What if you just DON'T want to volunteer?

[AllDaWEI]

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Members do not see this ad.

Unless there's some way to convince 40,000 applicants to not include volunteering on their applications.

They really need to change the system. Make it mandatory and have an official verification system. If its modeled like high schools with a graduation requirement, hours will drop to earth levels because no one will be able to embellish anymore.

 

[mauberley]

I see your point. But what you're saying is not what LizzyM is saying, and is not what we're assuming ADCOMs are saying.

In fact, if I'm not mistaken, LizzyM cited hospital volunteering as indicative of clinical experience but made no mention of altruism. Either you or another poster then suggested that shadowing, then, should be the requirement. I would argue that there is more to a hospital than what the physician does, and that there is a benefit to being exposed to this. Hospital volunteering is a gateway to accomplishing this.

As for volunteering to demonstrate altruism, that's only so much speculation and why get so worked up about assumptions that may or may not be accurate?

 

[LizzyM]

There are many non-clinical volunteer opportuities to demonstrate that you are willing to freely give your time to improve your community (community being people in your area) including literacy volunteers, mentoring/tutoring kids and teens who don't have adult role models in their lives, teaching science/health class modules in under-performing schools, friendly visitor to the elderly, providing musical entertainment to nursing home residents, coaching kids and teens, organizing blood drives and/or bone marrow registries, providing disaster relief services (tornado, hurricaine, flood, etc), home construction projects for the poor, food pantries, soup kitchens, staffing an overnight homeless shelter.

You also need some exposure to medicine/health care. Most people think hospital volunteering is a "two birds, one stone" situtation but you could be employed in a health care setting or in pre-hospital care (EMT), or just do shadowing and get that exposure to medicine/health care/sick people.

 

[tantacles]

There are many non-clinical volunteer opportuities to demonstrate that you are willing to freely give your time to improve your community (community being people in your area) including literacy volunteers, mentoring/tutoring kids and teens who don't have adult role models in their lives, teaching science/health class modules in under-performing schools, friendly visitor to the elderly, providing musical entertainment to nursing home residents, coaching kids and teens, organizing blood drives and/or bone marrow registries, providing disaster relief services (tornado, hurricaine, flood, etc), home construction projects for the poor, food pantries, soup kitchens, staffing an overnight homeless shelter.

You also need some exposure to medicine/health care. Most people think hospital volunteering is a "two birds, one stone" situtation but you could be employed in a health care setting or in pre-hospital care (EMT), or just do shadowing and get that exposure to medicine/health care/sick people.

Might even be a better idea because you're given actual responsibility in your clinical role, which might be reflected in a letter of recommendation.

 

[MilkmanAl]

There are many non-clinical volunteer opportuities to demonstrate that you are willing to freely give your time to improve your community

Again, though, they don't demonstrate jack **** other than your willingness to jump through hoops if you know you have to do them. Given that I was basically the most uninformed applicant ever (didn't know what the MCAT was until a couple months before taking it, for example) and still knew I had to volunteer, I'd say that covers just about everyone.

 

[LizzyM]

Again, though, they don't demonstrate jack **** other than your willingness to jump through hoops if you know you have to do them.

That's what the interview is for. I don't know about other schools but when I see the clinics my students staff and their tutoring program and the global health volunteerism, and the volunteerism of our faculty, I know that some people who choose to be here also choose to continue to provide community service as a life long activity because they have the capacity to fill a need in the community. I served with one adcom member who went out and signed up as a weekly tutor to an inner-city kid after he retired from as a professor of medicine. "Putting my body where my mouth is" is how he phrased it.

 

[SpecterGT260]

Again, though, they don't demonstrate jack **** other than your willingness to jump through hoops if you know you have to do them. Given that I was basically the most uninformed applicant ever (didn't know what the MCAT was until a couple months before taking it, for example) and still knew I had to volunteer, I'd say that covers just about everyone.

It's all relative. It's your willingness to give to your community as compared to your willingness to jump through hoops. If an unwritten rule was to castrate yourself for application you can bet apps would drop. Relative weighing of willingness to be a doc vs lose ones junk.

Since all applicants are quite willing to jump through hoops (common factor) the differences can still be correlated to other motivations. Basically, nobody can make you do something you dont want to do. By your logic anyone who has more hours than you do simply wants to be a doctor more? Do you think that's true? I doubt it. It's more likely that the combined drive to be a doc compared to their feelings on volunteering exceeds yours.

