My D is trying to decide if she wants to be an RA for her Junior year as an undergrad. The cost savings is a huge advantage, but the time commitment would prevent her from pursuing other EC involvement. She needs volunteer hours, doctor shadowing experience, and involvement in medical clubs, which would be hard to juggle with the RA hours. Does the role of RA look favorable to med school admissions? Can it be a substitute for leadership ECs or ECs that show longevity? The experience will certainly hone her people skills. But we are not sure if the advantages outweigh the time restrictions on her schedule. The position would help her graduate debt-free, which is another big plus.
RA can be considered a leadership activity. But it’s not an unusual or uncommon EC. Lots of former RAs apply. It’s not considered a whole lot differently than other leadership ECs. IOW, it’s good EC to have but not a deal clincher any more than being president of a fraternity or sorority is, or being a youth group leader in your faith community is. I don’t think it will be seen as substitute for lengthy involvement in community service or other long term activity unless it’s a multi- year position.
That said you have to do what’s best financially for your family. Med school is expensive. So is applying to med school.
Yes it would be looked favorably, but what weight any one school would place on it is impossible to know.
You need high gpa and good MCAT to be considered. RA is just an EC which is like an icing on the cake and don’t forget the medical EC’s (shadowing, clinical experiences and hospital volunteering) are more important.
Thanks for these perspectives. Very helpful. I love CC!
Why would the time commitment prevent her from doing other things? My guy has been an RA for three years now - always with freshmen and loves it. He still has plenty of time for shadowing, volunteering at Hospice, and dance, juggling, sign language, + Christian clubs, most of which he’s had board positions in too.
Being an RA (at his school) means he goes there early for training and prep and stays there till the bitter end waiting for all to leave. He has duty hours, but if he’s not actually doing things for people during that time (happens most of the time) he studies or occasionally calls us. His busy times are at the start and end of each semester and a few “special” days. There are a few meetings, but nothing that takes loads of time.
If it’s different at your D’s school, then perhaps my thoughts would change, but my guy hasn’t seen a disadvantage at all. As I said, he loves it.
Whether it helps with his med school apps or not doesn’t really matter to him.
@Creekland The time commitment of being an RA varies widely from school to school, as well as dorm to dorm. As a Stanford freshman dorm RA, it could easily average out to 10-20 hours/week, and there were some parts of the year that it easily surpassed that for a variety of reasons. When a resident is having a terrible day/week/month/year and wants to talk to us, we talk to them regardless of whether it’s during your weekend on-call hours. When there were medical emergencies in the dead of night, it was part of our staff culture to have at least one RA accompany the resident to the hospital, and not infrequently stay overnight and check-in with them frequently. I can’t even tell you how long planning the logistics of Ski Trip took. :)) If OP’s D says RAing at her school is a big time commitment that would preclude involvement in other activities, I’d be inclined to believe her.
@MIMomma RA is a leadership position, but to be honest, it likely will not make too much of a difference on her application decision. Like many other ECs, it’s one that many students have, and what exactly being an RA entails varies widely, as mentioned above. She will have the opportunity to report how many hours she spent on RAing and verbally describe the responsibilities at her specific dorm and school. If it was a time- and work-intensive position, it will obviously be looked favorably upon, but the “weighting” of it towards each med school’s final decision will not generally be huge.
That said, I loved RAing; that was my best and most gratifying year at Stanford, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. But it also was a huge amount of work, and could be immensely frustrating at times. She should do it if she really wants to for her own personal gratification, understanding that it is not necessarily the flashiest thing for her AMCAS app.
*I wouldn’t be too worried about the shadowing issue thought, regardless of whether or not she RAs. She can simply shadow over academic breaks, and can rack up plenty of shadowing hours over summer, winter, Thanksgiving breaks.
@Era991 Everything you detailed in your paragraph to me matches what my son does too, except he took his hall to Niagara Falls rather than skiing. He talks with students often, he’s been at the hospital in the wee hours, he’s on call for locked out students, etc, he makes rounds. It still doesn’t mean he can’t participate in the several clubs, shadowing, research, and other activities he likes and still get a > 3.9 GPA.
Perhaps if the OP’s student is concerned about it, it might be too much for her. Not all kids prefer so many activities, but there’s definitely no blanket statement that it must be one or the other. Even other RAs I’ve met via my son are involved in many other things - not just “I’m an RA.” I think the job attracts students who enjoy doing more. Her D needs to know being an RA doesn’t automatically mean giving up everything else.
@Creekland I don’t think the OP or I meant that being an RA would mean zero other ECs; rather, I mean that, as a full time student and a 1/4-1/2 time RA, there are only so many waking hours left in the week. In my own case, those 300+ could have gone towards different ECs. It’s the same for every RA, unless they propose to take those 10-20 h/wk from social/leisure time–not something I recommend for pre-meds who need as much of a break as they can get, as some of my current classmates felt burnt out starting in early in MS1.
As a current med student who’s involved with my institution’s med admissions, there are many “weightier” ways that I could have spent those 300+ hours. Aside from other leadership roles and shadowing, a great example is research. Research can have a big impact on a student’s application, often with every additional hour counting more than the last one especially once they break the 1000, 2000, 3000+ total hours count. So it’s a trade off of hours. We all knew that when we decided to apply to be RAs, but we did it anyway because it was worth it to us. 
Thanks again for the perspectives. My D is currently a Sophomore with a heavy course load this semester. She is a “junior RA” at her school this year, and it has been a bigger commitment than she anticipated, averaging 15 hours a week in the dorm’s community center. The set work schedule has made it hard for her to make prof office hours or engage in clubs. She has her classes and labs, her research lab work, and the dorm work. All her remaining time is spent on homework. She’s been told being an actual RA at her school is easier than her current position, with fewer set hours (with overnights “on duty” instead), but we’re skeptical since the current responsibilities were rather mis-represented. Since she is not enjoying the current position, I think that will be the basis of her decision…pass on being an RA.
It sounds like passing is the best decision for her. I agree with the others that it wouldn’t help her apps any more than other activities would. One should only really be an RA if they enjoy it IMO. I’d say the same about any activity actually. My guy enjoys dance, juggling, research, volunteering, and being an RA. None of it is “work” for him - well - not overall. We all know there can be moments with anything. I suspect that’s why it all fits in well for him without affecting his grades. She should do what she enjoys.