Work experience instead of volunteer?

[dentalstudentprospect2]

I'm desperately trying to rack up volunteer hours before June approaches but I still will not get the 1000+ hrs like many people here. Do dental schools consider working during undergraduate as EC's? Can this substitute for volunteering? I had to help out my family during undergrad and worked about 30 hrs a week.

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[doc toothache]

I'm desperately trying to rack up volunteer hours before June approaches but I still will not get the 1000+ hrs like many people here. Do dental schools consider working during undergraduate as EC's? Can this substitute for volunteering? I had to help out my family during undergrad and worked about 30 hrs a week.

With that kind of volunteerism we will be rapidly approaching Nirvana.

 

[Glimmer1991]

I'd say 250 hours is closer to the "average" on SDN.

1000 is definitely an outlier.

 

[Bottle]

I would like to know this as well. I want to work and earn some cash, but if I do work, then I don't have time to volunteer and do other EC.

 

[customx]

I think you will find plenty of people on SDN that don't have a ton of volunteer hours and still got accepted. I'm lacking in that department as well, but I'm a non-trad that worked full time, took classes, and shadowed over 200 hours. I have volunteer hours, but nowhere close to 100

 

[Miley Cyrus.]

volunteer looks better, imo

 

[BabyShades]

working instead of volunteering can be seen as a selfish pathway. you could take few hours off of work to volunteer each week. 300 volunteer hours is about decent, that's pretty much 2 hours a week for 3 years. Right now I have close to 400 hours of volunteering or giving back to community. However, I think 100+ will look good too.

 

[GreendaleCC]

There's usually a space to explain anything you wish to explain. 30 hours a week is a lot in addition to full time course work. It's reasonable that your volunteer hours would suffer.

100 shadowing and 100 volunteer seems to be fine. I had around 150/250 iirc

If you're currently volunteering at something you feel good about doing and something you genuinely have interest for, you can speak on that. The 1000 hours aren't a maxim. It's actually a huge outlier. I believe ASDOH is the most volunteer biased school, and their average is 800 for accepted students. 100-200 isn't gonna hurt you.