 

[dmf2682]

Again, though, they don't demonstrate jack **** other than your willingness to jump through hoops if you know you have to do them. Given that I was basically the most uninformed applicant ever (didn't know what the MCAT was until a couple months before taking it, for example) and still knew I had to volunteer, I'd say that covers just about everyone.

I'd say it depends on the circumstances. I was similar to MT below in that I've been volunteering for years but have only been a premed for one. I would hope that is one more point to differentiate me from others, if what you say is true. If you give back without having any motives I'd say that's altruism.

 

[AllDaWEI]

Again, though, they don't demonstrate jack **** other than your willingness to jump through hoops if you know you have to do them. Given that I was basically the most uninformed applicant ever (didn't know what the MCAT was until a couple months before taking it, for example) and still knew I had to volunteer, I'd say that covers just about everyone.

I agree. Isn't it kind of odd that pre-meds have such a ridiculously high volunteer rate, students not pre-med volunteer is significantly lower. Are pre-meds just more morally superior group of college students. Wow, if everyone in this world were pre-med,it would be a much happier place full of love and helping people. 🙄

 

[AllDaWEI]

There are many non-clinical volunteer opportuities to demonstrate that you are willing to freely give your time to improve your community (community being people in your area) including literacy volunteers, mentoring/tutoring kids and teens who don't have adult role models in their lives, teaching science/health class modules in under-performing schools, friendly visitor to the elderly, providing musical entertainment to nursing home residents, coaching kids and teens, organizing blood drives and/or bone marrow registries, providing disaster relief services (tornado, hurricaine, flood, etc), home construction projects for the poor, food pantries, soup kitchens, staffing an overnight homeless shelter.

You also need some exposure to medicine/health care. Most people think hospital volunteering is a "two birds, one stone" situtation but you could be employed in a health care setting or in pre-hospital care (EMT), or just do shadowing and get that exposure to medicine/health care/sick people.

Does this boil down to saying, if you don't volunteer in some form or other you will most likely be rejected?

 

[SpecterGT260]

I agree. Isn't it kind of odd that pre-meds have such a ridiculously high volunteer rate, students not pre-med volunteer is significantly lower. Are pre-meds just more morally superior group of college students. Wow, if everyone in this world were pre-med,it would be a much happier place full of love and helping people. 🙄

Everyone IS Pre med.... At least until sophomore year 🙄

 

[notbobtrustme]

There are many non-clinical volunteer opportuities to demonstrate that you are willing to freely give your time to improve your community (community being people in your area) including literacy volunteers, mentoring/tutoring kids and teens who don't have adult role models in their lives, teaching science/health class modules in under-performing schools, friendly visitor to the elderly, providing musical entertainment to nursing home residents, coaching kids and teens, organizing blood drives and/or bone marrow registries, providing disaster relief services (tornado, hurricaine, flood, etc), home construction projects for the poor, food pantries, soup kitchens, staffing an overnight homeless shelter.

You also need some exposure to medicine/health care. Most people think hospital volunteering is a "two birds, one stone" situtation but you could be employed in a health care setting or in pre-hospital care (EMT), or just do shadowing and get that exposure to medicine/health care/sick people.

What does any of that have to do with being a good doctor?

Ladling soup or putting nails into boards for homeless people are admirable things to do, but none of them have any relevancy to the learning or practice of medicine. More often than not, those activities require enormous amounts of free time or extensive contacts/networking or both.

What is the fundamental reason why volunteering is often the unwritten third requirement (after GPA/MCAT)?

 

[SpecterGT260]

Mcat and gpa have no bearing on whether I, your classmates, or school admin can stand to be around you.

I suspect there is a direct correlation between that and your patients willingness to deal with you.

Guys like House would actually be booted out of medicine by at LEAST residency. It isn't all on how well you know the medicine

 

[AllDaWEI]

Mcat and gpa have no bearing on whether I, your classmates, or school admin can stand to be around you.

I suspect there is a direct correlation between that and your patients willingness to deal with you.

Guys like House would actually be booted out of medicine by at LEAST residency. It isn't all on how well you know the medicine

The ADCOMs methods for judging an applicant's "performance" when volunteering is very flawed. First of all, since a volunteering LOR is not a requirement (how can it be when pre-meds volunteer willingly?), ADCOMs have no way of seeing if applicant actually did good job.or not. If you read music2doc's thread, you see plenty of the volunteers half-ass everything they do and maintain poor attitude. This is not a contained problem. Also, if activities from high school are not listed on AMCAS, an ADCOM typically needs to make judgements about a volunteer activity starting as pre-med. The biggest problem is due to lack of verification, you have people make up experiences all together!

