Worried about my ECs, looking for brutal honesty [WAMC]

[Kajkid2]

Hey everyone,
I'm just now realizing I probably wasn't ready to apply for this cycle. FML. Would you guys mind looking through my stats/ECs and letting me know what you think? I'll be as brief as possible but I'm also going to try and be as detailed as I can so you can see what ADCOM sees.

Major: Speech and Hearing Science (non-trad? idfk) cGPA: 3.92 sGPA: 3.89 MCAT: 515

Clinical experience (ALL PAID) -

• Full-time Cardiac Monitoring Technician + General Anesthesia Technician (currently doing this in my gap year but started a few years ago as summer help). I split these two titles on my AMCAS app because they have slightly different responsibilities that I shift between throughout the work day. Total hours combined thru May 2020 is projected at ~3000. Lots of interaction with patients and different types of doctors in OR setting, mainly anesthesiologists though.
• Mental Health Assistant in a locked, in-patient psych unit at a private hospital. Literally all I did was interact with patients (take vital signs, do one-on-one suicide watches for at-risk patients, perform wellness checks on all the patients every 15 mins). Total hours ~370 because I did it for only one summer before they closed the facility.

Research -

• Did an independent honors thesis in my Speech and Hearing department junior thru senior year of undergrad (had to be nominated by faculty and meet GPA requirements to do so). I chose to create a study of reading comprehension in adults with aphasia and actually recruited some participants from my school's speech clinic. Took ~165 hours to complete this.
• Worked in a neuroscience/cognitive linguistics lab for a year during undergrad. I was a leader on our lab's NIH-funded study and had to program/code all of our experiments, counterbalance stimuli, and divide the menial tasks between other research assistants. ~300 hours.
• Just recently started working (unpaid) in a vascular bio lab at the same hospital I work as an anesthesia tech in. My main job is to operate the thromboelastograph machine by running blood samples through it and interpreting the tracing that it generates. Projected ~940 hours by May 2020.

Clubs (not sure this matters that much but I included them in AMCAS) -

• Did club field hockey for first two years of undergrad.
• Was part of the National Student Speech Language and Hearing Association for junior and senior year of undergrad.

Volunteering (This is where I think I've completely screwed myself) -

• I volunteered for a couple hours a month during senior year of undergrad at a non-profit that provides meals to immunocompromised people. 12 hours total.
• I also mentioned that thru my clubs I did some fundraising/community service but it was extremely minimal so I didn't address it directly in its own entry, which was likely a mistake.
• I haven't done any clinical volunteering because I feel like my paid clinical work is more substantial and meaningful to my candidacy than what I could do in a volunteer position. Not sure if schools would agree with that though.

Shadowing (Also screwed myself here I think) -

• Literally 0 hours. I consider my tech job as a sort of informal shadowing because I basically follow around anesthesiologists all day and get to watch lots of different surgeries. I tried to explain this in my AMCAS description of my tech job(s). Again, I'm not sure if schools would agree with this thought process.

I guess I'm just wondering if my scores and other ECs can make up for a lack of volunteering and shadowing in this cycle? I'm actively applying for volunteer work at some local animal shelters to prepare for a possible reapplication next year. Do you guys think it's a lost cause to send an update now essentially saying "hey, I'm gonna do volunteer work during my gap year btw"? I just feel like such an idiot for realizing now that everyone else has like 100+ hours of volunteering and 50+ hours shadowing (don't ask me how I missed this all along). I've already got two pre-II R's, two pre-II holds, and the rest are silent. I have no idea how I've survived some of the R waves at the schools I applied to. Please be brutally honest with me!

Thank you for any feedback you may have!

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[erdoc111]

Just start THIS WEEK nonclinical volunteering about 10 hours a week for 15 weeks and shadowing for 10 hours a week for 5 weeks in case you need to reapply. Hopefully, you will get a surprise "A". Always be preparing for reapplication.

 

[LeaveNoTrace]

You don't necessarily need clinical volunteering if you have the amount of paid experience you have, but you do need to show your altruism. Start that shadowing and do that nonclinical volunteering until you have an acceptance. Good luck.