Actually it's been mentioned numerous times on this site that if you were deeply involved in an activity in high school and it carried over to college, then you should in fact list it. If you're listing a four month commitment you did way back freshman year of college, then you wouldn't list it. I'm guessing that people who have always been committed to service and having been taking part in activities for years would have at least carried something from high school to college.
When I talked about the
"Zero to Mother Teresa" concept in a previous thread, I was not talking about the "Cookie Cutter" applicant that would pick up the typical hospital volunteering gig because they were told to do so by their premed advisor (or it's required for the school's committee letter). I realize that people might start a volunteer activity at different ages, whether they are children, college students, or elderly people.
But there's a fine line between never having volunteered before, and picking up a four hour a week hospital volunteer commitment because it's expected, versus...
Suddenly going from never having cared about volunteering/serving your community to all of a sudden volunteering in a hospital, volunteering in a soup kitchen, tutoring underprivileged inner-city children, coaching a youth sports league for underprivileged inner-city children, volunteering for an Alzheimer's organization, and the list goes on and on.
As I made my point above, you can see there is a difference between never having done a volunteer activity to picking up a small commitment, versus picking up a whole laundry-list full of them virtually overnight, which would demonstrate your bleeding heart desire to help the community. You typically see these laundry-lists in the WAMC thread.
It's more reasonable if someone picks up commitments over time, since that would show that they enjoy service. But to suddenly devote your life to so many organizations after never having volunteered before? No. Just no.
Haha.
Do you know why I'm laughing? Because premeds are the ones that have practically ruined this for the ones who are actually genuine. What happens when you have someone who genuinely doesn't give two $h!ts about these activities and devotes so much time to them? You'll probably witness an attitude that shows that they don't care. This why premeds get a pretty bad reputation in many different places. So are you a person that actually cares about doing these activities? Well, the organizations might not believe you because so many premeds that
pretended to care have ruined the reputation of premeds due to poor performance. Luckily for all of you, ADCOMs still view the
"Zero to Mother Teresa" applicants in a very good light. Do you know what sucks for ADCOMs though? Unless they personally knew a volunteer site coordinator, they will never know whether the applicant was a great member of the team, or someone who either skipped out on shifts or spent shifts studying.
Luckily for those insincere persons who are just playing the game to the best of their abilities, the ADCOMs are
NOT looking at them with a skeptical eye. On the contrary, ADCOMs are viewing them as these incredible applicants who care deeply about serving their community!
But here's what makes no sense. If every year you have around 80% of matriculants having taken part in volunteer commitments and tell ADCOMs how they are dying to help the underserved, then why are the underserved communities still underserved? Don't you think that the tables have turned, and that the wealthy urban overserved communities would be in fear of losing physicians? Something doesn't add up.
But yeah, that's the problem and you definitely summed it up. ADCOMs aren't being accusatory. I also have nothing against people BSing through the process. I doubt anyone is saying, "I want to go put on a facade so I can lie to a bunch of people and then screw them over." This is what the game has become of, at least on SDN, and you can't blame the players for playing the game that is expected of them. So whether someone is genuine or not, it doesn't matter. Most of these things have no relevance to actually being a physician. I'm just pointing out that the system is greatly flawed.
Unfortunately, because 80% of matriculants or so have taken part in volunteer activities, it kind of downplays the significance of yours. I'm not trying to offend you or anything, but this is what happens. An example of this is that at my old work place, I had one coworker who had a huge commitment to serving the community. He was so involved in activities, that he was actually a part of an award contest for other men who were involved in community service. People would go up to him and say, "Wow! You volunteer at so many places! You are such a great person!" The funny thing is that he's pretty much considered "above average" on SDN in terms of his activities. No here's a fun thing to try... Go up to a premed or medical student who has/had a laundry-list full of activities. Say, "Wow! You volunteer/ed at so many places! You are such a great person!" They will probably give you a
"WTF?" look.
There's no way to full proof this analysis. I said that extending the activities list through high school would work. It might help, but gunners will still be gunners. I think the best way to change things is to accept that premeds and physicians are human beings. If 80% of normal people (not premeds) volunteered, then people would be running like chickens with their heads cut off trying to find a volunteer organization. But, is this actually taking place in real life?
