Only one summer of volunteering experience

[Check22]

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Is one summer of volunteering experience in a hospital sufficient to get into medical school?

I can't find time anymore to volunteer between school, work, and research but one plausible scenario is that I drop research to volunteer or take a gap year to volunteer. I have to work to pay my rent and living expenses (parents are in another country and have their own financial problems). Should I consider dropping research for a while / taking a gap year just to volunteer? My summers are filled with classes that I have to take or else I have to spend 5 years to get my BS degree.

During that one summer I volunteered for 200 hrs and shadowed for 50 hrs if it has any impact. Only other EC I have are an expected 3 years of research (plenty of publications and presentations to follow) and tutoring. GPA is a 3.9 and I think I can pull off a 4.0 every semester from now on.
Assuming that those are my only EC, do I have a shot? I know some colleges like Mount Sinai has volunteering at the top priority so I probably won't get into schools like those, but how will the "average" medical school view my ECs?

Sorry for the long read, and thanks for your insight.

 

[Planes2Doc]

Is one summer of volunteering experience in a hospital sufficient to get into medical school?

I can't find time anymore to volunteer between school, work, and research but one plausible scenario is that I drop research to volunteer or take a gap year to volunteer. I have to work to pay my rent and living expenses (parents are in another country and have their own financial problems). Should I consider dropping research for a while / taking a gap year just to volunteer? My summers are filled with classes that I have to take or else I have to spend 5 years to get my BS degree.

During that one summer I volunteered for 200 hrs and shadowed for 50 hrs if it has any impact. Only other EC I have are an expected 3 years of research (plenty of publications and presentations to follow) and tutoring. GPA is a 3.9 and I think I can pull off a 4.0 every semester from now on.
Assuming that those are my only EC, do I have a shot? I know some colleges like Mount Sinai has volunteering at the top priority so I probably won't get into schools like those, but how will the "average" medical school view my ECs?

Sorry for the long read, and thanks for your insight.

Wow 200? How many hours per week was that? Here's the problem, even though it's high in absolute hours, and goes above the typical non-SDN applicant average of 100-150 hours, it will look like you did it over the summer for the sake of checking a box and that was it (even though more than 90% are probably checking a box for the sake of it as well). They will wonder why you didn't continue it and blah blah blah?

They like to see consistency, because that that shows that people can at least pretend to care about service. So what you can do is restart volunteering, do it once a week, and make sure it's timed that you will still be doing (as a present activity) when you apply to medical school. It'll look more genuine... Ack.

But the summer is a red flag, which is pretty stupid when you think about it, but that's the way it is.

The 50 hours of shadowing is sufficient hours-wise, make sure it's with multiple physicians. This is literally a check-list item, but doesn't need to be a consistent thing. Volunteering, on the other hand, needs to be carefully timed for the people who are doing it as a checklist item and wish to do the least amount of hours as possible.