Weak Extracurriculars...what to do?

[DntStopBelievin]

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hey everyone,
I just wanted to know how medical school would look at the fact that my extracurriuclar activities are a bit weak/seemingly uncommited.
GPA- 3.9
MCAT- haven't taken it yet but I'm working towards a 33
Research experience- none
Here are the extracurriculars:
1. Indian dance team - 1 year
2. Summer- Child Life Volunteer
3. Community Service group (we go on about 4 charity walks a year)-2years
4. Pre-health Society- Educational coordinator- 1 year
5. Summer- shadowed the plastic surgeons for 1 month
6. Chem TA- 1 semester
7. Going to work for the Child development center on campus (1 semester)
How will this affect my chances of getting into a good medical school? or any medical school for that matter.

 

[ziggyd0c]

i honestly think those extracurriculars are fine. you have a really good GPA and will hopefully have a solid MCAT. maybe if you have exactly the same stats as another candidate, but that candidate did some really impressive research or something, they would get chosen over. but no medical school is going to turn you away solely because of those extracurriculars.

 

[Mobius1985]

Medical schools, both MD and DO, have an expectation that your application will reflect a sustained interest in the medical profession and some real experience with sick people. Your sole experience is a month of passively shadowing, which helps to give an idea of what the job of a doctor is about, but that is not sufficient, and in fact some schools don't consider shadowing at all. There are folks that have posted on SDN with much higher stats than yours without clinical experience who did not get in anywhere when they applied. If you were applying MD/PhD, adcomms might not expect as much clinical experience, but they still expect some. The applicants you'll be competing with will have an average of 150 hours of clinical exposure. Most will acquire this at a rate of 3-4 hours/week over 1.5 years as a volunteer. Others gain it through employment, working on clinical research, or through class requirement. You might be OK with somewhat less, but you really need to get this started. You have 5-6 months until application time. After applying, you could send in update letters that you continue to acquire experience, but many would wait another year to make their application really solid, acquire some research experience, shadow some other specialties, and have some regular community service activity to list (another expectation, that would be covered if you volunteer to serve patients. It's nice that you do have something to list in this category already.). It looks like you have leadership covered and you have something to list under teacher/mentor. If the Child Development Center is a daycare center, it won't help you much, but it can be listed under employment. If it is a place where developmentally disabled children go for services and you help with that, it would be a clinical experience.

 

[flip26]

Medical schools, both MD and DO, have an expectation that your application will reflect a sustained interest in the medical profession and some real experience with sick people. Your sole experience is a month of passively shadowing, which helps to give an idea of what the job of a doctor is about, but that is not sufficient, and in fact some schools don't consider shadowing at all. There are folks that have posted on SDN with much higher stats than yours without clinical experience who did not get in anywhere when they applied. If you were applying MD/PhD, adcomms might not expect as much clinical experience, but they still expect some. The applicants you'll be competing with will have an average of 150 hours of clinical exposure. Most will acquire this at a rate of 3-4 hours/week over 1.5 years as a volunteer. Others gain it through employment, working on clinical research, or through class requirement. You might be OK with somewhat less, but you really need to get this started. You have 5-6 months until application time. After applying, you could send in update letters that you continue to acquire experience, but many would wait another year to make their application really solid, acquire some research experience, shadow some other specialties, and have some regular community service activity to list (another expectation, that would be covered if you volunteer to serve patients. It's nice that you do have something to list in this category already.). It looks like you have leadership covered and you have something to list under teacher/mentor. If the Child Development Center is a daycare center, it won't help you much, but it can be listed under employment. If it is a place where developmentally disabled children go for services and you help with that, it would be a clinical experience.

The underlined is exactly what I did (or more accurately, am currently doing). I finished a formal post bacc last spring, but I did not have nearly enough in the way of clinical experience (but more than the OP), so I took an additional year and will have over 500 hours of clinical volunteering and approximately 50 hours of shadowing under my belt when I apply this cycle.