Variety is less useful than consistent long-term volunteering with a single organization/activity or specific disadvantaged/disparaged group.
Things like soup kitchens, food pantries, Habitat for Humanity, Healthcare for the Homeless, Meals on Wheels, etc. Things the directly alleviate the suffering of individuals.
She needs a couple hundred hours at minimum, much more for med schools that are service oriented (like Tulane).
As a North Carolina resident, she wasted her money applying to MCG and MUSC.
Allopathic med school really donât consider shadowing letters from physicians since they donât convey much useful information. Osteopathic med school require a physicians letter, though
When your daughter re-applies, have her re-write her PS and make sure that she has multiple individuals read it so they can suggest revisions.
I also hope sheâs continuing to volunteer regularly even though sheâs working full time. Adcomms donât want to see a gap in service.
EDIT: I strongly suggest your daughter purchase an annual subscription to MSAR and she pays close attention to OOS interview and admission rates for all public schools (and some private which may have a regional bias) She should not apply to any med school that has less than 25% OOS enrollment rate. Also, if she from an ORM group (Asian or white), she needs tp be in the top half stats-wise of accepted students unless she has a compelling narrative about overcoming adversity in her life.
She also needs to find central âthemeâ for her application. How does she envision her future career? Is she interested in community health? Healthcare leadership? Developing new treatment protocols? Something else? Her PS, secondaries essays AND ECs need to reflect her theme. And she needs to tailor her school list to fit her narrative.
What is her second language?
In our daughterâs class, almost every applicant had near, to near-native, proficiency in another language (besides Spanish); these included Vietnamese, Mandarin, Korean, Russian, Tagalog, Pilipino, and American Sign Language. The schools are extremely picky because they can be.
I definitely would not recommend a CNA at this point because she needs more âlongevityâ with her current position.
Good luck to you and your daughter. It is very hard, competitive and frustrating both as an applicant and as the parent.
This is a good thing! She needs to highlight that! My daughter went to Spain for an âinternshipâ to learn about their system of medicine and healthcare-right after graduation. She was there for 4 months. She had to âlearnâ Castilian Spanish because our regional Spanish wasnât good enough for her! They asked her a lot of questions about that experience.
I think she should apply to a mix of DO schools and MD schools in her next application round. Actually, even though the stats seem lower for DO schools, IIRC, the acceptance rates can be lower as well. Lots of applicants. @WayOutWestMom
Still, she will get excellent medical training at DO schools. You can message me for info on how I know this, if you want to.
So if she graduated in spring of 2023 when did she apply? Is she at the end of the cycle? My S19 is applying this May for entry fall 2025. He graduated spring 2023 and has been working full-time in a hospital and continuing research projects he was involved in in undergrad. He has around 1000+ clinical hours now.
I think he said he needs to appy to about 30 med schools. Heâs a 4.0 in 2 degrees top 1% MCAT.
I believe he said you want to apply in the very beginning of the cycle. If she applied last May perhaps they wanted to see completed clinical experience.
I also worry about something out of her control, like a poor reference. I know my S19 is having a hard time getting some of his profâs to respond to emails. 1/2 of his recommenders respond right away⊠the others itâs crickets.
She took the MCAT in April '23 and started her applications soon after. I do think there is something to the fact that she only had a limited time at her current scribe job before applying this cycle. She will have well over 2000 hours by the next application cycle.
She is meeting with her undergrad medical school advisor later this month. Iâm hoping he can shed some more light on her application. She received a positive committee letter, but donât know about the references.
There have been a lot of changes to DO applications since my experience in 2014. Perhaps this having a DO LOR is no longer applicable. The residency match has been fully merged, and the tests seem to be headed in that direction as well.