Put all my extracurriculars on the app?

[deadclam]

Hi everyone,

Before I explain my question a little more thoroughly, I need to give a very brief background of my situation:

So I am entering my senior year this Fall, and won't be applying to med school until a couple years later (2 gap years). I decided on wanting to go into medicine last year as Junior, so consequently I have to stay either 4.5 years of 5 years to get my degree, mcat, etc. My biggest goal for my Fresh. and Soph. years was to figure out what I wanted to pursue for a career so all of my extra curric. at the time were geared towards that goal - I dabbled in a lot of different things, generally only for a semester each. Many of these extra curricular were geared towards business actually.

So my question is, should I even put/mention these extra curricular on my app when the time comes to apply? Some of these one-semester extra curricular have been very significant to me and I can explain very thoroughly why they are so, whereas some of these other extra curricular have primarily served the purpose of helping me "weed out" potential career options, and some other activities have been just for fun (i.e. 1-year men's chorus Freshman year).

Obviously now I have more "pre-med" activities under my belt and will include those in my app. but what about these other ones that are not medically related?

By the way, this is my first post on SDN (just joined) so please let me know if this post was too long, etc.

Thanks!

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[Catalystik]

I am entering my senior year this Fall, and won't be applying to med school until a couple years later (2 gap years). I decided on wanting to go into medicine last year as Junior, so consequently I have to stay either 4.5 years of 5 years to get my degree, mcat, etc. My biggest goal for my Fresh. and Soph. years was to figure out what I wanted to pursue for a career so all of my extra curric. at the time were geared towards that goal - I dabbled in a lot of different things, generally only for a semester each. Many of these extra curricular were geared towards business actually.

So my question is, should I even put/mention these extra curricular on my app when the time comes to apply? Some of these one-semester extra curricular have been very significant to me and I can explain very thoroughly why they are so, whereas some of these other extra curricular have primarily served the purpose of helping me "weed out" potential career options, and some other activities have been just for fun (i.e. 1-year men's chorus Freshman year).

Obviously now I have more "pre-med" activities under my belt and will include those in my app. but what about these other ones that are not medically related?

If you want to mention ECs, but have run out of spaces to fit them in, it's possible to group some of them if they fit into similar categories.

Though some seem unrelated to medicine, you might want to list them anyway if they reveal a facet of your personality that might make you a good fit for this career. Even "just for fun" stuff can be important as adcomms like to know you have stress-relieving leisure-time activities.

 

[Save a life]

You can put up to 15 experiences. It's up to you. There's no magic formula.

 

[DBC03]

You'll likely have a lot more experiences by the time you apply, especially if you have two more years before your application season, so you'll have a better idea then. I had a lot of work experiences that I grouped into one giant block, and then I left out others that seemed insignificant (although I'm now regretting that decision).

This is certainly something to consider over the next few years as you think about what activities you want to be involved in. Good luck!

 

[deadclam]

Thanks for the responses everyone!