So I met with my pre-med advisor and he said that my application was severely lacking in clinical experience and commented on my poor interview skills. He said I basically have no chance if I apply next year and should instead take a gap year. I was really shocked because I have pretty average stats (3.6, 34 MCAT)and had always assumed that one MD school somewhere anywhere would take me. Honestly, I haven't been involved in any extracurricular activities- been focusing on my grades- but I figured I could start junior year with the volunteering and shadowing and a bit of research and I'd be ok. After the talk I've been looking seriously at DO schools as well because although I prefer MD I would really not like to wait another year to matriculate. What do you guys think? I'm a California resident so I can't count on my state schools but there should be a couple low tier MD schools interested in an ORM with decent stats right?
Should I apply my Junior year or wait?
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What are your EC's? If you have no clinical experience, no shadowing, no other volunteering, and little to no other EC's you are dead in the water applying. Having decent stats doesn't matter at all if you haven't done anything else significant. If you truly don't have those EC's, you need to take a year or two to develop some long term commitments and build a substantial background in each. Interview skills you can work on in the shorter time of this cycle, but if you don't have the background to even possibly land you an ii, it doesn't really matter.
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Without any shadowing or clinical experience, you have virtually no chance. Keep your grades up, start volunteering and shadowing asap, get involved in research, teaching, clubs and do things that you enjoy. You need to have something to talk about during interviews!
I've been involved in some really basic stuff like helping out the homeless (we hand out food and water) and I also did this health and wellness program at our school where I am an intern. But that's all I have to show for these two years. Next year, I plan on volunteering at a hospital, shadowing some doctors, research, teaching assistant and working. Would these commitments be viewed negatively as I'm starting them the year that I'm applying?
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People with those stats are a dime a dozen. You need to stand out in this increasingly competitive applicant field.
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I feel like people who have commented here earlier do not appreciate how much academic preparation one must complete in order to take MCAT by the end of sophomore year. Can you start your clinical volunteering ASAP? Other than volunteering; shadowing for a year, doing research for a year and being a TA for a year all seem sufficient time-wise. You may not be competitive at MD schools in the state of California but I am sure you will make a competitive applicant at many DO schools nationwide and perhaps some MDs (provided you do all those activities that you have described). Oh and I don't think that working will do much for your application (unless you refereed to working as a TA).
No current shadowing or clinical experience and you're telling him he will be competitive for DO programs? Are you at all familiar with what it takes to get into MD/DO programs? Why in the world would they take an applicant who hasn't worked/volunteered in healthcare, nor even shadowed a physician? How could they possibly believe that s/he knows what the career is like and that they would even stick with it past their first week of clinical experience? It definitely doesn't help anyone telling them that they are fine to apply when they haven't met one of the most basic requirements for applying to schools.
A coupe of weeks/only a month or two of experience by the time they are submitting isn't going to be nearly enough. Even if s/he worked 40+ hours a week, adcoms won't believe that this knowledge that they want to become a physician and know what it is about and have had time to process it has all occurred over the course of a month or two.
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I might have misread the thread but from what I understood we are not talking about couple of weeks. If the OP starts doing his ECs tomorrow, he has at least one year until the application cycle opens next year. How much shadowing can you need? I have read on this very forum about students doing shadowing for a couple of weeks, getting decent LORs and going to med school.
That's what all of us were referencing when he posted his question, regardless of taking the MCAT early, many other applicants would have already started gaining the other experiences they need to be competitive. We agreed that his adviser was completely correct in thinking that his application currently is way off of where it would need to be to be competitive. To be even at the average of competitiveness by next year (assuming they are keeping up their current volunteer work and that it is substantial - not 10-20 hours total over 2 years), they would want to at minimum get around 150 hours of clinical experience, 50 hours of shadowing, and most likely research (which isn't required at most schools, but it is a pretty standard accomplishment for the majority of matriculating applicants).
Sure it is possible to get all of these things in the course of a year time wise, but the majority of people struggle to get into research labs, may find it difficult to get into a clinical volunteer position, and also many times hard to find people who are willing to let premeds shadow them. If the OP has good connections and/or gets lucky and has everything go smoothly, sure they can have all of this done by next application cycle, but that's still a big if. It is very possible that different things won't workout smoothly for the OP in terms of getting these experiences in one year and that they'll want to postpone further. Sure cramming it all into the past year probably won't look ideal to adcoms, but if the application is well-rounded, I doubt it would exclude them although they may have to explain why their interest in medicine is > 1 year old.
Yeah so right now I'm weighing the benefit of taking a gap year- it would give me more time to work on these activities although I am somewhat leaning against doing so. However, if that extra year would significantly increase my chances, then I would do it. Should I just apply junior year and if I don't get in then reapply senior year with more clinical etc under my belt? Would this be a much worse plan than just apply senior year?
Why do you have to make this decision right now? If there isn't any pressing reason to, I would go ahead with planning on trying to apply next year and trying to get involved ASAP with the clinical work and shadowing that you will need and continue it throughout the whole year (as well as fixing any other weak points on your app). If everything goes smoothly and around spring time next year your app looks good enough where you are happy with applying, go for it. If not, delay another year. You can always get LOR's earlier if that's what you are worried about and store them using interfolio.
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But I did say in my post that he will be competitive provided he completes all the activities mentioned. At the hospital where I shadow, a volunteer would hit 150 hours in just 9 month (4 hour shift, once a week). One could shadow a doctor for 10 weeks for 5 hours a week and that will make up for 50 hours of shadowing and as far as research goes he doesn't have a goal of publishing as a first author in just one year. Things aren't as bad when they are broken down in small pieces. It also appears to me that the OP has some good time-management skills as he was able to get a decent score on MCAT while I am assuming preparing for it while taking classes, which I am sure took him more time than just a few hours of studying per week. While he does not have extensive-enough ECs to prove his interest in medicine, the fact that he has taken MCAT points out that he was planning to go to med school at least since 2 years ago.
I also sympathize with the idea of planning ahead as for instance at my school one needs to open a file with the pre-professional committee a semester before applying to medical schools as they want to write a letter about you at the time of application, not about who you were one year ago.
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Depends on your area, if you ask many people on SDN, their local hospitals have long waiting lists to get experience. That is one of the reasons why people suggest nursing homes/etc. but you never know how hard it will be for someone to find those experiences in their local areas, OP might not be able to get into that in the next month or two. Shadowing is quick, but search up all the threads of people struggling to find people willing to let them shadow unless they already have connections, plenty of people run into the premed stigma where doctors don't want some random college student shadowing them. Like I said before, everything is completely doable within the time of a year, but it really depends on how smoothly the OP can get into the different activities. OP should also be able to easily have an idea if they are on track 6 months from now, if they haven't started clinical volunteering by then (or only are getting in a few hours every few weeks), or something like that, they'll know that it isn't working out. If they already have a good amount of hours and are on track to reach their goal, then go ahead with scheduling their committee meeting. I mentioned nothing about publishing, most applicants don't get published, but most applicants do some type of research - even if it is only for a summer. Like I said, it isn't a hard requirement for most schools, but it is something most people have and schools arguably want to see, it depends on the OP on whether that is something they surely want for their application and/or if it is something they can get in the next year.
