Opinion needed about applying to Low-Yield Schools

[lilymatisse]

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[HomeSkool]

Clinical volunteering and shadowing are very important, much more so than research at almost all schools. Those are gaps you need to get filled in, even if it means taking a gap year to do it. (Look at it this way: if you submit a sub-par application, you'll end up taking a forced gap year anyway.) Refer to @LizzyM's guidance on the number of hours you should be targeting: How many volunteer hours are solid?.

 

[Oso]

Agree with The @HomeSkool. It's only the first week of March, I think you have time to get in some solid volunteering and shadowing hours before you have to submit your application. If not, then I would take a gap year to strengthen your application.. why submit a less than stellar application if you can easily make it stronger with just a little more time?

 

[xochitl]

Agree with The @HomeSkool. It's only the first week of March, I think you have time to get in some solid volunteering and shadowing hours before you have to submit your application. If not, then I would take a gap year to strengthen your application.. why submit a less than stellar application if you can easily make it stronger with just a little more time?

just here cuz your name and avatar cracked me up

 

[Goro]

Hi everyone! First thread created here. I am applying this upcoming cycle and weaning down a list of schools. I am a moderately high-stats applicant, with very solid research experience, but my clinical volunteering and shadowing is a bit of a blemish on my application.
I was wondering if this would make me a better or worse applicant for "low yield" medical schools? Specifically, is there a part of the application that they screen out based on if it is "too good" (for example stats, shadowing/volunteering, etc)? I am drawn to a lot of these schools, as seems most everybody, so I'm wondering how heavily I should narrow down my list.

there there are stats ****** among the Top Schools, that doesn't mean you get to skate by with poor ECs. A lot of the top schools seem to like service to others.

 

[Afp0731]

I do have 4 years (~300 hours) of non-clinical volunteering running a club where we teach swim lessons to kids on free or reduced lunch, will hopefully have some shadowing and 100 hours doing an internship in a New Orleans ER by the time I submit in June, which is kind of a jumble of observing physicians, helping with some patient care and making sure supplies are around for nurses, rooms are cleaned properly, etc. Definitely a lot of patient smells involved. I am graduating in May and for taking a gap year and probably will continue doing research, but may try to get a job as an ER Tech on the side. Hopefully a poster or co-authorship on a paper will come out of it. I'm also applying MD/PhD where I can, and my pre-med advisor seems to think that my app looks decent for that but IDK how much to believe that! Thank you, everyone, for the input!!

There is a muscular dystrophy association summer camp in Alexandria a few hours away from you this summer. Great way to bolster that EC resume