Considering the ADCOM has no way of verifying whether the applicant did well or not, they will rely on the same typical BS that they will spew on PS and at interview. Of course every pre-med will say they loved their time at hospital. But in reality, they could have refused.to.do taska, did bad job, or faked the experience all together. As long as you are good BSer, you can be the problematic applicant listed above.

 

[SpecterGT260]

Straw man isn't appropriate here.... But something like it. Your arguments are fine, but they are beside the point....just not sure what that's called.

 

[LizzyM]

Mcat and gpa have no bearing on whether I, your classmates, or school admin can stand to be around you.

I suspect there is a direct correlation between that and your patients willingness to deal with you.

Guys like House would actually be booted out of medicine by at LEAST residency. It isn't all on how well you know the medicine

Thank you! This reminded me of something I read in Forbes recently:

The only three true job interview questions are:
1. Can you do the job?
2. Will you love the job?
3. Can we tolerate working with you?

Medical school interviews are much the same with the "can you do..." section relating to both your intellectual capacity to handle the academic assignments and your interest in learning clinical skills. The "will you love it" and "can we tolerate you" are softer qualities (not measured by gpa and MCAT) and I'd love to hear how you think that an applicant might show that the response to the last two questions is "yes".

 

[MrBird]

Thank you! This reminded me of something I read in Forbes recently:

The only three true job interview questions are:
1. Can you do the job?
2. Will you love the job?
3. Can we tolerate working with you?

Medical school interviews are much the same with the "can you do..." section relating to both your intellectual capacity to handle the academic assignments and your interest in learning clinical skills. The "will you love it" and "can we tolerate you" are softer qualities (not measured by gpa and MCAT) and I'd love to hear how you think that an applicant might show that the response to the last two questions is "yes".

I'm sorry, I know you're only here to help and expound the intricacies of this whole process, but what makes you think any of the volunteer activities you mentioned a few posts earlier would answer questions 2 and 3? The EC would probably have to be in a hospital setting (since you will train in a hospital, first) for you to make any judgments on whether a student would enjoy working as a physician. However, we've discussed how a student's role as a volunteer in a hospital is usually limited to irrelevant and purposeless labor.
I'd also like to add that deciding whether or not a person is tolerable to work with cannot reliably be done by hearing about his/her volunteer experiences. In fact, I'd surmise that in many cases the feigned enthusiasm about listed activities in a person's personal statement or interview may belie serious personality issues.

 

[LizzyM]

I'm sorry, I know you're only here to help and expound the intricacies of this whole process, but what makes you think any of the volunteer activities you mentioned a few posts earlier would answer questions 2 and 3? The EC would probably have to be in a hospital setting (since you will train in a hospital, first) for you to make any judgments on whether a student would enjoy working as a physician. However, we've discussed how a student's role as a volunteer in a hospital is usually limited to irrelevant and purposeless labor.
I'd also like to add that deciding whether or not a person is tolerable to work with cannot reliably be done by hearing about his/her volunteer experiences. In fact, I'd surmise that in many cases the feigned enthusiasm about listed activities in a person's personal statement or interview may belie serious personality issues.

There is a lot of crap involved on any job. The ability to grin and bear it is fundamental to loving your job. Being willing to put others first is an important part of a job in the service sector and may be indicative of people who will love being physicians.

Many aspects of medicine involve teamwork and the volunteer activities I mentioned above often involve working as part of a team (home building, disaster relief, organizing blood drives, etc) and that's a useful skill to develop and demonstrate.

Egotistical, self-absorbed bull artists are people I don't tolerate well. People who have done interesting things are interesting people to talk with over lunch or to otherwise have around. That's why I have a question I like to ask that isn't just "tell me about...." but that has a little twist to it so that people have to think a bit rather than just blurt out their prepared speech about how wonderful and inspiring it was to wash the feet of the poor or sing on a Broadway stage or whatever un-cookie cutter thing they have on their application. Other stuff tends to fall in the "can we tolerate them" category including those who want to convert others to their religion during the interview (!), who can not stop talking during an interview, who will not answer more than yes or no (imagine having them on service and eating lunch with them every day for a month!), and those who have a single response to every question (dragon boats!). I can certainly tolerate people who have not volunteered but people who do are engaged in community service are often most interesting to work with and socialize with. I think that this holds true not only for physicians but for people in all walks of life.

