WAMC Nontrad (3.96 cGPA/3.93 sGPA/517)

[helium3]

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[Mr.Smile12]

Welcome to the forums.

I tend to focus on your non-clinical volunteering. You should have a minimal amount of service orientation activities (150 hours) like food distribution, shelter volunteer, job/tax preparation, legal support, transportation services, or housing rehabilitation when you submit your application or your file might get screened out at the MD admissions side. I see lots of teaching or mentoring, but showing that you want to make an impact to communities is important to show. On the Ph.D. side, it depends on the specific departments and labs you see yourself spending 6-8 years; how well do your interests fit the available labs? How much have you researched this?

 

[helium3]

Welcome to the forums.

I tend to focus on your non-clinical volunteering. You should have a minimal amount of service orientation activities (150 hours) like food distribution, shelter volunteer, job/tax preparation, legal support, transportation services, or housing rehabilitation when you submit your application or your file might get screened out at the MD admissions side. I see lots of teaching or mentoring, but showing that you want to make an impact to communities is important to show. On the Ph.D. side, it depends on the specific departments and labs you see yourself spending 6-8 years; how well do your interests fit the available labs? How much have you researched this?

Thank you for the feedback! For clarification on the service side, my mentoring role is a long-term, high-touch companionship with an underprivileged individual in an underserved urban area. This involves assistance in things like job application support, transportation, and academic intervention. Between that and my Best Buddies work, my service has been deeply concentrated in this specific urban community.

While I have some past hours in traditional settings like food pantry's and tree-planting in this urban community, they are secondary to these long-term commitments and fewer in hours.

Given this information, would you still recommend prioritizing new hours at a food pantry or shelter over my current research and clinical memory care commitments? Additionally, would you say my clinical hours are sufficient if I decide to apply just MD? Or would becoming a medication technician at the memory care facility I volunteer at significantly bolster my application?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

... Given this information, would you still recommend prioritizing new hours at a food pantry or shelter over my current research and clinical memory care commitments? Additionally, would you say my clinical hours are sufficient if I decide to apply just MD? Or would becoming a medication technician at the memory care facility I volunteer at significantly bolster my application?

I'd still encourage you to consider impacting more than just one person with your service activities. You resemble a community health worker; not a terrible thing, but you should be able to advocate for communities too. I would still consider food pantry or shelter work. Maybe not as many hours because of timing, but as a medical student, you rarely have have such a longitudinal relationship unless the school trains you as a patient navigator in you M1 year. And since schools do this; do your homework. I works just like to see your maximize your desirability.