How do med school view idle time?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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<p>My question is how would med school adcom view periods of inactivity? Would they question the student’s commitment and raise some eyebrows? </p>

<p>I ask this because I am going into my 3rd year of undergraduate school so this is going to be my last summer before applying to schools. However, I have not done anything really productive in terms of working towards medical school. So far, the only thing worth mentioning is that I have been taking a summer course at my local community college for a pre-req course that isn’t offered at my university (strange, I know). However, I still have two months left before fall quarter starts at my school, and it has already been a month and a half since school ended. If I don’t pick up the pace, would some interviewers look at this period of inactivity and question why I was so inactive? </p>

<p>It’s not like I want to be inactive, but I am at a lost of what to do. I am at my hometown, so I don’t exactly know of many opportunities available except for volunteering at a local hospitals. However, I did that three times a week last summer in the emergency room and it was incredibly dull and boring. I probably didn’t take full advantage of the opportunities I had, but all I did was restock supplies, clean beds, and talked to a few patients in between. As a volunteer, they simply cannot trust me with too many duties due to protocol. Many users here at CC suggests that you shouldn’t do something for the sake of looking good for med school, but something is always better than nothing. Thoughts?</p>

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<p>If you don’t have volunteer experience, shadowing, summer research or medical internships you are not a competitive candidate for med school . you need to work on lining up internships in January or February for the summer. A 'wasted ’ summer is going to hurt you especially if the rest of your application does not include research, work and /or volunteering. As for now what is done is done although you should see if you could resume your 'boring ’ volunteer duties at the hospital. When you return to school though make an immediate appointment with the pre health advisors to slot the rest of your course.</p>

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<li>To plot
Sorry cannot edit above :(</li>
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<p>Well I do have other stuff on my resume, which includes a research internship that I did during the school year; I realize my original post wasn’t very clear about that so I am going to edit it. It is just this particular summer has been rather uneventful for me. And instead of volunteering, I could use the free time to study for the standardize test also. Though maybe it would be a good idea to volunteer at least once a week at the minimum?</p>

<p>edit: cant edit original post but when I meant " However, I have not done anything really productive in terms of working towards medical school." I just meant THIS summer.</p>

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<p>I don’t think the fact that you didn’t do anything will matter per se, but you’re talking about 3 months of time without school where most of your competition is racking up LOTS of hours doing stuff that will help them.</p>