What do I need to add to my resume?

[YoungD]

Hello,
I am a Penn State Pre-Med student about to start my major in Philosophy. I am going into Junior year and currently have a GPA of 3.56 after taking all the pre-reqs for med school except Orgo lab, Physics II, and BioChemistry. Hopefully at the end of Junior Year I will have a GPA at about 3.7. I worked over 300 hours in a Plant Biology lab as a lab assistant and will have over 75 hours of shadowing of various physicians at a major trauma hospital. I wanted to work as a scribe but I don't think it will work in my schedule and wanted to know what I can add to my application to ensure I get into a decent medical school. My first MCAT practice test I got a 500, so I am confident after studying I can get a pretty good score. I wanted to get into clinical research, but this is still a process and isn't showing any optimism as of right now. I want to make my junior year as beneficial to my applicaiton as possible, so I was wondering what should I focus on during the school year. What else should I do in my Junior year to prepare for applying to medical schools, should I volunteer more, tutor, go on Atlantis trip in the summer???

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[Phile98]

What are your numbers for nonclinical and clinical volunteering? If you have <150 of each, I would work on those. Do well on your remaining classes. Study hard for the MCAT. Good Luck!

 

[YoungD]

What are your numbers for nonclinical and clinical volunteering? If you have <150 of each, I would work on those. Do well on your remaining classes. Study hard for the MCAT. Good Luck!

As for nonclinical I don't know the hours but I have been tutoring kids in high school for the SATs the past 3 summers and I have 60 accumulated hours from high school for clinical volunteering. For nonclinical should I focus on tutoring or working in soup kitchens etc?

 

[Phile98]

As for nonclinical I don't know the hours but I have been tutoring kids in high school for the SATs the past 3 summers and I have 60 accumulated hours from high school for clinical volunteering. For nonclinical should I focus on tutoring or working in soup kitchens etc?

Yep, working in soup kitchens is an excellent nonclinical way to work with underserved populations. Also, the high school stuff doesn't count, imo.

 

[YoungD]

Yep, working in soup kitchens is an excellent nonclinical way to work with underserved populations. Also, the high school stuff doesn't count, imo.

As for clinical volunteering, my only options seem like being a coordinator for the local Red Cross, doing a couple hours a week at a local hospital (Which would seem like I wouldn't get a lot of hours), or getting my EMT licence and volunteering with that. Will EMT volunteering or paid working be beneficial to my med school application?

 

[gyngyn]

40 hours of shadowing would be plenty (as long a good bit of it is primary care).
Those "mission" trips do not enhance an application: https://www.aamc.org/download/47425...al-shadowing-experience-executive-summary.pdf

 

[Phile98]

As for clinical volunteering, my only options seem like being a coordinator for the local Red Cross, doing a couple hours a week at a local hospital (Which would seem like I wouldn't get a lot of hours), or getting my EMT licence and volunteering with that. Will EMT volunteering or paid working be beneficial to my med school application?

Both are good, but you want to focus more on volunteering.

 

[ciestar]

As for clinical volunteering, my only options seem like being a coordinator for the local Red Cross, doing a couple hours a week at a local hospital (Which would seem like I wouldn't get a lot of hours), or getting my EMT licence and volunteering with that. Will EMT volunteering or paid working be beneficial to my med school application?

Mt Nittany sucks. Look into the many nursing homes in the area like Foxdale or Centre Crest which is in Bellefonte.

 

[YoungD]

Mt Nittany sucks. Look into the many nursing homes in the area like Foxdale or Centre Crest which is in Bellefonte.

I can get a job as a scribe at Mt. Nittany or do you think I should work more hours as a dietary aide at one of those nursing homes. It seems that I wouldn’t get clinical experience working at one of those nursing homes, but I can volunteer every once and a while there hopefully (I haven’t talked to them about their volunteering program yet).