 

[tantacles]

I'm sorry, I know you're only here to help and expound the intricacies of this whole process, but what makes you think any of the volunteer activities you mentioned a few posts earlier would answer questions 2 and 3? The EC would probably have to be in a hospital setting (since you will train in a hospital, first) for you to make any judgments on whether a student would enjoy working as a physician. However, we've discussed how a student's role as a volunteer in a hospital is usually limited to irrelevant and purposeless labor.
I'd also like to add that deciding whether or not a person is tolerable to work with cannot reliably be done by hearing about his/her volunteer experiences. In fact, I'd surmise that in many cases the feigned enthusiasm about listed activities in a person's personal statement or interview may belie serious personality issues.

None of the volunteer activities mentioned individually answer anything. LizzyM isn't ascribing any particular activities to the perfect candidate; rather she's saying that volunteering is one of many factors that helps lead to this kind of conclusion.

And I really doubt that feigning enthusiasm correlates with any personality issues that would significantly affect a doctor's work. In fact, the skills required to feign enthusiasm seems, to me, to be an extremely important part of medical practice. Even the most mundane problem must be taken seriously, and even the most monotone patient must be listened to.

 

[SpecterGT260]

it is very common for the interviewers to ask you about volunteer experiences.

it is also very common for interviewers to possess the ability to detect bullsh*tting.

your argument now seems to center on "CAN it be faked?" well sure it can. with enough effort most aspects of your applications COULD be faked. lizzy asked for an acceptable alternative. IMO sitting someone down in front of you and having them talk about experiences where they werent hunkered down in front of a book or taking a standardized test can reliably give you an idea of where the person sits on the Normal-dilltard spectrum scale.

most Adcoms are also HIGHLY subjective in their selection process. there are often attempts at objective rankings, but with all of the applicants and the limited number of selection criteria, much of the final process will come down to impressions

 

[UnclePhil]

To the TS:
I might have logged about 30 hours total of volunteering on my amcas. I had the same attitude as you with the stubbornness about not jumping through hoops for the sake of getting into medical school. And then I didn't do too hot during applications despite having a 3.75+/35+/years of research+pubs and had an adcom at a school basically flat out tell me that I needed to jump through hoops. In those exact words.

 

[SpecterGT260]

To the TS:
I might have logged about 30 hours total of volunteering on my amcas. I had the same attitude as you with the stubbornness about not jumping through hoops for the sake of getting into medical school. And then I didn't do too hot during applications despite having a 3.75+/35+/years of research+pubs and had an adcom at a school basically flat out tell me that I needed to jump through hoops. In those exact words.

same. i had the GPA and MCAT to get in with no issue along with plenty of research. was told by an adcom that the only thing i needed to work on between years was getting the volunteer experiences up. i had a mission trip to central america and several months in the ER, that was about it.

 

[AllDaWEI]

same. i had the GPA and MCAT to get in with no issue along with plenty of research. was told by an adcom that the only thing i needed to work on between years was getting the volunteer experiences up. i had a mission trip to central america and several months in the ER, that was about it.

ONLY a mission trip and several months in the ER? How do you sleep at night? 🙄

 

[AllDaWEI]

To the TS:
I might have logged about 30 hours total of volunteering on my amcas. I had the same attitude as you with the stubbornness about not jumping through hoops for the sake of getting into medical school. And then I didn't do too hot during applications despite having a 3.75+/35+/years of research+pubs and had an adcom at a school basically flat out tell me that I needed to jump through hoops. In those exact words.

It's always comforting to hear when someone is forced to waste another year because of this. The medical school admissions system is great!

 

[SpecterGT260]

i think you missed the point. this, in the eyes of the adcom, was not enough.

 

[AllDaWEI]

i think you missed the point. this, in the eyes of the adcom, was not enough.

No I understood it. I was being sarcastic about how incredibly ridiculous this is. You put a few months of effort into helping out at the ER and wham! You're just not altruistic enough... Seriously, what has this system come down to?

