Am I on the right track?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

I am a rising sophomore, and with school starting up in about a month, I wanted to get some advice on my schedule and extracurricular plans.

So far (I know it isn’t great but I guess I have to start somewhere)…
-GPA: 4.0 (both cumulative and science)
-MCAT: have not taken but am planning to take next August, as I will have finished all prereqs by then and will have all summer to study
-Bio major and minoring in chem and religion
-100 hours of working as a dietary aide at a nursing home (Question: does this count as clinical experience? I work directly with patients/residents by delivering their meals, arranging and preparing food to meet their unique needs so they can eat independently, assisting some residents with eating meals, and bringing patients to different locations within the nursing home. The biggest part of my job has been anticipating needs of residents and simply spending time with all of them because many are lonely and don’t receive visitors)
-50 hours of volunteering in the emergency department (I volunteer at 3 hospitals all in the emergency department)
-about 100 hours of religion research in the form of a 20 page research paper (planning to publish in the fall)
-member of leadership group on campus
-intramural basketball team member

Plans for sophomore year …
-taking physics, organic chem, cell bio, and an independent study in religion (involves extensive research hours and will we writing 30+ page paper and hopefully publishing) in the fall.
-physics, organic chem, biochem, and religion class with volunteering requirement in the spring
-continue working as a dietary aide
-continue volunteering at all 3 hospitals (should have 250-300 hours by end of fall semester)
-participate in leadership group and intramural sports
-hopefully accepted to a shadow program where I would be able to get 40-60 hours of shadowing in a variety of specialties over winter break
-volunteer at the nursing home I work at because I have noticed many residents would love someone to talk to them for a while and I absolutely love working with the elderly. Bonus: I already know all the residents so striking up conversations would be easy! (probably start next summer when I have more time) Question: is this a good idea? Or should I try to get non-clinical volunteering with an organization that I don’t already work for?
-taking MCAT next August after studying all summer (all prereqs will be done at end of sophomore year)

Any thoughts or advice? I know that I am just starting to get experience but I would appreciate some opinions to make sure I am on the right track (don’t exactly have the best adviser). I know that I am lacking in science research (although I will have a lot of religion research hours because I enjoy this type of research more) but this is something that I can focus on during my junior year, as I will have a lot more time for this during junior year. Also, just for fun and reference, I am a MN resident and have always dreamed of going to the U of M med school :slight_smile:

I apologize if I sound like an average, overly concerned pre-med student but I just want to make sure that I am on the right track to become a competitive applicant, and most importantly, a successful, compassionate physician in the future :slight_smile:

2

It sounds like you’re on the right track. Keep up the good work.

And you’re right-- your religion research really won’t count as “research” in the eyes of med school adcomms. (Someone over on SDN asked about the same type of thing and the consensus among the adcomms was if your research papers were written for a class or for credit, that wasn’t the type of “research” med schools are looking for.)

I might suggest that you start contacting your professors for a lab or clinical research position next spring semester, before the end of the next school year. You may get lucky enough to gain a summer lab research position which will give both paid employment and plenty of lab research experience before you apply to med school the following summer. In fact, you may want to consider applying to various REUs (NSF-sponsored summer research programs) in January. REUs pay a stipend for your work and also pay your summer room & board.

3

^All good advice. I might suggest considering doing lab/clinical research for credit instead of pay, though. Sure, money is always nice, but if you can afford it, lab credits are free As (assuming your dept allows letter grades for lab), count towards your minimum credit/semester requirement, and often count towards your degree program elective requirements.