Work or Volunteer?

[Green6936]

I've been working at the public library and I just cut my hours down to 16/week so that I can put in a lot of time to study from the MCAT (I got a 21 the first time I took it). I also just got offered a full time job at an OB/GYN office to do filling, patient rooming, physician assistance, and office work. Would it be better to take the job to get some more medical experience to put on my application? Or would it be better to keep my job at the library, study my ass off for the MCAT, and volunteer in a medical setting once a week?

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[lala83]

I've been working at the public library and I just cut my hours down to 16/week so that I can put in a lot of time to study from the MCAT (I got a 21 the first time I took it). I also just got offered a full time job at an OB/GYN office to do filling, patient rooming, physician assistance, and office work. Would it be better to take the job to get some more medical experience to put on my application? Or would it be better to keep my job at the library, study my ass off for the MCAT, and volunteer in a medical setting once a week?

study study study. if you're not going to be able to devote time to studying for the mcat if you're working at the ob/gyn office, you may not make the cut and committees may not pay much attention to your extracurriculars. if there's anything i can say in hindsight, it's that numbers get your foot in the door, and ECs and good LORs can only help you from there.

 

[Animus]

Agree with Green.

Your MCAT is too low, must retake. Goodluck.

 

[HemaOncoDoc]

I've been working at the public library and I just cut my hours down to 16/week so that I can put in a lot of time to study from the MCAT (I got a 21 the first time I took it). I also just got offered a full time job at an OB/GYN office to do filling, patient rooming, physician assistance, and office work. Would it be better to take the job to get some more medical experience to put on my application? Or would it be better to keep my job at the library, study my ass off for the MCAT, and volunteer in a medical setting once a week?

I would advise taking the MCAT again. Increasing your score will increase the your odds. I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing that you don't have much exposure in the medical setting. Though working for the OB/GYN gives you exposure to the medical setting, I do not believe it can outweight doing well on the MCAT and gaining your medical exposure via volunteering. Best of luck.

And oh yeah, apply early.

 

[Green6936]

I would advise taking the MCAT again. Increasing your score will increase the your odds. I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing that you don't have much exposure in the medical setting. Though working for the OB/GYN gives you exposure to the medical setting, I do not believe it can outweight doing well on the MCAT and gaining your medical exposure via volunteering. Best of luck.

And oh yeah, apply early.

I worked for a semester in the ER and I spent 2 weeks one summer on a volunteer medical trip to Nicaragua. I've shadowed a pediatrician twice and a DO once (he wrote me a nice letter of rec). I also taught a microbiology class with fun little experiments to a 3rd grade class in south phoenix (a bad part of town). Is this enough? I'm hoping I can study for the MCAT and work part time at the OB/GYN office. I just bought the examkrackers books so I hope they help!

 

[Animus]

I worked for a semester in the ER and I spent 2 weeks one summer on a volunteer medical trip to Nicaragua. I've shadowed a pediatrician twice and a DO once (he wrote me a nice letter of rec). I also taught a microbiology class with fun little experiments to a 3rd grade class in south phoenix (a bad part of town). Is this enough? I'm hoping I can study for the MCAT and work part time at the OB/GYN office. I just bought the examkrackers books so I hope they help!

Sounds like you do not have much volunteer experience. If you have only done 2 weeks worth that is nothing. Still having a lot of clinical experience may get you around that, prob depends on the school I guess. Only advice I can give you is keep volunteering, if only a few hours on the weekends just to show you are involved in something.

ExamKrackers books were the best MCAT books for me personally, I liked them much better than the Kaplan stuff.

 

[Green6936]

Any suggestions as to where I could volunteer? I've tried the hospital but the only thing avaliable is being someone that brings visitors to the patients.

 

[Animus]

Any suggestions as to where I could volunteer? I've tried the hospital but the only thing avaliable is being someone that brings visitors to the patients.

I wouldnt look at any hospital volunteering as bad. All it can do is give you more experiences to talk about and technically what you refered to is patient time. If you can get something that is both educational for you and interesting when volunteering great. Most of the time, however, you are not doing something too interesting when you are volunteering. What you really want is to show that you are interested in giving your time to helping out. It does not have to be in the hospital though, if you think you have enough hospital experience go do big brother/big sister or some other community program. The type doesnt matter as much as the act itself.

 

[Green6936]

I wouldnt look at any hospital volunteering as bad. All it can do is give you more experiences to talk about and technically what you refered to is patient time. If you can get something that is both educational for you and interesting when volunteering great. Most of the time, however, you are not doing something too interesting when you are volunteering. What you really want is to show that you are interested in giving your time to helping out. It does not have to be in the hospital though, if you think you have enough hospital experience go do big brother/big sister or some other community program. The type doesnt matter as much as the act itself.

Thanks for the advise!!

 

[HemaOncoDoc]

I worked for a semester in the ER and I spent 2 weeks one summer on a volunteer medical trip to Nicaragua. I've shadowed a pediatrician twice and a DO once (he wrote me a nice letter of rec). I also taught a microbiology class with fun little experiments to a 3rd grade class in south phoenix (a bad part of town). Is this enough? I'm hoping I can study for the MCAT and work part time at the OB/GYN office. I just bought the examkrackers books so I hope they help!

The mission trip is very exciting and may make you stand out though I know many people with similar trips. However, in terms of volunteering in the hospital setting, depending on the hospital and the floor that you're on, the staff may let you do a range of things, from paperwork to some real nice shadowing experiences and doing rounds with med students. These types of experiences give you a brief glimpse of what you're going to be doing in the future and provides valuable insight.

And I agree, Kaplan does provide you with a boatload of information, but I found that doing EK by myself was by far, the most rewarding.