<p>I am ignorant in this field of admission to med school so feel free to comment.
Is research (i.e. microbiology, biotech, publication) given more attention than clinical experience (i.e. hospital volunteer, doctor shadow, trips abroad) when it comes to narrowing down the value of extracurriculars from each applicant?</p>
<p>Clinical experience is absolutely essential, while research isn’t (except at a very few select schools). If you don’t have research it won’t hurt your chances all that much. If you don’t have clinical experience, you won’t get into medical school… period.</p>
<p>Would having research help your chances?</p>
<p>^ it couldn’t hurt</p>
<p>I forgot who posted it, but i remember someone wrote one anecdote where during their interview for med school, he was asked why he did not participate in any considerable amount of (if any) research.</p>
<p>“A very few” is like 30, though.</p>
<p>Have both really won’t help you per se because the vast majority of matriculants have both. But, missing one would thus hurt you (except for the select few schools that don’t care about research).</p>
<p>If you had put in 2 years of hospital volunteer in high school what relevance is that to med school admission. Some of my tasks include: patient discharge, pharmaceutical delivery, doctor shadow, doing errands for nurses. Right now I’m doing research in a laboratory with small interfering RNAs, and hope to continue in this direction for the next 2 years. Should I take time away from research and visit a clinical setting again?</p>
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<p>None, because of the bolded part - nothing in high school counts for medical school admissions. The exception would be if you continue the same activity (at the same place) into your college years, in which case you would list the appropriate starting date (in high school) on AMCAS.</p>
<p>Hey Icarus</p>
<p>I would like to know what you did outside of school in preparation for med school</p>
<p>The only time high school activities count is if you did them also in college and had added responsibilities, etc. Even then, don’t expect high yield, if any yield at all. </p>
<p>I recommend first and foremost that you stick to your passions (which should include medicine). For example, lets say that you love playing the violin. An absolutely amazing EC would be to combine your love of violin playing with your love of medicine, like playing at a VA weekly. </p>
<p>You must be able to justify all of your arguments in your PS, secondaries, and interviews. If you say you want to go into research full time and have never set foot in a lab, they won’t be impressed. If you say going into primary care in under-served areas but have NEVER volunteered with the under-served or disadvantages, they won’t be impressed.</p>
<p>Have PASSION for things that you put on your resume. I’ve been told this first hand and have read it in a variety of pre-med oriented publications. Don’t do something just because you feel like you have to. If they ask you about it and you are not passionate in your responses, you have gained nothing at the least, hurt yourself at the most. A mentor once told me that a good resume doesn’t just include what is important to the reader, but what is also important to the writer. Express your individuality.</p>
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<p>I was an EMT for 4 years running 911 calls. Also got involved with various health-related activities at UCLA. Had a lot of leadership roles in all of these things. No hospital volunteering and no research whatsoever. Also no official shadowing (Princess’dad would be proud haha).</p>
<p>Which med school did you get into</p>
<p>Sorry, I’m not going to share that here</p>
<p>My question to you would be, why do you care? If I said I got into Harvard, does that mean my advice is inherently better? No one thing, be it EC, GPA, MCAT, etc, allows you to be the big deal. It’s all about the overall package.</p>
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<p>That’s a disrespectful way of saying I only care about elite med schools. In fact I would be happy if I were to get into just one med school.</p>
<p>Nope - even that is more than I’m willing to share. Why do you ask? Without knowing my GPA or MCAT or the schools I got into and didn’t get into, its not a very useful list to anyone. And like mmcdowe said, its all about the overall package and also what any particular school or adcom member happens to be looking for any given day/year/etc.</p>
<p>adcom: hmmm Icarus majored in philosophy and trained in EMT. seems to me like he tried a non-traditional approach (i.e. not bio-related research/volunteer)… clever</p>
<p>Being an EMT is not a nontraditional ec. Being in philosophy I suppose would be a nontraditional major, but a nontraditional approach is usually someone who doesn’t apply straight out of undergrad. If anything, Icarus followed his passions and was awarded for them. </p>
<p>I am glad to hear that you don’t care about elite medical schools only, but that isn’t my point. The implication by asking where someone got in is that you are trying to judge their “value” as advice givers based on where they ended up. If that is not the case, good, but tread lightly on such subjects. Also taboo: asking for MCAT scores. If you do care to know where I got in/interviewed/applied for reasons related to looking for school specific advice, you are welcome to PM for this info. However, most posters don’t care to waggle their wee wees at eachother in the public forum.</p>
<p>Thanks advertsing that for me… That was in a school specific thread asking for advice on that specific school. As I said before, I don’t have a prob with people knowing where I’m going, but I also don’t care to use it as my banner. I would appreciate if you deleted that quote from the thread please.</p>
<p>Thank you for being a sport babyd. :)</p>