I'm actually interested in what you think about extracurriculars. Personally, I've put a lot of work into acappella and have learned a lot from it. I definitely would not call it leisure. What then counts as a "productive" activity? Like cultural club? Student Science Journal? Volunteering? I definitely understand your point about looking at how the applicant spends his time. I'm just not sure I see what counts as a "good" use of time.
I'm definitely looking to give my best shot at the top schools. What do you suggest I do in order to bolster my ECs? I feel like at this point I can't really start something new and have it look impressive on an app if I've only devoted half a year to it.
Acapella is a leisure activity. Just because you learn a lot from it or work hard on it doesn't mean that it isn't leisure. For example. I rock climb quite seriously. Outside of the actual climbing, I put in hours every week training, even as a surgical resident. I've also learned a lot about myself and people by doing it. It is still something that is done because I derive pleasure from it without a tangible benefit to others. Most activities that you do are going to be things you enjoy. I had someone saying that Mother Theresa was very very selfish because she derived pleasure from helping the poor and she was doing what she wanted to do, ergo: selfish. There is a fundamental difference between different ECs and how they are viewed.
Understand that what I'm about to talk about is a very fuzzy topic. I'm putting boundaries on things that really don't have boundaries and explaining a thought process that is largely subconscious... There are three broad categories of ECs. Leisure activities, neutral, and altruistic. There is nothing wrong with enjoying or doing any of them. However, there is a reason adcoms are looking for certain kinds of activities. Medicine is a lot of science, but it is by and large a people profession. It is also a profession that is dominated by the concept of helping other people. No, you don't have to be the next Mother Theresa, but a good part of your time will be in the service of others. If you can't handle that, you will be miserable. No, it does not make you a bad person. It just makes you a poor fit for what most physicians do every day. No matter how bad of a day I'm having in the hospital, virtually every single one of my patients is having a worse day, after all, they are in the hospital, seeing me. Certainly not every physician's practice is like that, but most physicians will have something similar to say about helping their patients.
- Leisure activities are those that you do for yourself. The focus is on you. Most hobbies/sports fall into this category. I would say that if you could potentially scratch out an EC and it wouldn't negatively impact other people or your life, then it is leisure. We like to see people that have leisure activities. Being able to have fun and focus on non-academic things is important. Everyone wants to be around people with hobbies, it makes for a more interesting class.
- Neutral activities are things that you have to do. For example, if you have to work because you are paying for school or supporting family etc. It is a limitation on your time that is just something that has to be done. This is something that needs to be considered when looking at GPAs or how involved people are in other activities.
- Altruistic activities are things where the focus is on other people. Things that better the lives of others primarily. Things that demonstrate that you spend at least a small amount of your time thinking about the needs of others instead of your own. This is where the, "What % of your time do you spend doing different things?" comes in. I'm not saying that someone that devotes <1% of their free time to others can't be a good physician or get enjoyment out of it. But, everything else being equal, I'd strongly prefer someone that is much higher as I think that their chances of success are much higher.
Regarding productivity. Virtually any activity can be productive. It is more about what you do with an activity than what the activity itself is. For instance, if you are in research for 2000 hours, what did you produce? Conceivably, someone paid you or you got academic credits, or at the very least you invested your time into it. So, what came of it? What tangibly shows that you weren't goofing off and getting nothing out of it. The easiest to appreciate are publications, posters, abstracts etc. Strong letters of recommendation are another. I'm not talking about a good letter, I'm talking about, "It is tragic that none of his work was published because he has made significant contributions to our lab including X, Y, and Z." And more importantly in a LOR like that, what is your analagous
Wins Above Replacement, compared to if the lab hired someone else. I'm not that creative, so I'll go through the applications sitting on my desk right now and pick out the single most "productive" things I can find that they did before medical school.
Restructured soup kitchen, tripled meals served by reallocating resources.
Top 3 rank, nationally fencing
2 years research, x1 first author in low impact, 2 presentations
2 years research, x2 non-first author publications, one in Cell, the other PNAS
1 year research, x2 presentations, x1 award from presentation
3 months fundraising and 3 months (Summer) digging wells in Kenya
5 years habitat for humanity from HS to present
2 Summers teaching English in a Lebanese refugee camp
Yes, I cherry picked from ~30 applications. There are certainly a lot of people with very good scores that played video games, worked on their hobbies and are perfectly good people. But, there are also a lot of pretty amazing people out there doing a lot of amazing things. Being productive is about dedication, passion, hard work and perseverance. ie. what we want from our medical students. I interviewed at most of the top 10 as well as several other more local places. Virtually everyone you meet on the trail is going to be a good student. Some better than others. But, it was very obvious when talking to other applicants at the top schools that I was a small fish in a very big sea of stellar applicants.
