Non-premed clubs

[kopfkino]

I've heard a wide variety of advice on clubs and just wanted to get my facts straight--any help will be appreciated! Since high school, when I crammed everything for resumes and apps, I've been wanting to devote my time to clubs I actually care about. I know there's no one solution for medical school acceptance (besides the very basic formula), but what's the consensus on premed clubs?

I already have a hospital network from a scholarship and volunteer weekly, and I hope to join its regulatory council eventually. I'm passionate about journalism and mental health, and marked those 2 respective clubs as a serious time commitment. For fun, I'm in dance and beekeeping clubs. I know they said branching out is good, but is this too branched out? At this rate I don't think I'll have time to join anything else...

Again, any help will be very appreciated since I'm a clueless freshman haha, thanks!

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[deleted480308]

I've heard a wide variety of advice on clubs and just wanted to get my facts straight--any help will be appreciated! Since high school, when I crammed everything for resumes and apps, I've been wanting to devote my time to clubs I actually care about. I know there's no one solution for medical school acceptance (besides the very basic formula), but what's the consensus on premed clubs?

I already have a hospital network from a scholarship and volunteer weekly, and I hope to join its regulatory council eventually. I'm passionate about journalism and mental health, and marked those 2 respective clubs as a serious time commitment. For fun, I'm in dance and beekeeping clubs. I know they said branching out is good, but is this too branched out? At this rate I don't think I'll have time to join anything else...

Again, any help will be very appreciated since I'm a clueless freshman haha, thanks!

Grades > everything

 

[kopfkino]

@sb247 yep, I know GPA and MCAT are my top priorities, this was just for club stuff

 

[BigBoss]

Adcoms don’t put much weight on clubs. They care more about GPA, MCAT, and extracurriculars such as shadowing, community service, and research.


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[deleted480308]

@sb247 yep, I know GPA and MCAT are my top priorities, this was just for club stuff

You have mentioned 6 activities in that post which raises a legitimate question about getting distracted and lowering your gpa

 

[Catalystik]

I've heard a wide variety of advice on clubs and just wanted to get my facts straight--any help will be appreciated! Since high school, when I crammed everything for resumes and apps, I've been wanting to devote my time to clubs I actually care about. I know there's no one solution for medical school acceptance (besides the very basic formula), but what's the consensus on premed clubs?

I already have a hospital network from a scholarship and volunteer weekly, and I hope to join its regulatory council eventually. I'm passionate about journalism and mental health, and marked those 2 respective clubs as a serious time commitment. For fun, I'm in dance and beekeeping clubs. I know they said branching out is good, but is this too branched out? At this rate I don't think I'll have time to join anything else...

Clubs that give opportunities for leadership or community service will have an impact on your application. Otherwise they are more of a signal for your areas of interest and leisure opportunities and don't add much to your application. Rarely, they are interesting enough to grab an adcomms attention and start a conversation (so maybe keep the beekeeping).

The primary task of a freshman is to hone study skills, keep up with the increased flow of information at the college level (double what you experienced in HS), and learn to do well on any type of test. So don't spread yourself too thin right now. Extracurricular involvement can wait until later in the college experience. Take @sb247 's comment above very seriously, as we see this happen often, and then you have to do damage control.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Beekeeping and dance are cool. Keep those (and if you only have time for one do the beekeeping). You don’t need a ton of clubs. As said already, it won’t matter unless it hurts your gpa, and then it will matter in a negative way.

But beekeeping is super cool.