<p>hi I am a pre-med at UCSD.
I wanted to know what you guys thought about a couple of things in terms of medical school admissions.</p>
<p>So i have maintained a pretty high GPA (3.85) and I am involved in three school organizations (clubs) and I am vice president of one of them. I am currently a TA and have been for two quarters already. I am also writing a research paper under an MD right now. Am I missing anything? I know that I haven't really done much community service, will that really hurt me? This is my second year of undergrad and I haven't taken MCATS yet. Could you please give me any advice on what else I should do? I really appreciate it, THANKS!</p>
<p>The thing you have to know is that medical schools don't care per se that you filled your time up with various activities - of course, it's nice to have more rather than less, all things being equal. But the AMCAS application only gives you room to list twelve things over your four years, and that includes academic honors and any publications you might have. Anything more than that, nobody's ever going to know. What they don't know can't help you.</p>
<p>What does matter a great deal is what those activities tell them about you as a person - they are interested in a human being, not a resume. Were these clubs just... clubs to you? Or did they represent something meaningful, a way for you to change the world around you in some (perhaps small) way? Will you come alive when interviewed about them? Can you use them to write secondary essays that explain why you'll be a great doctor?</p>
<p>Research can either be the kind of thing you plop yourself into for the heck of it - which, frankly, is still important - but what will really make you stand out is if it's the kind of intellectual stimulation that makes your face light up when you're asked.</p>
<p>I will say one thing, and that's that schools need to know that your interest in medicine comes from more than Noah Wyle. They need to know that you've really spent time around sick people and that you really believe you can make that into your life for the next fifty years. They need to know, as Joni Huff is fond of saying, that your interest is "more than hypothetical". Don't do it just to impress them - do it to learn about yourself and whether you can really build a career (and a life!) in medicine.</p>