Reinventing EC's, but being genuine about it

[TabbyTuxy]

Partway through a disappointing cycle, I met with a pre-med advisor who said that my major lack of clinical volunteering was probably the death of my application. I learned a lot from the cycle (to apply earlier, more broadly, and to some DO schools too) but something I need to work on now is improving my clinical exposure and volunteering. Since December, I have been involved with a really cool program where I can share one of my hobbies with people with disabilities as a form of therapy, which has been awesome. I am there several hours each week and will continue to volunteer there for my gap year(s). I also got a full-time, active clinical job for the next two years before I reapply in 2020-2021. I want to get involved with one more volunteer opportunity, too, since after graduation I will have quite a bit more free time and tend to get bored just working 40hrs/week. I am looking into some mentorship types of volunteering, since mentorship has been important to me throughout undergrad.

For the past few years, I haven't had a ton of volunteering or clinical experience but have had research and some unique EC's. My question is whether I am doing too much now with this gap year or two before I reapply. Will schools see it as just something to check the boxes? All the new EC's I have taken up and will take up have direct connections to passions that were clearly part of my app from this cycle -- I just wasn't using them to help others yet.

Any wisdom is appreciated! I am genuinely excited but don't want to come off as fake.

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[Catalystik]

Partway through a disappointing cycle, I met with a pre-med advisor who said that my major lack of clinical volunteering was probably the death of my application. I learned a lot from the cycle (to apply earlier, more broadly, and to some DO schools too) but something I need to work on now is improving my clinical exposure and volunteering. Since December, I have been involved with a really cool program where I can share one of my hobbies with people with disabilities as a form of therapy, which has been awesome. I am there several hours each week and will continue to volunteer there for my gap year(s). I also got a full-time, active clinical job for the next two years before I reapply in 2020-2021. I want to get involved with one more volunteer opportunity, too, since after graduation I will have quite a bit more free time and tend to get bored just working 40hrs/week. I am looking into some mentorship types of volunteering, since mentorship has been important to me throughout undergrad.

For the past few years, I haven't had a ton of volunteering or clinical experience but have had research and some unique EC's. My question is whether I am doing too much now with this gap year or two before I reapply. Will schools see it as just something to check the boxes? All the new EC's I have taken up and will take up have direct connections to passions that were clearly part of my app from this cycle -- I just wasn't using them to help others yet.

I think if you take the characters to explain about how the activities are connected, it will make sense to adcomms and be less likely to be viewed as box checking. Eg, "Due to my love of creating [hobby] and my fulfilling past mentoring relationships, I decided to combine the two and reach out to . . ."

 

[JSReed]

Be aware that there are only 168 hours in a week (and you need to sleep for some of them). But if it brings you joy, then why not? TBH life's a lot more fun when you stop caring what adcoms think