Volunteering Question from an Athlete!

[MedProspect1991]

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I guess my question is pretty simple. Will Adcom's look frown upon me if my volunteering is all done during the summer and fall throughout my college years? I play intercollegiate baseball so during the spring, what we consider "In Season," I have absolutely zero time to continue my clinical and non-clinical volunteering. I'm not so much worried about how many hours I will have, because I should have quite a bit of meaningful hours. Just looking for some opinions and couldn't really find what I was looking for when I searched the forums. Thanks in advance for your responses!

 

[jturkel]

it shouldn't be a problem. as long as you dedicate yourself to each one of those volunteer experiences during the summer...you should be fine.

and if you are really concerned, you could explain, perhaps, in a secondary application or an additional supplemental letter, why you were unable to continue it during the spring. i'm confident that admissions committees will surely understand your circumstances, as spring is obviously baseball season.

 

[rmsgolfer]

I played golf all four years. We had a fall season that started in mid August and ran into November (depending how often we traveled south), had a few months off and then our spring schedule started in February and ended late May with nationals. I did the majority of my volunteering/internships in the summer and winter months and I was never asked about it.

Enjoy competing at the college level and the relationships you make with your teammates. Nothing can substitute the experiences you will gain.

 

[apumic]

You should be fine as long as you are able to stay with the same organization and they're willing to let you take such long leaves of absence w/o losing your volunteer position. If you managed to get in a couple of hrs here or there in the spring, you'd be better off, but if not I doubt it'll hurt you much. It's certainly understandable.

 

[Catalystik]

I think you'll be fine as long as you have a similiar pattern year after year, rather than waiting until the last minute to boost your application with some desperate volunteering with a huge number of hours.

You might also strategize to have enough hours during the volunteering months that when it's all averaged out over the year (which is how they'll want it listed), you'll still have at least 2 hours per week.