<p>How Important is it to have Leadership Positions, like in clubs? does it have to be in well known clubs? and does it have to be in a club, or is being a Peer Leader to freshmen in an ethic organization the same in terms of having a leadership position? thanks.</p>
<p>It can be anything as long as you demonstrate that you had a leadership role. Being a Peer Leader is definitely leadership. But it would depend on exactly what you do. A Peer Leader who only hands out pamphlets to freshmen, for example, would not be leadership.</p>
<p>Leadership experience is crucial, but club leadership << RA or similar student leadership positions and RA/student leadership <<<<<<< real-world leadership (i.e., management at work, teaching courses, etc.).</p>
<p>So being a Peer Leader to freshmen of a particular ethnicity throughout an entire year and having weekly meetings discussing racial issues would be kind of like a RA position?</p>
<p>also would “real world leadership” be like being a TA for a bio lab course at school?</p>
<p>Goodness gracious no. Real world leadership would be something like starting your own nonprofit organization.</p>
<p>^BDM is right. The best “real world experience” would include things like starting an organization or management of a company. When I mentioned teaching, I meant in a faculty or GSI capacity (where you are fully responsible for your students and have add’l responsibilities to them and the school beyond the classroom – often these faculty and GSIs do a lot of student mentoring/advising and such) or in the capacity of, say, a corporate trainer. In other words, we’re talking about jobs outside school. TAing, RAing, etc. are all great student leadership positions and can offer a lot of experience but they pale in comparison to most experiences outside academia. For real-world experiences, you pretty much have to leave your UG campus.</p>
<p>Freshmen orientation leaders, RAs, peer mentors, clinical precepting (i.e., at your volunteer or clinical work site), etc. are all what I might consider “mid-tier” (if club leadership is “low-tier”). They’re certainly good experiences to have, but you have to keep in mind that probably over 50% of applicants will have such experiences.</p>
<p>so you’re basically saying you have to do so much as start an organization to get into med school…? are the low/middle tier leaderships not even considered that much then since lots of applicants have them? :/</p>
<p>Of course you don’t HAVE to do those things to get into medical school. And low/middle tier things aren’t going to matter much – but if you don’t have them, they might matter a lot.</p>
<p>For the “low”/“middle tier” - is more=better?
or just 1 or 2 is ok?</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say leadership is “CRUCIAL,” unless it is something that really sets you apart like real-world leadership.</p>
<p>
seems like you are doing it for a checklist
i mean find something you enjoy and stick with it.</p>
<p>whoa… don’t put so much stock in calling a given set of leadership positions “low” “middle” or “high” tier. It’s totally relative. Nothing is black or white here. If something is what I called “middle” tier, it can still be quite valuable. (It’s what you got out of it that counts.) It’s just not that unique or interesting inherently. If you started a medical NGO that serves the underserved Native American community in a local rural area (off reservation for instance) and ended up recruiting physicians, nurses, PAs, EMTs, etc. to assist in this effort and successfully made a difference in that community’s healthcare needs, you could probably just about ride that experience into medical school (assuming you weren’t deficient in other areas and assuming you got a lot out of it – which is precisely why such an experience would be so desirable as there is plenty one could take from that experience). It would make you unique and quite interesting, potentially making you a highly-desirable candidate at many schools. OTOH, most applicants haven’t done those things, so obviously people get in w/o that kind of experience.</p>
<p>“If you started a medical NGO that serves the underserved Native American community in a local rural area (off reservation for instance) and ended up recruiting physicians, nurses, PAs, EMTs, etc. to assist in this effort and successfully made a difference in that community’s healthcare needs”</p>
<p>How would you even go about starting doing something of this magnitude?</p>
<p>^It can be done. However, your question is exactly why such an accomplishment would be so unique. If it were something any premed could accomplish (especially in the 3-month period most pre-meds seem to think a reasonable “commitment” should last) or one for which you do not have to ask “how the…?!?” it would almost certainly be just another thing that premeds “check off their list.” Something like what I described requires:
-Awesome leadership skills
-Years of commitment
-Connections within the target community (could be built over the years by a committed outsider, although someone native to that community obviously would hold the advantage here – one reason URMs are looked upon so favorably, since they have potential here)
-Connections in the medical field (could also be built over a few years of effort by one with the ambition to do it, although those w/ family already in the medical field are at an obvious advantage here)
-Great multicultural sensitivity (URMs may have an advantage here…)
-A need (this is already out there in and/or near just about every medium to large community in the U.S. for anyone ambitious enough to take it on…)
…And so on.</p>