurely stopping an activity. Often this is explained in Secondaries, update letters, or at interviews, so there are no surprises.

***I think the majority of applicants make a good faith estimate of their future hours and don't exaggerate them. But broken legs, illness, and sick family members happen.

 

[FlowRate]

I was never on a med school admissions committee, but I just can't imagine people calling your 2hr/week volunteer gig in May to see whether you're still going strong. That said, I would advise against stopping all of your activities cold-turkey as soon as you submit your primary. And obviously +1 to everything Cat said.

 

[DubbiDoctor]

It doesn't really matter. ADCOMs care about sustained volunteering over long periods of time (the buzzword is "longitudinal"). For the most part, you'll be accepted or rejected based on what you've done by the time you submit your application. If you include curing cancer in your projected activities, that won't get you into harvard med.

 

[500miles]

No, but it could be a contributing factor especially if it is a late interview, if an update letter was sent, or if I'm wait-listed. I agree if I get an interview immediately then it had little to do with the "future" hours, but I'm just trying to verify as to how binding those things are viewed by adcoms and if they genuinely expect you to finish all of those hours and how it would negatively impact you if you didn't for whatever reason.

If you sent an update you would probably be updating them on things you have already completed. You wouldn't send a letter that promised more hours after you already promised hours on the application. I just think you might be thinking about this too much. But let's just say you got to an interview and they pull out your app and say "tell us how those 200 hours of X you promised on your primary went?" This is probably something you should be more afraid of then the probably short amount of time between acceptance and matriculation that they may find out you didn't finish that thing you promised. Just dont lie and say I'm gonna do 1000 hours of community service and then never do it, or have a good replacement or reason if you dont finish something