Within the next twenty four months I want to have my applications in. I’m wanting to go to a private school with smaller class sizes. This is very important to me.
I worked in the emergency room assisting doctors and nurses triaging patients and offering room service Around the holidays. I never had the connections to be able to follow at doctor around shadowing them. Although having broken over eighteen bones in my body, including my femur, I'm sure I've been around doctors more than most. Ha! Approximately a hundred hours or so working in the ER.
Then I got on for two semesters of volunteer work as an undergrad in a radio/biochem lab cancer center where I worked with the full gamut of laboratory equipment from cyclotrons, to particle accelerators and heavy does of western blots and protein purification. Most of the research was centered around trying to crystalize a protein that could be used as an active inhibitor in drugs used to treat rare diseases and blood disorders. No clue after I left if the team was successful.
Class size is largely irrelevant now as lectures aren't mandatory, they're recorded, and students can study at home in their jammies. Your job is to get into a medicals school, not merely a Top School. You'll get a fine education at Drexel or TCU.
You have great stats but are lethally lacking in the ECs. My wise young colleague CandBgirl has already told you what you need in terms of the schools your stats deserve.
What are you going to say when asked how you know you are suited for a life of caring for the sick and suffering?
“That you just know”? Imagine how that will go over!
Right now what you have is not the application of a person who dearly wants to be a physician. It is the application of someone who wants to be a doctor as long as it is convenient.
From the wise
LizzyM: I am always reminded of a certain frequent poster of a few years ago. He was adamant about not volunteering as he did not want to give his services for free and he was busy and helping others was inconvenient. He matriculated to a medical school and lasted less than one year. He's now in school to become an accountant.
Here's the deal: You need to show AdComs that you know what you're getting into, and show off your altruistic, humanistic side. We need to know that you're going to like being around sick or injured people for the next 40 years.
Here's another way of looking at it: would you buy a new car without test driving it? Buy a new suit or dress without trying it on??
We're also not looking for merely for good medical students, we're looking for people who will make good doctors, and 4.0 GPA robots are a dime-a-dozen.
I've seen plenty of posts here from high GPA/high MCAT candidates who were rejected because they had little patient contact experience.
Not all volunteering needs to be in a hospital. Think hospice, Planned Parenthood, nursing homes, rehab facilities, crisis hotlines, camps for sick children, or clinics.
Some types of volunteer activities are more appealing than others. Volunteering in a nice suburban hospital is all very well and good and all, but doesn't show that you're willing to dig in and get your hands dirty in the same way that working with the developmentally disabled (or homeless, the dying, or Alzheimers or mentally ill or elderly or ESL or domestic, rural impoverished) does. The uncomfortable situations are the ones that really demonstrate your altruism and get you 'brownie points'. Plus, they frankly teach you more -- they develop your compassion and humanity in ways comfortable situations can't.
Service need not be "unique"; it can be anything that helps people unable to help themselves and that is outside of a patient-care setting.If you can alleviate suffering in your community through service to the poor, homeless, illiterate, fatherless, etc, you are meeting an otherwise unmet need and learning more about the lives of the people (or types of people) who will someday be your patients.
Check out your local houses of worship for volunteer opportunities.
The key thing is service to others less fortunate than you.
Examples include: Habitat for Humanity, Ronald McDonald House, Humane Society, crisis hotlines, soup kitchen, food pantry, homeless or women’s shelter, after-school tutoring for students or coaching a sport in a poor school district, teaching literacy or ESL to adults at a community center, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Meals on Wheels, mentoring immigrant/refugee adults, being a friendly visitor to shut-ins, adaptive sports program coach or Special Olympics.
In the age of COVID, think Meals on Wheels, food banks, or election poll worker (normally done by retirees).