 

[SpecterGT260]

It's always comforting to hear when someone is forced to waste another year because of this. The medical school admissions system is great!

at least you have proposed a fix.... but that fix is to have required volunteer hours with a verification system.

the problems with that:
*a verification system puts additional requirements on WHERE someone can volunteer, which will restrict ability
*added time and effort on people who are not applicants to comply
*putting this in as a requirement will cause many pre-meds to simply check it off of the reqs list.


why is that last one a problem? if your school has 130 seats, and 3000 applicants, a normal range of 28-33 MCAT score with some outliers here and there (5 points) and a similarly narrow GPA range, how do you make the decision on who to cut? statistically speaking, if we reduced it to numbers like this most adcoms would be flooded with functionally identical applicants. so do we just go with a lottery system? expand programs to make sure there are seats for EVERYONE with a 28+ mcat and a 3.6+ gpa? add a straw pulling component tot he end of every interview session?

 

[AllDaWEI]

at least you have proposed a fix.... but that fix is to have required volunteer hours with a verification system.

the problems with that:
*a verification system puts additional requirements on WHERE someone can volunteer, which will restrict ability
*added time and effort on people who are not applicants to comply
*putting this in as a requirement will cause many pre-meds to simply check it off of the reqs list.


why is that last one a problem? if your school has 130 seats, and 3000 applicants, a normal range of 28-33 MCAT score with some outliers here and there (5 points) and a similarly narrow GPA range, how do you make the decision on who to cut? statistically speaking, if we reduced it to numbers like this most adcoms would be flooded with functionally identical applicants. so do we just go with a lottery system? expand programs to make sure there are seats for EVERYONE with a 28+ mcat and a 3.6+ gpa? add a straw pulling component tot he end of every interview session?

Thanks for the input about this. Here are my thoughts:

*For your first point, it shouldn't restrict ability. The hours should be verified by printing an official form from the AMCAS website, and can be submitted by ANY volunteer coordinator.

*For your second point, based on what has been said about applicants with no or too few hours, they most likely won't get in first place. People already don't comply, and they are the ones being re-applicants.

*For your third point, it doesn't limit the number of hours pre-meds can do. You will always have over-achievers. When I was in high school, some of the top students volunteered extensively to look better for top colleges. Volunteering was by no means a requirement, and a majority of kids got into first tier schools without any volunteering. You will always have pre-meds that will go above and beyond. All this does is verify hours, so that embellishing comes to an end. Its easy to either manipulate start/end dates, or to omit breaks taken. I remember in a past thread there was story of student who inflated one year worth of volunteering into four years by working the minimum three month commitment during all four years of college. This will stop that. When pre-meds need to actually do the hours they claim, then they will begin to back down because the experience sucks for so many.

Looks like it's just a pain the butt hoop to jump through. Sorry to hear you were rejected because of that. 🙁

 

[2012mdc]

same. i had the GPA and MCAT to get in with no issue along with plenty of research. was told by an adcom that the only thing i needed to work on between years was getting the volunteer experiences up. i had a mission trip to central america and several months in the ER, that was about it.

those experiences don't say anything about you innately or how you will do as a doctor. They were only done because they specifically told you that's what you needed to do to get in. Like they're telling you to raise your MCAT. I'm sorry but that's ridiculous. You probably not did not change as a person from before you dd those activities to after. Adcoms basically admitted we don't care about your motivation for doing it we're just gonna set an arbitrary level for volunteer experience. No evidence to my knowledge shows that more hours = better med student/doctor.

Enough clinical exposure is an important but I just don't think volunteering belongs in the rat race of mcat/gpa/research. The first two are correlated (however weakly) to success in med school. The third is a scholarly activity and a useful skill to have as a med student/physician. Volunteering because its a requirement proves nothing. Clinical exposure should be required (people need to make an educated decision) but volunteering doesn't need to be.

 

[AllDaWEI]

There is a lot of crap involved on any job. The ability to grin and bear it is fundamental to loving your job. Being willing to put others first is an important part of a job in the service sector and may be indicative of people who will love being physicians.

Many aspects of medicine involve teamwork and the volunteer activities I mentioned above often involve working as part of a team (home building, disaster relief, organizing blood drives, etc) and that's a useful skill to develop and demonstrate.

