MedChatter Guide to Extracurricular Activities

In general, extra-curricular activities can be classified into one of the four following categories: Research, Clinical Experience, Non-Clinical Experience, Hobbies/Other Interests.  Research would include any and all summer research work, or any 3^rd/4^th year undergrad thesis projects, and of course any graduate thesis work that is done.  Clinical Experiences are those experiences or activities that are medically related.  So for example, if you ran a blood drive, volunteered at a hospital, shadowed your family doctor, or worked as a nurse before, all these would be considered Clinical Experiences.  Non-Clinical Experiences are those experiences or activities that have no direct connection to medicine. So for example volunteering at the food bank, being president of the chemistry club, or being involved in Model United Nations. All these are worthwhile activities, but all of these have no direct link to medicine.  Lastly there are the Hobbies/Other Interests, which is somewhat associated with the Non-Clinical Experiences in that they also have no medical connection. Hobbies/Other Interests include playing on your varsity basketball team and playing trumpet in a community band.  This category also includes anything else that you could not fit anywhere else.

So why spend the entire last paragraph showing you how to categorize your extra-curricular activities?  Well because medical schools today often look for well-rounded students who are both strong academically and who also harbour a wide variety of skills, experiences, and interests.  Very few schools today are only looking for the typical student who got straight As and did a ton of research.  By categorizing your extracurricular activities into these 4 broad categories, you can see in which areas you may be lacking experiences in, and then adjust accordingly.

An example of this, is a short blurb that the University of Calgary medical school includes in their medical school application manual, available online on their website:

“It is important to remember that although you need to keep up with your studies in pursuit of gaining entrance to a medical program you should take the time to take part in other activities that you enjoy. These might include sports, the arts, travel and membership in clubs, among other things.”

However, do not let this statement draw you too far away from doing any sort of research.  Whether medical schools want to admit it or not, having publications, especially medically related ones, improve your medical school application a LOT.  This is because doing medically related research and publishing a paper on it shows that you have an interest in medicine, that you have the ability to finish a project from start to finish, and that you have contributed significantly to the medical body of knowledge.  These looks real good.  So, moral of this story?  If you can get a publication, GREAT, but if not, no sweat because having some research experience, especially for undergraduates, is still good and do not worry because medical schools are looking for more than just research.

In fact, based on the medical school’s application requirements, you can sometimes tell which sort of extracurricular activities are important to them.  One example is the University of Alberta medical school application.  On this application, you are asked to provide a list of your activities/life experiences that fall under “Leadership Roles - areas where you have provided a major leadership role”.  In the same application, UofA later asks you to list experiences that fall under “Diversity of Experience - these may include but not limited to work, travel, career choice, sports, arts, fluency in other languages and research.”  As you can tell, Leadership roles/experiences are very important to UofA because indeed, they have given it its own little section.  Imagine if you did not have a variety of extracurriculars under your belt; you might be hard-pressed to find experiences that fit here.

Source: http://www.med.ualberta.ca/Education/UME/admissions/dofm_noncriteria.cfm

Lastly, if you do not know already, you will be required almost all medical schools to provide verifiers for any and all activities/experiences that you include in your application.  What is a verifier? Well here is the OMSAS (Ontario Medical School Application Service) definition: “Applicants are required to provide a list of names of people (verifiers) who can verify the activities that are used in the responses in the OMSAS application.”  This is important, so make sure you keep the contact info of people you worked with in all present and especially past activities and experiences.

Another point to note is that some universities only look at activities/experiences done after a certain age, or point in life.  For example, OMSAS only allows inclusion of activities done since the age of 16.  However, University of Ottawa only includes post-secondary activities in it’s detailed biographical sketch.

You might be asking yourself, well how much time do I have to spend in order for an activity to be considered worthy by the medical schools? There is no answer to that question, and in actual fact, it is not how much time you spend in the activity or experience, but it is how much you have benefited from that experience, and how much others have benefited.

UofT tries to address this question in their following response:

“There is nothing that an applicant “needs” in the autobiographical sketch.  A candidate will not be penalized for interest in the clinical side of medicine, rather than research, or vice versa.  There is no required number of activities or required number of hours.  Some candidates may have a large number of activities among which they share their time; others may have a few activities to which they devote a large amount of time.”

Our last bit of help to you, before you start writing your medical school applications, is to take the time to read about what each individual medical school has to say about extracurricular activities in their application, or which qualities each medical school emphasizes so that you can gear your activities towards that.  Please don’t feel the need to read every single one, but of course read the ones for the schools you are most interested in attending.

Note: All the following entries were directly copy and pasted from each medical school’s website, and so can be considered directly from the “horse’s mouth”.  Also note, if a medical school is not listed here, it is because it did not offer any useful information for extracurricular activities at the time.

Enjoy!

Queens looks for these Personal Characteristics:

ability to function as a team player

ability to communicate effectively

sensitivity to the needs of others

adaptability and ability to cope with stress

creativity and extracurricular interests

Use these characteristics to help guide your choice in extracurricular experiences.

Queens: “Candidates should emphasize in the autobiographical sketch those areas of extracurricular experience that include particular interests in advisory work, athletics, community work, fine arts, health care, employment, literature, organization, teaching and travel.

UBC: “Activities and achievements are reported and evaluated using the following categories:  leadership, service ethic, capacity to work with others, diversity of experience, and high performance in an area of human endeavour”.

