no ec's going into 3rd year

[The Game]

Hi guys, I hope you guys can give me some advice. I can going into my third year and I haven't been involved outside of the classroom. Lets put it this way: I did about 100 hours at the hospital this summer and I have managed to get into the executive comittee of a club for next year. I have doing nothing else over the past 2 years

 

I barely get my course work done, so I will have hard time managing these 2 extra curricular activities next year.

 

Do you think I am screwed and won't make it to med school?

[BchmGurl]

I think that it extracurriculars should be for your own enjoyment. It sounds more like they are a laborious task that must be completed in order to get into med. I certainly don't think that you are "screwed" but your approach to community involvement and attitude about ECs may come out in interviews and/or your paper applications. I imagine that studying medicine and working as a physician is relatively "high pressure" and involves considerable multitasking and time management. If you struggle to complete coursework with only 2 ECs it seems that these time management/efficiency skills may require more development for the successful pursuit of medicine. The number of ECs and quality of ECs may be a reflection of these skills to med admissions but are by no means their only consideration.

Just my opinion

PS. I hope you didn't "manage to get onto the executive committee of a club" just for the sake of your resume. There is no point in being miserable on the path to medicine.

[jgray2]

there are two schools which don't really care too much about whether you've volunteered or not:

 

saskatchewan -- gpa is the only thing required to get an interview. and the interview itself is mmi-style this year -- which to me felt like there was little room to talk about diverse experiences to wow a single interviewer. you can talk about the same experience that you've had in each mini interview and no one would ever know.

 

uwo -- gpa and mcat cutoffs for the interview, and even then, the interview is only worth 25% (or at least it was last year).

 

the big question is how will you survive during med school should you get in. i think they use extra currics not only to see what kind of person you are, but also to see if you are able to manage your time to enable you to do full time school work and participate in diverse extra curricular activities. med school right now feels very, very busy -- there's more work and things to review in the first month than i've had during midterm season in undergrad. but maybe that's just me.

 

edit: haha ... i should have read bchm's post first -- the last paragraph was a pure re-telling of what she said ...

[ThPreMed]

I haven't done a lot of ECs either and I'm kind of concerned about it too. I'm going into my 2nd year and trying to get involved in a few more things. I think doing extracurricular activities will help develop myself and make me become more well-rounded. In my first year, it was hard to keep up with schoolwork and studies. And I didn't know how much ECs were important for getting into med schools. However, now not only have I realized they seem to be important for being considered by med schools but I understand they are important for improving myself to be a better person. And that's why I'm hoping to do a few interesting things that I will enjoy doing and will get to learn about and help the community. I have volunteered at a childcare place for three months but I found it was ok and I didn't get to learn a lot. So I will get a new volunteer job where I get to learn what I think I need to. I still have to develop my interpersonal and communication skills.

 

The thing is I also want to have a paid job besides just volunteering because I need some money for school. But having no job experience in anything seems to be a barrier. It's hard when trying to find what I want to do and to get to do it cuz the lack of experience. Employers undoubtedly look for experienced employee.

 

"jgray2", I can't really give you any decent advice here because I haven't applied to med school yet and I'm kind of worried about it too. But I hope all the best for you. Try to get involved and manage your time well. Let's hope we get some more responses here.

 

Thanks for your input, BchmGurl and jgray2. It's good to know that there are still few schools who don't weigh ECs too much. But ECs are good anyway.Just in case, I don't have a lot of ECs then it's good.

[Kuantum]

Not being involved in first-year university is not that big a deal. I think most people can realize that you need to sort out your transition from high school to university before you can start becoming involved.

 

With regards to the person who hasn't done ECs, I don't know how med. schools will look at that. I am still in the application process, so....

[TimmyMax]

Hey,

 

uwo -- gpa and mcat cutoffs for the interview, and even then, the interview is only worth 25% (or at least it was last year).

 

Actually, the interview at UWO is worth 50%, (assuming that you get one) and even then, once you're at your interview, it will become quite obvious throughout the course of the interview that you've done no ECs whatsoever since you'll have basically nothing to talk about except for school and that gets real boring real fast.

If I were to interview someone who had nothing to talk about except for school (as opposed to someone who at least spent some time doing something that they enjoyed), I wouldn't be very impressed at all, regardless of the former's GPA. Just my two cents.

 

Best of luck!

Timmy

[Charms]

uwo -- gpa and mcat cutoffs for the interview, and even then, the interview is only worth 25% (or at least it was last year).

 

i heard that uwo also uses the number of items you list in your abs to determine who gets an interview. so that a person with more items will get an interview over a person with fewer items (all other things being equal).. is that true?

[blinknoodle]

i heard that uwo also uses the number of items you list in your abs to determine who gets an interview. so that a person with more items will get an interview over a person with fewer items (all other things being equal).. is that true?

 

In the past, interview invites were based SOLELY on meeting the GPA and MCAT cut-offs for your region. There was nothing subjective about that.

 

The pre-reqs have changed for the upcoming admissions cycle but I am not sure whether the criteria for the interview and/or admission have changed.

[TimmyMax]

Hey,

 

i heard that uwo also uses the number of items you list in your abs to determine who gets an interview. so that a person with more items will get an interview over a person with fewer items (all other things being equal).. is that true?

 

Completely untrue!!! As blinknoodle mentioned, the criteria for gaining an interview is totally quantitative- meet the posted GPA and MCAT cutoffs and you'll get an interview.

The interview is when your ECs (or lack thereof) will become very apparent to the interviewing panel. The panel interviewing you knows absolutely nothing about you except that you're competitive for admission to medicine at UWO. They have no idea how many (or how few) ECs, volunteer activities, publications, awards and/or honours you have garnered over the preceding years, so it's up to you to tell them! No bonus points are given for the absolute number of ECs on your autobiographical sketch. Hope that this helps clarify things.

 

Best of luck!

Timmy

[jgray2]

Actually, the interview at UWO is worth 50%, (assuming that you get one) ...

 

whoops ... you're right. my mistake

[Jixe]

Honestly, don't sweat the ECs, just let them come.

 

Like you, when I finished my first year, I somewhat panicked and raked in every sort of EC that I could. NSERC USRAs each summer, numerous exec positions, volunteering at the hospital, volunteer abroad, everything. Did I enjoy most of them? Yes. Did I enjoy all of them? No. I wish some of them had ended as soon as possible. Did my GPA take a hit? Yes. My 2nd year GPA definitely took a hit. I mean, I'm still competitive, but not as much as I would have been if I had been more conservative with my ECs.

 

Bottom line: Don't worry about the ECs. Find something you will enjoy given the opportunity for a long-term commitment. If you don't enjoy it, don't keep doing it. If I were to do it all over again, I would do so more naturally. Remember that in the end, your GPA and happiness are worth more than a few ECs.