Clinical experience/Shadowing from high school

<p>So I have 100s of hours in hospital volunteering and about 50 hours of physician shadowing from my high school years. I do understand that med schools do not care about high school.
But do you think this type of experience will be considered at all? While I am working on getting the clinical experience and shadowing in college also, just wondering if I can use some of those hours from high school. After all what you take back from the shadowing or volunteering is the same regardless of whether you are in high school or college in my opinion.</p>

<p>In any case can I mention the high school work in addition to the college ECs. Will that work for or against me?</p>

<p>Appreciate your advice! Thanks!</p>

<p>1) you only have 15 slots in AMCAS your application to list all of your clinical experiences, academic honors, publications, shadowing experiences, leadership positions, research activities, employment, community service, etc. If you are like most pre-meds, you won’t have room on your app to include pre-college activities.</p>

<p>On your app, each activity is listed separately and you must to include the location, name of your supervisor together with his contact info, the exact dates & duration of the activity, and total number of hours. IOW, you can’t just list “50 hours shadowing various physicians” on your app. You need to be specific.</p>

<p>2) generally you only list activities on your app from high school that you have continued with into college OR any high school achievements that were especially significant (think Intel Award, Presidential Scholar, etc) </p>

<p>3) you are free to mention or discuss any activity you’ve participated in at any time in your personal statement</p>

<p>~~~~</p>

<p>I think adcomms would find it odd that you did volunteering or shadowing in high school, but didn’t have more recent experiences. As you grow and mature, your understanding of human behaviors and your values change and so what you take away from the experiences changes too.</p>

<p>Thank you Westmom! I see your point! Also about how many clinical exp. and shadowing hours do most applicants have. I know there is no magic number and it depends on the rest of your stats, but just to get a general idea of what to aim for.</p>

<p>Will appreciate feedback from others also, although these questions may seem small, it will be really helpful to me :-)</p>

<p>If you have space, maybe…My D. ran out of space with her college experiences, she did not want to have it too long / use some supplemental spaces, she did not include some very very great stuff…Just keep in mind adcomms are busy, they most likely just skim, cannot imgine them looking at each of 5000+ applications that closely.</p>

<p>D used high school hospital work on her application. It featured in her personal statement. </p>

<p>There are ways to consolidate certain things on the app. For example, she used one spot for all her academic awards, listing them and the reason she received them. Otherwise the awards would have used up too many of the 15 slots without advancing her application much.</p>

<p>Of course, you should continue these activities, but I think a long commitment to volunteering and a long look at what practicing medicine means, shows that this isn’t something you just decided to do in the last two or three years.</p>

<p>Another point to consider that these are some topics of discussions at interviews. At least, my D’s volunteering (during college) was a very common topic during several of her interviews. I do not think that interviewer would be much interested in a such experience from that many years ago. D. had lots in HS, including paid internship at Med. Research lab for several summers. She did not include any, she did not feel that these old experiences would be of any interest to Med. Schools’ adcomms and simply ran out of space and did not include some stuff from college years either. Maybe it made her application weaker, who knows, everybody gets rejected from some places anyway…</p>

<p>There are no set number of hours. They vary all over the place. </p>

<p>The often suggested minimums for shadowing is 50 hours; for clinical experiences 100 hours. </p>

<p>FWIW, both of my Ds had less shadowing (around 20-25 hours) and significantly more clinical experience. (Each had at least 1000 hours; one had around 4000 hours.) </p>

<p>As Tatin and I both pointed out you can mention any activity in your essays. One D briefly mentioned an incident that occurred when she was volunteering in a hospital in 7th grade in one of her secondary essays.</p>

<p>Keep in mind that none of us are on any admissions committees. We only know what worked for us and our students. </p>

<p>D’s application was much heavier on research than on volunteering or clinical experience. </p>

<p>Follow your scientific and medical interests. If you are passionate about something that will make your application stronger than just filling in the blank with the expected ‘checking the box’ experiences.</p>

<p>I fully agree with Tatin’s advice. Follow your interests/passions.</p>

<p>One D was heavily involved in emergency medicine type activities (EMT-I, mountain search & rescue); the other was more research oriented, worked in neuro-psychiatric fields and was actively involved in mental health advocacy & treatment.</p>

<p>Two very different pathways, but both successful applicants.</p>

<p>You need to find what works for you.</p>

<p>Thank you all so much! Truly appreciate your advice, it is very helpful! Your experience with the process makes your pointers very valuable! </p>

<p>Thanks again.</p>