Egotistical, self-absorbed bull artists are people I don't tolerate well. People who have done interesting things are interesting people to talk with over lunch or to otherwise have around. That's why I have a question I like to ask that isn't just "tell me about...." but that has a little twist to it so that people have to think a bit rather than just blurt out their prepared speech about how wonderful and inspiring it was to wash the feet of the poor or sing on a Broadway stage or whatever un-cookie cutter thing they have on their application. Other stuff tends to fall in the "can we tolerate them" category including those who want to convert others to their religion during the interview (!), who can not stop talking during an interview, who will not answer more than yes or no (imagine having them on service and eating lunch with them every day for a month!), and those who have a single response to every question (dragon boats!). I can certainly tolerate people who have not volunteered but people who do are engaged in community service are often most interesting to work with and socialize with. I think that this holds true not only for physicians but for people in all walks of life.

You mentioned in an earlier post that if applicants fail to play along with this unwritten requirement, they will most likely be rejected. Isnt it too harsh to be blaming "bull artists," since they were pretty much forced to be one due to the requirement? The cost of not doing the activity is rejection, so what else to do? This is like forcing pre-meds to speak about their love for MCAT and how meaningful it is to their lives. They pretty much had no choice in the matter.

 

[SpecterGT260]

it worked out in the end, gave me an extra year of real-world experience, and some really cool stories.

so you would feel a lot better about all of this if there was simply a sign-off sheet on AMCAS to be printed off and signed? I suppose I could get behind that. it will make it hard to add things you may have been involved in before deciding to go pre-med, but as youve said, most volunteering that is reported is done after that anyways.

 

[SpecterGT260]

those experiences don't say anything about you innately or how you will do as a doctor. They were only done because they specifically told you that's what you needed to do to get in. Like they're telling you to raise your MCAT. I'm sorry but that's ridiculous. You probably not did not change as a person from before you dd those activities to after. Adcoms basically admitted we don't care about your motivation for doing it we're just gonna set an arbitrary level for volunteer experience. No evidence to my knowledge shows that more hours = better med student/doctor.

Enough clinical exposure is an important but I just don't think volunteering belongs in the rat race of mcat/gpa/research. The first two are correlated (however weakly) to success in med school. The third is a scholarly activity and a useful skill to have as a med student/physician. Volunteering because its a requirement proves nothing. Clinical exposure should be required (people need to make an educated decision) but volunteering doesn't need to be.

lol i wasnt happy about getting turned down my first year, especially after seeing the breakdown with charts, graphs, and the like showing my sGPA and PS/BS MCAT scores well above the averages for that years matriculants. but that is the nature of the beast. i had a relatively easy fix. fixing mcat and GPA are much harder. adcoms still need a determining factor and it is usually volunteerism. the # of identical mcats and gpa's have to be quite high in any application cycle

 

[AllDaWEI]

it worked out in the end, gave me an extra year of real-world experience, and some really cool stories.

so you would feel a lot better about all of this if there was simply a sign-off sheet on AMCAS to be printed off and signed? I suppose I could get behind that. it will make it hard to add things you may have been involved in before deciding to go pre-med, but as youve said, most volunteering that is reported is done after that anyways.

I'm glad that one year was good for you then. 🙂 I was kind of thinking about something funny. I once had someone ask me about doing a post-bacc (they now non-trad), and asked me if they still needed to do all the ECs. If I remember correctly, non-trads still need to volunteer and jump through the same hoops.

It would be depress to see a non-trad with good stats get rejected (assuming they quit job and have family) because quitting a job while having a family to pursue medicine just isn't convincing enough to the ADCOMs, due to lack of volunteer hours or activity in general. 😕

 

[AllDaWEI]

I've never really understood the relation between bagging x amount of volunteer hours and being a quality doctor. If a doctor cannot diagnose their patient properly then what good is a trillion, sometimes "forced", volunteer hours :S

Because when a patient comes in to the ER and you are about to work on them, they will need to make sure you did at least 300 hours worth of volunteer hours. Surely without them you are nothing more than an incompetent person.

 

[notbobtrustme]

There is a lot of crap involved on any job. The ability to grin and bear it is fundamental to loving your job. Being willing to put others first is an important part of a job in the service sector and may be indicative of people who will love being physicians.

Many aspects of medicine involve teamwork and the volunteer activities I mentioned above often involve working as part of a team (home building, disaster relief, organizing blood drives, etc) and that's a useful skill to develop and demonstrate.

So we are going from clinical experience to altruism to now teamwork? That's going to thinner and thinner ice as we dissect this question about volunteering further.

So people who volunteer have better teamwork skills than those who do not? What about solo activities (aka volunteering at the ER)?

