Various Volunteering

[Emmet2301]

I've seen that there are lots of volunteer opportunities in college. I would like to volunteer at various places for maybe about 30 hours each instead of one place for about 100+ hours. I think that doing various things would help because one I can see a lot of different people and can do different things. Would med schools look down on this?

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[mtnman12]

They would not look down on this at all! Volunteering is great, not only for your app but just because it leads you to various other opportunities as well. There's no way any school would say "hmm, I wish he/she had 100 hours at place X." If you're going to log the kind of time you're talking about, then you'll be in good shape no matter what. Just remember to get plenty of non-medical volunteering along with some medical related stuff as well. And don't forget to shadow!! I got so caught up in volunteering that I hardly did any- and it came back to get me at a few schools.

 

[musicalmedicine]

I think this question comes up a lot. The majority of people believe that med schools like to see continued volunteering in one position, so maybe do 100 hours at one and then move onto another and do another 100 instead of a ton of 30 hour positions.

 

[LizzyM]

While any volunteering is a plus, finding an organization that needs your help and sticking with it for a year or more shows that you are doing it to help meet a need that the organization has for assistance, and not doing it just for selfish reasons.

Within one organization it may be possible to work on a variety of tasks in various departments/areas or to move up into training/leadership positions showing other volunteers the ropes, etc.

 

[kakalak]

you may want to consider rec letters as well. Spending lots of time at one place lets the people there get to know you, and allows them to write better letters for you. Skipping around the letters you are likely to get are more of the cookie cutter type.

 

[katarina90]

I've seen that there are lots of volunteer opportunities in college. I would like to volunteer at various places for maybe about 30 hours each instead of one place for about 100+ hours. I think that doing various things would help because one I can see a lot of different people and can do different things. Would med schools look down on this?

There's always the option of maybe sticking with one place all the way through (say 4 hrs/week for a year or more) and then doing some other opportunities for shorter amounts of time (maybe 3 or 4 mos. at one place, and then move on to another). That way, you can still free up a lot of time to explore different opportunities and still have that one opportunity that shows personal growth and leadership...

At least that's what I plan on doing. I can empathize because I like to try different things (there's so much here in NV--desert preservation, community outreach, animal rescue). I think every volunteer thing you do exposes another facet of your personality and is almost a statement to your values in a way (I volunteer at an environmental position, because I am passionate about that; also help teach piano which gives me a chance to be artsy for a while : )). I plan on definitely continuing my clinical volunteering all the way through, though, while the other things give me an opportunity to explore what I find exciting while also helping the community..

 

[wandernkind]

Right now I have about 2500+ hours at 3 different places (no that is not a typo). I think that it is EXTEREMLY important to show a commitment to an organization rather than jumping around from place to place. The purpose of volunteering is not only for you to get experience, but only doing 30 hours somewhere is not nearly as helpful as a long term commitment.