I am having a phone appointment with an admissions counselor from MSU-COM. She sent me an email, indicating that the ideal applicant has more than 800 volunteer hours. When I submit my AACOMAS, I think I would have around 170. I'm not trying to get caught up with the numbers, but like, 800? I mean, is that pretty much standard for people who get into DO school?
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volunteer hours
Started by hoops90
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800 seems like a LOT for just clinical. Granted, there are many applicants who have clinical experience in the thousands of hours... some of them are EMTs, nurses, etc. I'm thinking she meant overall volunteer hours though... so this would include community service, leadership involvement, teaching experience, and clinical volunteering, etc.
Agree with toytles. She had to have meant TOTAL volunteer hours and not just clinical. I mean if you were to volunteer at a hospital for 4 hours every weekend for a year that would only be roughly 200 hours. And I'm thinking a year of volunteering, especially every weekend for 4 hours, would certainly be plenty of clinical. (Did you catch on that that's what I did. 
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)check this thread out. Lots of ideas of hours others completed for MSUCOM. Im hoping to apply there in 2013 🙂
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=811590
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=811590
I only had about 100 hospital volunteer hours and about 75 hours of shadowing when I applied and I have received 2 acceptances and had a bunch of interview invites. I think having an extensive amount of ECs can somewhat make up for lower academic stats, but if you are solid in the academic department you don't need 800 volunteer hours.
That's just insanity. Nobody racks up 800 hours before applying. I've seen some crazy gunners here that at most have 400 hours of clinical volunteering. The typical I see is somewhere between 100 and 200.
It depends on what you do. If you're doing 3-4 hours a week at the ED then sure. I'm a volunteer EMT and had ~1400 when I submitted my AACOMAS apps. They rack up pretty quickly when you do 12 hour shifts.
I think what you get out of it is much more important than the hours though. For me maybe 40-50 of those 1400 hours have had a real effect on my desire to practice medicine.
But do you think the average applicant at MSUCOM has your experience? Kudos to you for putting such an awesome effort. Even if you feel you've done little, trust me, people appreciate it.
I must have had about 3,000 hours of total EC's. More than 400 of those were shadowing, and the rest were volunteer clinical experiences. I sorta got addicted to volunteering, it's been tough to put it aside now that I'm in school. But I got a lot of compliments/queries about all the stuff I did so it seemed to really help at the interviews. I think I got an interview invite to PNWU (significant regional preference) because of my clinical experience, which I was told they tend to value highly. I didn't attend it, but they extended me one, which they don't do for very many.
I definitely have more than 800 hrs but I have a long history of volunteering for lengthy amounts at things while in college and while working full time after college and I racked up most of these hours before I knew I was even going to apply to med school. Sounds like MSU-COM is looking for people with a long history of volunteering that goes beyond just putting in hrs for med school aps.
Most school are not looking for this many volunteer hours though.
Most school are not looking for this many volunteer hours though.
I mentioned that I will have around 170-175 vol hours. However, they aren't all clinical. 74 hours is tornado disaster relief (packing food and toiletries), about 50 will be Habitat for Humanity (helping construct homes), and about 50 will be hospice volunteering. So actually, I will only have 50 hours of clinical volunteering, but those will be quality vol hours. Does anyone think that that is still pretty low for being a DO applicant?
I'm a strong believer in quality over quantity, but I still get worried that DO schools will think that I don't have enough clinical volunteering.
I'm a strong believer in quality over quantity, but I still get worried that DO schools will think that I don't have enough clinical volunteering.
Get in another 50. The "average" I saw someone post around here is 1.5 yrs, or 150 hours.
Well, that's the average for MEDICAL related volunteer work.
I had over 200 hours spread out over two years. You just have to show commitment, don't jump around. Keep volunteering. On your interviews, you can talk about something that happened recently in your volunteering. Show how you connect with the people. If they can see your passion and enthusiasm, that is much better than someone with 800 hours but show none.
yes, he said asked if only 50 clinical hours was enough and so I recommended getting another 50 at least.
Sound advice, I think 100 quality hrs is enough to get a bit of a feel for the medical profession. And from a numbers standpoint I wouldn't want to have all my ECs with under 100hrs or less than 1 yr, it could give the feel of a lack of commitment. So pick a favorite and spend some time at it.