I wish adcoms would just come out and own it. Put out a hard requirement and specifically state that extra hours won't influence decisions on your application. That would be a great fix. Some schools already have a point system and my wish is that more schools would adopt this to add some sanity back to the EC arena. We are getting to the point where you need to open a 3rd world free clinic for battered women in order to stand out.

 

[AllDaWEI]

So we are going from clinical experience to altruism to now teamwork? That's going to thinner and thinner ice as we dissect this question about volunteering further.

So people who volunteer have better teamwork skills than those who do not? What about solo activities (aka volunteering at the ER)?

I wish adcoms would just come out and own it. Put out a hard requirement and specifically state that extra hours won't influence decisions on your application. That would be a great fix. Some schools already have a point system and my wish is that more schools would adopt this to add some sanity back to the EC arena. We are getting to the point where you need to open a 3rd world free clinic for battered women in order to stand out.

Oh no! Look what you did! Now every pre-med is going to attempt to open a third world free clinic for battered women, and in a few months threads on SDN will be put it up with responses saying: "It doesn't look good anymore."

Just look how "awesome" mission trips look now.

 

[SpecterGT260]

So we are going from clinical experience to altruism to now teamwork? That's going to thinner and thinner ice as we dissect this question about volunteering further.

So people who volunteer have better teamwork skills than those who do not? What about solo activities (aka volunteering at the ER)?

I wish adcoms would just come out and own it. Put out a hard requirement and specifically state that extra hours won't influence decisions on your application. That would be a great fix. Some schools already have a point system and my wish is that more schools would adopt this to add some sanity back to the EC arena. We are getting to the point where you need to open a 3rd world free clinic for battered women in order to stand out.

and again, how should the adcom decide to choose you over the guy who has the exact same stats as you now that volunteering is not a factor?

 

[notbobtrustme]

and again, how should the adcom decide to choose you over the guy who has the exact same stats as you now that volunteering is not a factor?

PS/LOR

Or just interview both (or neither).

 

[SpecterGT260]

I feel like those are less reliable than volunteering.

I wrote both of my own letters of rec from docs and they approved it and sent it in (that is really not uncommon for a doc to just tell you to write your own.... so anyone silly enough to think they are hiding some big secret from adcoms can breath easy)

and personal statements are incredibly cookie cutter.

 

[UnclePhil]

It's always comforting to hear when someone is forced to waste another year because of this. The medical school admissions system is great!

It's flawed but it is what it is. Luckily, I didn't have to reapply, but I was extremely peeved when I was told that.

 

[2012mdc]

I feel like those are less reliable than volunteering.

I wrote both of my own letters of rec from docs and they approved it and sent it in (that is really not uncommon for a doc to just tell you to write your own.... so anyone silly enough to think they are hiding some big secret from adcoms can breath easy)

and personal statements are incredibly cookie cutter.

Maybe there should be an undergrad equivalent of the Dean's Letter? I honestly have no idea how that would work but something needs to be standardized. In applying for residency most everyone has great LOR's because you can choose your writers but you can't choose what's put in the Dean's letter so there's more variability.

I will admit college feels so long ago (class of 2006) that I don't have great ideas for making the process better. But after going through med school, interacting with other students and physicians, and serving on an adcom I will say altruism is overrated in medicine and I think that's where many folks see the disconnect with the focus on volunteering.

Volunteering is not reliable because most people know to do it and see it as a requirement. Doesn't help distinguish between most applicants.

There are a lot of dbags in medicine so not even the interview is that reliable.

 

[MrBird]

PS/LOR

Or just interview both (or neither).

^ this.

 

[AllDaWEI]

Maybe there should be an undergrad equivalent of the Dean's Letter? I honestly have no idea how that would work but something needs to be standardized. In applying for residency most everyone has great LOR's because you can choose your writers but you can't choose what's put in the Dean's letter so there's more variability.

I will admit college feels so long ago (class of 2006) that I don't have great ideas for making the process better. But after going through med school, interacting with other students and physicians, and serving on an adcom I will say altruism is overrated in medicine and I think that's where many folks see the disconnect with the focus on volunteering.

Volunteering is not reliable because most people know to do it and see it as a requirement. Doesn't help distinguish between most applicants.

There are a lot of dbags in medicine so not even the interview is that reliable.

This.

It becomes to arbitrary.

 

[mauberley]

No I understood it. I was being sarcastic about how incredibly ridiculous this is. You put a few months of effort into helping out at the ER and wham! You're just not altruistic enough... Seriously, what has this system come down to?

