<p>For regular MD programs, how significant is volunteer work and research to an application?</p>
<p>How impressive would the following be to a regular MD admissions committee in comparison to volunteering for a few hundred hours in a hospital and/or related activities?</p>
<p>3-5 Oral Conference Presentations
3-5 Poster Presentations
1-2 Publications, second authors
Summer Research Program
2-3 Research Grants Aimed Specifically at Undergrads
Biology Bac/Masters in Biology</p>
<p>It seems that I am focused more on research related activities and have little time for volunteering as research demands a lot of hours (I put forth over 20 weekly during the regular semester).</p>
<p>I DO have volunteer work (about 70 hours clinical, 50 hours non-clinical) but that was done freshman year and I doubt I will have time to pursue more volunteer work, let alone achieve hundreds of hours.</p>
<p>Also, how competitive would the research credentials presented above be for an MD/PHD program? I hear they are super selective, so focusing on just the research credentials (assuming a competitive GPA,MCAT,etc), how competitive would that be?</p>
<p>There’s an article posted by WOWMom where MD admissions officers ranked how important everything is.</p>
<p>In terms of MD/PhD competitiveness, this is at the conclusion of a Master’s? How many years of work and what kind of work? What journals? 2nd author out of how many? It’s definitely solid and competitive but those factors can switch whether it’s incredible or simply solid.</p>
<p>AAMC surveyed admissions directors of US med schools and had them rank the various factors they consider when deciding to offer interview invitations and when deciding to offer admission.</p>
<p>Items were assigned a least (1) to most (5) important relative weighting. Below are the means for each item.</p>
<p>Thanks! Is research grouped under one of those categories (I don’t see it)? It seems like I should definitely do a bit more clinical volunteering and shadowing.</p>
<p>Research (and its importance or lack thereof) was not mentioned in the report at all. </p>
<p>The report dealt with admissions to MD programs only and did not discuss MD/PhD admissions.</p>
<p>Results encompass responses from 71 public and 42 private medical schools and represent a geographic distribution approximately mirroring that of US medical schools.</p>
<p>The report does state why research was not included in the survey. The methodology section (approx 2 paragraphs) discusses how the data were selected for inclusion. </p>
<p>The entire report is quite short (only 2 pages), if you have questions about the survey and its results and/or design, I suggest reading it for yourself.</p>
<p>The report is only discussing in the most general way the importance of non-academic characteristics in the application process. The report itself notes that different schools weight different items differently because their mission, institutional goals and pool of applicants differ significantly.</p>
<p>I guess what I’m trying to say is that research may or may not be important factor in admissions depending upon the school and its institutional mission. A medical school whose goal is to produce primary care doctors to serve its state population is going to put less value on basic science research experience than a school whose mission it is to produce the next generation of academic physicians/researchers.</p>
<p>Everything is a plus or your application will be inferior compared to others. However, you have to get in a door first and the key is GPA/MCAT. Then, they will start evaluating your ECs.</p>