<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>Firstly, I'm still in high school, and I know I should worry more about getting into a good undergrad college than medical school. But I honestly learned in my life that it's <em>never</em> too early to plan.</p>
<p>I just have a small question to kick-start my planning for medical school.</p>
<p>For high school resume's, it's good to have EC's, have great grades, take leadership roles, serve your community, do sports, etc. This way, if you put all that on your resume, your chances to get into a good undergrad college, namely Ivy league status, is high.</p>
<p>But for a resume to get into medical school, should you do the same in undergrad? I mean, when you go to an undergrad, would it look good on your resume that you will submit to a medical school of your choice to have down 100+ community service hours, volunteering at a hospital, joining this many clubs and being officers in them, and taking leadership positions, in addition to having excellent grades and a killer MCAT score?</p>
<p>In my case, I will do EC's based on my interest (and partly some for a good resume), but I'm just wondering if medical school admissions work a lot like how undergrad school admissions work- they want people who are well rounded and who are involved in many things, not those who just focus on grades.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Med schools still want to see EC involvement but they value depth over breadth. So, forget about joining 20 clubs, playing 3 sports, volunteering at 10 different places. Join 1-2 clubs if there are any that interest you, volunteer at a hospital or work as a EMT, maybe do 1-2 non-medical volunteering things, do some research, etc. You won't have as much time in college to engage in 30 extracurricular activities nor should you. You should pick activities you genuinely like and plan to do for 3-4 years.</p>
<p>Hi BDM,</p>
<p>On the same note that the OP has opened this thread. </p>
<p>Would a student with 4.0 GPA/40 in MCAT/approx 200 hrs of ECs be more competitive over someone with a 3.75/35 or 37 MCAT/500 hrs of ECs?</p>
<p>Is there any rule of thumb to figure out which one is better?</p>
<p>Nah, there's no way to quantify stuff like this. That's a really large numbers gap, though. Again, it's more about what you've learned and how well you can write about it than it is about how many raw hours it was.</p>
<p>Still, those would have to be some pretty spectacular 300 hours to make up for 5 MCAT points and a third of a letter grade.</p>
<p>Would being on ski patrol be a good EC?</p>
<p>An EC is good if you can talk and write about it in an expressive, thoughtful manner. Working with Stephen Hawking on a new book wouldn't mean anything if all you could say about it was, "Um, he's a cool dude. Yeah..."</p>