<p>I don't really know how many extracurricular activities are enough on my application. Please list all of your ec's that you did PRIOR to application for MSTP or MD/PhD programs. And then tell me if you got into a program. And also tell me how many months or years you did the EC for, and how many times a week you did it. Thanks. (Research counts, by the way). I just need a good idea of what I should be doing besides research and clinical hours.</p>
<p>you’re so lucky I get off on helping people because you really annoy me and I don’t want to help you. You could also look at mdapplicants.com for other people’s records.</p>
<p>I still have my AMCAS so I’ll just copy what I had on there. </p>
<p>-Kaplan MCAT and SAT2 teacher/tutor. 7 months (but would continue during glide year). 11hours/week
-Research at biotech company. 15 months. 22hours/week (average of summer and school year effort and this was where I was working during my glide year. At the time of submitting my application I had a 1st author textbook chapter in press)
-Greek Council (umbrella organization for all greek houses on campus. I served on the executive board as Alumni Relations Chair and then Vice President). 17 months. 10hours/week.
-Data analyst at hospital (one first author paper and one 2nd author paper awaiting submission). 2 months. 40hours/week
-My fraternity (held appointed or elected position every semester including President). 3.5 years. 25hours/week
-Varsity D1 fencing (for which the ivy league is by far the strongest conference). 4 years. 30 hours/week</p>
<p>I also had 2 conferences I attended on there especially since one of them I won an award for best abstract by a graduate student or post doc even though I was an undergrad.</p>
<p>As I said in my other post, there is no such thing as “what you should be doing.” The question is what is your story.</p>
<p>thank you.</p>
<p>“Data analyst at hospital (one first author paper and one 2nd author paper awaiting submission). 2 months. 40hours/week”</p>
<p>Sounds like you are ready for that PhD in CS. :p</p>
<p>In all seriousness, sometimes I seriously wonder if I should be pursuing a PhD in stats or math instead of biology - I absolutely love working with data. Doesn’t take much CS to analyze data.</p>
<p>As an example of how fickle/random getting papers can be. Those two papers were ready to submit when I left but due to regulations regarding the clinical trial, they were held up. They were finally published 5 years later. My PI obviously mentioned the issues that had nothing to do with me in his LOR for me but I always wonder what people thought since typically it is a major faux pas to list a manuscript less prepared than “submitted.”</p>
<p>You did not look into biostatistics?</p>
<p>As much as I love stats and data, I didn’t like spending my whole day in front of a computer (although I do appreciate the flexibility it gives compared to wet lab research).</p>