Very well said, and unfortunately, this is true. Whenever I see pre-med volunteers, I instantly assume that they are doing it solely for their medical school applications. Over the years, pre-meds have ruined the special meaning of volunteering.
It's interesting... When you are talking to someone who isn't pre-med and they tell you about their extensive volunteer work ("average" by SDN definition), you can't help but to feel very impressed by their work! Now, if a pre-med tells you about the same level of volunteer work or even more, then you just brush it off because you assume that every pre-med will have extensive volunteering under their belt. If anything, I'd be shocked to see a pre-med
WITHOUT volunteering.
Here's a story I've posted a few times but have never gotten a response. Meet the Route 29 Batman:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...tman-this-guy/2012/03/28/gIQA8nPjgS_blog.html. This is a wonderful read, and you can't help but to be impressed by his work. But would you see him differently if he were pre-med? Honestly, I would lose respect for him because I would solely see it as a very elaborate plan to get into medical school, kind of like rich kids going on exotic mission trips (not that it looks good).
Sadly, this is where volunteering has gone thanks to pre-meds. It has lost its meaning. All we see now is conformity, not altruistic people that are doing it because they want to.
And to answer the OP's question, it's usually a good idea to do non-clinical volunteering to have your bases covered. If other pre-meds are doing it, then so should you. But ultimately, like
@DokterMom said, it's important to look genuine. The best way to do this is through longevity (because doing a variety of volunteer work of both clinical and non-clinical nature within a year of applying will
NOT look good). This is where I came up with the term "
ZERO to Mother Teresa" applicant. It's someone who goes from never having volunteered to suddenly having a laundry-list of volunteer work virtually overnight, which by chance coincides with becoming pre-med. Since the application starts at college, ADCOMs can't really dig in to things that happened before starting college. Thus, they will have to give the benefit of doubt and assume everyone who started freshman or sophomore year to be doing it out of genuine interest, and not simply for their applications. But in order to keep up this facade, you must continue volunteering past AMCAS. You see volunteers drop like flies once acceptances start coming in. Sad, but true.
Volunteering is a great thing. It's a shame that the meaning has been ruined by pre-meds. I have yet to see someone on SDN asking how they can help more people through their ECs... Because all they ever ask about is how they can help themselves.