Where did he say anything about being rejected because he wasn't altruistic enough? He only said that he was told he didn't have enough hours. I appreciate that you have a reasonable general argument about the utility of volunteering as a requirement for admission, but let's stay honest.

I'm glad that one year was good for you then. 🙂 I was kind of thinking about something funny. I once had someone ask me about doing a post-bacc (they now non-trad), and asked me if they still needed to do all the ECs. If I remember correctly, non-trads still need to volunteer and jump through the same hoops.

It would be depress to see a non-trad with good stats get rejected (assuming they quit job and have family) because quitting a job while having a family to pursue medicine just isn't convincing enough to the ADCOMs, due to lack of volunteer hours or activity in general. 😕

My impression from spending a lot of time reading the NT forum is that volunteer hours aren't the problem, but stats are. But you're correct that even non-traditional applicants need to look good on paper, which means meeting the same standards as traditional applicants.

PS/LOR

Or just interview both (or neither).

What's advantageous about a personal statement?

 

[Bluepanda87]

Sorry if this is a bit off-topic, but I saw someone mention earlier that s/he considered GPA/MCAT/Research to be the aspects that are most important for admission. It got me thinking.
I'm curious what you all think about the importance of research in admissions, particularly volunteer research. Though no one can argue that research isn't vital to anyone interested in pursuing academic medicine, I was under the impression that the majority of MDs worked exclusively in a clinical setting (I could be completely wrong- please correct me if this is the case!) The only reason I could think of for the importance placed on pre-medical research would be the ability for a physician to determine the quality of a study when reviewing new techniques or medicine. However, it seems like this could be accomplished through seminars during medical school (i.e., does one actually need to conduct research in order to understand what makes a good/bad study?)

I know there are a lot of people on this site who are passionate about their research. I'm curious what you all think!

 

[MrBird]

Sorry if this is a bit off-topic, but I saw someone mention earlier that s/he considered GPA/MCAT/Research to be the aspects that are most important for admission. It got me thinking.
I'm curious what you all think about the importance of research in admissions, particularly volunteer research. Though no one can argue that research isn't vital to anyone interested in pursuing academic medicine, I was under the impression that the majority of MDs worked exclusively in a clinical setting (I could be completely wrong- please correct me if this is the case!) The only reason I could think of for the importance placed on pre-medical research would be the ability for a physician to determine the quality of a study when reviewing new techniques or medicine. However, it seems like this could be accomplished through seminars during medical school (i.e., does one actually need to conduct research in order to understand what makes a good/bad study?)

I know there are a lot of people on this site who are passionate about their research. I'm curious what you all think!

Research is unnecessary, but a lot of people do it because they're either actually interested in it (I can imagine most premed science lovers do) or they saw everyone on SDN had it on their apps so they felt like they needed it too. Having it on your app is not nearly as important as high GPA high MCAT.

However, weak research in which you're basically a bench slave doing routine work without actually contributing to the project conceptually is pretty meaningless.

 

[LizzyM]

As with many other things, it is not just here but also in the MSAR (AAMC publication) and you'll see the majority of matriculants at just about every medical school in the country had some research experience. It is a plus but it is also not 100% meaning that some people get in without having research on their applications. On the other hand, like that book "what to expect when you are expecting" (which I hated when I was pregnant, btw), there are the "best odds" for a good outcome and research is one of those things that seems to improve one's odds. If you love science, wouldn't you want to do some real science when you have the chance. (almost all applicants have an "I love science" aspect to their application to medical school/"why I want to be a doctor" essay.)

 

[MrBird]

Just do it if you like it.

 

[SpecterGT260]

Just do it if you like it.

you are kinda branching from semantics and theoretical to IRL advice... an ADCOM just said that adcoms will look at this and take it into consideration (that was intentionally redundant....)

i don't think most people realize how tight the competition is and how pass or drop decisions are made on very subjective criteria... if you want it and you don't have other things to make you stand out in the pack then you should be out there padding the resume like mad. with an average MCAT of ~34 for MD/PhD programs, I doubt speaking from experience is going to help this guy much.

 

[MrBird]

You're right. People should just play this game. Forgo any semblance of dignity and just pad your resume to be competitive. You won't care once you've been accepted. I know I don't.

It's a shame that ADCOMs encourage this but hey, dog eat dog world.