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[twoheadedbull]

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[chzsux]

I feel like your app is great. Maybe focus on getting some more nonclinical volunteering with those less fortunate than you and like you said, more shadowing experience in primary care. I do feel like research is important for top schools but keep in mind that many top schools also love service.

As for your school list, I think what you have is great so far but it really depends on how many schools you want to apply to. I'm of the mind that it's better to apply to more schools than you thought you would need than to have to apply twice - if you want to add schools, you could look into adding places like VCU, EVMS, etc. Also keep in mind that UMass is not very OOS-friendly and low-yield Jesuit schools like Loyola and Georgetown really emphasize social justice and service

 

[candbgirl]

Obviously your stats are excellent. But your ECs are unimpressive. Don’t shadow your mom and aunt but they should be able to hook you up with colleagues. You need about 50 hours total shadowing. Your EMT work is okay but see if you can’t get some clinical volunteering in a hospital, clinic, hospice etc. This would broaden your experience and give you a glimpse of the day to day work of a doctor. Another 100 hours before you apply would be good. The ESL tutoring is okay for the teaching/ tutoring area but you see to not have any nonclinical volunteering. Do you have any volunteering that focuses on the unserved/underserved in your community? You need at least 200 hours of nonclinical volunteering. Some of the schools you have on your list value service a lot and applying without it isn’t a good idea. And all schools expect service of somevsort.

 

[deleted1114112]

Obviously your stats are excellent. But your ECs are unimpressive. Don’t shadow your mom and aunt but they should be able to hook you up with colleagues. You need about 50 hours total shadowing. Your EMT work is okay but see if you can’t get some clinical volunteering in a hospital, clinic, hospice etc. This would broaden your experience and give you a glimpse of the day to day work of a doctor. Another 100 hours before you apply would be good. The ESL tutoring is okay for the teaching/ tutoring area but you see to not have any nonclinical volunteering. Do you have any volunteering that focuses on the unserved/underserved in your community? You need at least 200 hours of nonclinical volunteering. Some of the schools you have on your list value service a lot and applying without it isn’t a good idea. And all schools expect service of somevsort.

Can't you count unpaid ESL or disadvantaged tutoring nonclinical volunteering? That was my only nonclinical (~500 hours) aside from 50 hours of red cross nonsense and I've gotten attention from service schools...

Also the skillset is completely different than traditional 'teaching/tutoring' or something like paid biology tutoring or TAing which I would think falls into the latter. Was this just an inadvertent screw up lol ?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Can't you count unpaid ESL or disadvantaged tutoring nonclinical volunteering? That was my only nonclinical (~500 hours) aside from 50 hours of red cross nonsense and I've gotten attention from service schools...

Also the skillset is completely different than traditional 'teaching/tutoring' or something like paid biology tutoring or TAing which I would think falls into the latter. Was this just an inadvertent screw up lol ?

How did you describe it in your application? Did you get any A's from those schools?

I'll also join in and say that your clinical experiences to date are disappointing. You have to do better than shadowing relatives and a pathologist; more shocking is that you haven't shadowed them before you shadowed the pathologist. 160 hours as an EMT is not a lot of hours; when did you start this, and how often are you working? Is this an on-campus EMT club?

ESL: an immigrant implies one. How did you get trained to tutor ESL, and how did you get assigned to this student? How many hours and for what duration of time?

Why are you interested in rural medicine if you haven't even done any in-depth experience in understanding rural health needs and challenges? So what have you done to get insight into rural medicine to know whether this is something you want to do?

In general, nothing really screams "I'm an interesting person for your med school class." You say you want a T20 school; nothing in your activities really helps you there, and remember that these schools see candidates with your stats as "average."

 

[deleted1114112]

How did you describe it in your application? Did you get any A's from those schools?

I did, yes, from a couple. I described it more as mentoring and highlighted that I made my own lessons for each student and also helped them with other non-academic things. It was an MM for me. I also had soup kitchen volunteering and other small bouts of 'nonclinical' (none of which were on m application) but it never crossed my mind to put those on, especially over the refugee mentoring, because they were largely inconsequential to my journey to pursue medicine. Watching someone else grow, develop, and learn, especially coming out of terrible living situations (often) in such personal way was exponentially more impactful.

 

[candbgirl]

I did, yes, from a couple. I described it more as mentoring and highlighted that I made my own lessons for each student and also helped them with other non-academic things. It was an MM for me. I also had soup kitchen volunteering and other small bouts of 'nonclinical' (none of which were on m application) but it never crossed my mind to put those on, especially over the refugee mentoring, because they were largely inconsequential to my journey to pursue medicine. Watching someone else grow, develop, and learn, especially coming out of terrible living situations (often) in such personal way was exponentially more impactful.

So you described it totally different than the OP who described it as ESL tutor for an immigrant. It’s all in the description. It seems You didn’t focus on tutoring. And just a FYI , many of the service schools, especially schools like Loyola, love service to refugees . Congrats on your As.

 

[chzsux]

So you described it totally different than the OP who described it as ESL tutor for an immigrant. It’s all in the description. It seems You didn’t focus on tutoring. And just a FYI , many of the service schools, especially schools like Loyola, love service to refugees . Congrats on your As.

Yeah I think I was similar to @Anon_help00 in that I had 600-700 hours with a group that did GED tutoring for incarcerated/underserved groups in prisons, rehab clinics, halfway houses, etc. I focused more on the mentoring and the fact that we used our connections with nonprofits and local community centers to connect our students to resources as well as the fact that I was able to use my connections with a service site to setup a ticket donation partnership with a local NFL franchise. All my interviewers this year and last year were very interested and asked about it.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Yes, sorry that I confused and conflated the posters. Congratulations, and yes, it is often times how you describe your activities.

 

[deleted1114112]

So you described it totally different than the OP who described it as ESL tutor for an immigrant. It’s all in the description. It seems You didn’t focus on tutoring. And just a FYI , many of the service schools, especially schools like Loyola, love service to refugees . Congrats on your As.

Not necessarily. I would still think pretty much anyone doing volunteer tutoring/mentoring for immigrants/refugees/ESL learners are always going to get much more out of it that if you were a tutor at a local Mathnasium.

Maybe virtual is different, but when I was doing it in-person I would meet the family and after a bit of time they'd talk to me about other things, etc. which were invaluable. But on paper it's just a 'tutoring' position.

I mean you can really faithfully write about a lot of different things with an activity like this depending on what you want to convey, it's what the MM's are for.