Hi so I had a question about community service in HS for someone who would want to go into medicine and become a doctor/nurse. Would volunteering at a hospital and shadowing nurses be better than doing girl scouts (and or getting a gold/silver/bronze award) for a student who wants to pursue a medical career? Which would be better for college applications for premed school? Which one will colleges be looking when you’re applying for premed/med?
Are you planning to apply BA/MD programs? (You apply for admission to med school at the same time as you apply to college. These programs are extraordinarily competitive. Harvard is easier to get into.)
If so, you’ll need physician shadowing and clinical volunteering in order to be competitive for these programs.
If you’re looking at applying traditionally (after college graduation), then it really doesn’t matter what you choose.
The reason is that med schools admissions is very much “what have you done lately?” While there’s no rule that says you can’t list high school activities, generally only activities completed during college are looked at by admission committee. You only have 15 lines to list everything: awards, honors, jobs, community service, clinical activities, research projects, physician shadowing, leadership positions, offices held, tutoring/coaching/teaching experiences, etc. Each instance of an experience is listed separately. Most med school applicants easily fill those 15 lines and need to leave stuff off.
Physician shadowing and clinical volunteering can get “stale” (Too old because both medical practice changes and because your maturity and perceptions will change as you get older.) Adcomms will want to see a both of these activities done/continued while you’re in college.
Re: pre-med.
You don’t apply to be a pre-med. Pre-med is an intention; it’s not a major or a department. You can’t be admitted to a pre-med program. (Because they don’t exist!) You simply decide you’re going to be pre-med and take the required coursework needed for application.
I can't speak about direct admit nursing programs because I don't know anything about them. You might try asking in the Nursing Majors forum: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/nursing-major/">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/nursing-major/</a>Hi I’m sort of in the same boat. I’m a junior, graduating in 2016. This is my final summer before my apps go out and I don’t have that many community service hours under my belt (~45)
So this summer I applied to volunteer at a local hospital for 250 hours however my physiotherapist suggested that I shadow her husband (who’s a surgeon), and so I’ve decided to shadow him for a month for five days a week. Along with that I should be able to lead a group of volunteers for two weeks at another hospital. How would shadowing plus the volunteer thing (combined for about ~160 hours) look compared to 250 hours of simple volunteer service? Also would the shadowing be a solid summer EC? Like is it unusual?
Also @WayOutWestMom could you tell us more about these BA/MD programs and their exclusivity? If I have a SAT score of 2260 (800 CR, 760 M) do I have a good chance?
@NicholasCageAf
Your chances will depend on the specific programs you apply to.
Do you have clinical volunteering, physicians shadowing and community service?
What about AP or IB coursework in math and science? Do you have all 5s or the IB equivalent?
What’s your GPA?
Generally speaking, the selectivity of BA/MD programs are on par with getting accepted into HYPSM.
I’m in a British IGSCE system school in Pakistan that uses the O and A level system. Our school doesn’t calculate GPA and doesn’t have any AP courses but I believe I have a 4.0 GPA. I mean I have all A’s and A+s so I should, I think. And by the end of the summer I would have shadowed a doctor for 4 weeks and volunteered in a hospital for 90 hours in total (as a leader for other volunteers). I guess my chances are not that strong, but what about for the BA/MD programs of colleges like Miami university and Howard, would their selectivity also be on par with HYPSM?