Should I include HS non-clinical volunteering hours if I received a big award for it (but didn't continue in college)?

[cold_urticaria]

Basically the title. In high school I accumulated roughly 170 hours of non-clinical volunteering with the Red Cross as a "Donor Ambassador" (checked in donors and walk-ins to their appointments, managed the post-donation area, monitored donors post-donation before they left) and I received the President's Volunteer Service Award (Bronze) for my hours. I didn't continue this in college though (although I have about 15 weeks left before applying where I *could* pick it back up again, but probably not to a significant amount.

Am I able to include this in my application, or would that be looked down on? I ask because my application has mostly decent hours/numbers in every other area by the time I apply (1000 hrs research, 4 posters at my school's Undergraduate Research Week, 2000+ hrs mixed volunteer/paid of hep B awareness/screening/outreach public health work, ~250 hrs mixed volunteer/paid clinical MA/scribing, lots of leadership positions) but my non-clinical volunteering hours are weak (only 24 hours of CalTeach teaching that was part of a 2-unit internship course my sophomore year). Asking because it's driving me nuts seeing so many different answers everywhere I look lol, thanks!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[LizzyM]

Non-clinical volunteering is expected of med school applicants. Typically, adcoms like to see volunteerism with people who are different from yourself and who are unable to meet their own needs. The idea is to serve the very vulnerable in your community and to get to know some of the people you may seldom if ever cross paths with but who are in circumstances similar to those who will someday be your patients. (In every day life do you regularly interact with people who are unhoused, who seldom have enough food in the house, who are unable to read and write, who are undocumented, who have profound intellectual or physical impairments or have serious mental health issues?)

As a Red Cross Ambassador, you are interacting with donors who by definition are healthy people who are community volunteers. The donors are often people very much like yourself in terms of age, education, socioeconomic status, etc. So while it may make you sad to leave these hours off of your application, they really wouldn't be a big help to your application anyway.

Depending on the type of school you are shooting for and what the rest of your application looks like, it might behoove you to start volunteering every weekend in a place that serves those in need in your area. Alternately, think about what it would look like to take a gap year and apply in 2025 with a fully buffed application rather than applying in 2024 with an application that is deficient in one area.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Donors as in blood donors?

The service award sounds like it is recognition for hours worked. Like getting a recognition for working at a place for 10 years...

 

[cold_urticaria]

Non-clinical volunteering is expected of med school applicants. Typically, adcoms like to see volunteerism with people who are different from yourself and who are unable to meet their own needs. The idea is to serve the very vulnerable in your community and to get to know some of the people you may seldom if ever cross paths with but who are in circumstances similar to those who will someday be your patients. (In every day life do you regularly interact with people who are unhoused, who seldom have enough food in the house, who are unable to read and write, who are undocumented, who have profound intellectual or physical impairments or have serious mental health issues?)

As a Red Cross Ambassador, you are interacting with donors who by definition are healthy people who are community volunteers. The donors are often people very much like yourself in terms of age, education, socioeconomic status, etc. So while it may make you sad to leave these hours off of your application, they really wouldn't be a big help to your application anyway.

Depending on the type of school you are shooting for and what the rest of your application looks like, it might behoove you to start volunteering every weekend in a place that serves those in need in your area. Alternately, think about what it would look like to take a gap year and apply in 2025 with a fully buffed application rather than applying in 2024 with an application that is deficient in one area.

Wow this is very detailed, thank you! I do believe that there are other parts of my application that strongly show a passion in serving underserved communities (though this was not clearly communicated in my original post). Could I get your thoughts?

To clarify, I am a senior and will be applying during my gap year this upcoming summer.

I've been part of a pre-health org that runs multiple health fairs every year to help the underserved API population in the greater LA area. Our service recipients are very often older API individuals from low-income SES, uninsured backgrounds who also face large language barriers in receiving health care. Within our org outside of our health fairs, we also run lots of student-facing activities that are open to all members of the university, such as professional development workshops and health networking sessions. I would say I have about 75 hours from these health fairs, and over 2000 hours in the club across multiple leadership positions over 4 years.

I also have roughly 1400 hours paid/600 hours volunteered at a nonprofit based in the California Bay Area where we do lots of community outreach, education, screenings, and vaccinations for hepatitis B in the vulnerable API populations there. My volunteered hours however were moreso through hepatitis B education/screening events, and the large amount of prep work and grant writing/fundraising that was needed to fund these events, rather than more typical volunteering actions (I also completed most of this remotely, as it was situated in NorCal while I attended school in LA). The volunteer/paid split is because I started off as a paid summer intern, transitioned to a long-term volunteer role after my internship ended, and was eventually taken on as a hire for the group after ~10 months of volunteering.

I hope this would be enough to convey a strong passion and background in aiding the underserved, however I do acknowledge that outside of these I still lack the solid, quantifiable hours of more "traditional" volunteering activities, for lack of better wording on my end.

 

[cold_urticaria]

Donors as in blood donors?

The service award sounds like it is recognition for hours worked. Like getting a recognition for working at a place for 10 years...

Yup, blood donors! And yeah, the name is interesting, but it's given out to individuals who've contributed lots of hours to volunteering at "registered" groups, though I'm sure the number of people who would receive it would be magnitudes greater if it was somehow tracked by just volunteering hours anywhere period. I didn't even know it was a thing at the time until I received the award in the mail one day!

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Yup, blood donors! And yeah, the name is interesting, but it's given out to individuals who've contributed lots of hours to volunteering at "registered" groups, though I'm sure the number of people who would receive it would be magnitudes greater if it was somehow tracked by just volunteering hours anywhere period. I didn't even know it was a thing at the time until I received the award in the mail one day!

If you think the activity is worth mentioning in your application or during an interview, it sounds great. Maybe in a personal statement or a secondary essay prompt... you'd have to think about how it fits with what you want to convey about your preparedness for medical education. I also am not sure how valuable it is as a W/A spot because it was done in high school and not continued since you went to college (which happens).

 

[cold_urticaria]

If you think the activity is worth mentioning in your application or during an interview, it sounds great. Maybe in a personal statement or a secondary essay prompt... you'd have to think about how it fits with what you want to convey about your preparedness for medical education. I also am not sure how valuable it is as a W/A spot because it was done in high school and not continued since you went to college (which happens).

That makes sense. I'll probably not go down the path of including it in my W/A for now then, and talk about it in secondaries and interviews if the opportunity comes up. Thanks for your advice!