Source: http://www.med.ubc.ca/education/md_ugrad/MD_Undergraduate_Admissions/Evaluation_Criteria.htm

Memorial: The Admissions Committee seeks in applicants the same humanistic qualities and attitudes that our medical school considers essential in a physician: integrity, a respect for others’ choices and rights, compassion, empathy, personal insight, ability to communicate effectively and relate to people, maturity and motivation

Memorial: The Admissions Committee uses several methods to evaluate these intangible, but vital characteristics, and applicants are encouraged to complete fully the application to describe them: a) The Admissions Committee takes into account work experience and extracurricular activities such as volunteer work, health related activities, community involvement, sports activities, and any other activities/information as given by the applicant; b) The Admissions Committee takes into account the autobiographical information.

Source: http://www.med.mun.ca/Admissions/ApplicationEvaluationCompetitions.aspx

Dalhousie: The Committee is particularly interested in any leadership positions you might have had, what volunteer, paid or community service you've been involved in and what awards and accomplishments you have gained. “The Admissions Committee considers it important that you have some medically related experience. This can be volunteer work or paid work depending on your circumstances. Applications from individuals who do not have such experience are rarely acceptable to the committee.” “The committee is particularly interested in "hands on" medical experience. For example, personal care work (PCW) is regarded more favorably than volunteering in a hospital gift shop. Working with "sick" people would give you a better idea of what a medical career might entail than working with healthy ones. Ultimately, you may have to take whatever experience is available in your locale.” Source: http://admissions.medicine.dal.ca/faqs.htm#fq06

Western: “Do not become totally focused on your studies alone… variety is the spice of life! Be aware of what is going on around you, at the local, national, and international level. Extra-curricular activities, as well as volunteer and/or community service are all very important. First and foremost, we look for well-rounded students.”

Source “http://www.schulich.uwo.ca/education/admissions/medicine/documents/FAQs20080930.pdf”

Ottawa regarding the detailed autobiographical sketch – “We want to know what you have done in your life so far, why you did it, and what you have gained from it as a person and as a future physician.” Source: http://www.intermed.med.uottawa.ca/Students/MD/Admissions/eng/detailed_instructions.html

UofT – “There is no single profile of the “ideal medical student” used by the Admissions Committee.  The Committee is looking for activities documenting interest, commitment, responsibility, and contribution to community. Applicants are asked to group their activities into categories for ease of evaluation.  It is not required that applicants list activities in each category.  For example, while there is a category for research, it is understood that some applicants may have no interest in a research career, and this would not be detrimental to their application.”

“The sketch is a list of your interests and accomplishments.  The Admissions Committee is not attempting to match a specific “medical student” profile.  There are no activities that will give any applicant an “edge.”  You may wish to list employment, travel, volunteer, research, hobbies, clubs - whatever is important to you.  The Doctor of Medicine Program requires students who are well-rounded and have gained skills and maturity from their experiences, who can demonstrate an interest and commitment to the community and who have the time management skills to organize and pursue their interests.”

As a premed, the challenge that I've always faced in the realm of extracurriculars was striking the right balance between volunteering for interest and volunteering for the purpose of medical admission. I must confess that the latter was the bigger motivator, and because of this, some of my volunteering experiences have been subpar. Of course I've heard times and times again the statement, "you should do what you are interested in". However, I took this piece of advice with a grain of salt as I knew that the admission committe had a fairly specific scoring system when it came to extracurriculars. Heck, I've even heard from a reliable source that at one school, with a name which I will not disclose, you get 1 point for donating blood! Sure, donating blood can possibly signify a sense of altruism and dedication to patient care, but such a thing can be demonstrated in a multitude of ways. Why should adcom reward 1 point for such a specific action? With such information during undergrad, I had acquired a mindset that admission selection is a checklist, and that I must satisfy a list of criteria to make myself a strong candidate. Therefore, I did my fair share of research, community service, hospital volunteering, sports, leadership, etc. It is not to say that I did these activities simply for medical admission; I really enjoyed many of my experiences and learned much from them. However the persistent thought that burned at the back of my mind was medical admission, and several activities were initiated to achieve this purpose.

So was my approach correct? The purists would frown and condemn my actions as short-sighted and to a degree disgenuine. The pragmatists would applaud it and approve of the approach as realistic and sensible.  In retrospect, being comprehensive certainly made me a stronger candidate, but at the same time I must agree with the purists that it was a short-sighted approach. My fault was seeing medical admission as the one and only goal. With such a mindset, I had the natural tendency to evaluate extracurricular activities based on their value on paper. When the question of "how will this look on my application?" is running in the back of my mind, it is hard to focus on the activity itself and get the most out of the experience. Extracurricular activities should be done in the context of self-discovery and personal growth. Ultimately, it will be your character and values as a person that will show through at the interview table, so take the time to develop yourself as a person. As I am a firm believer that success in life is the side-effect and manifesation of one's character, I think developing yourself should take precedence over medical admission . Furthermore, admission criteria should simply serve as a guideline as to what categories of experiences you should sign up for. Within each category of experience, whether hospital volunteering, research, leadership, etc., there are always opportunities that fit your interests and can facilitate your growth as a person. Therefore it's a poor excuse to say "I hate such and such".

After going through the admission process, I think the best approach is to be comprehensive with your extracurriculars and try to satisfy those criteria that adcom wants, but while you are at it, focus on learning and developing yourself as a person rather than just admission into medical school. Volunteering experiences are what you make of it, so don't settle for an accessible subpar experiences even if it looks equally as good on paper as another more challenging/demanding experience. Challenge yourself and get out of your comfort zone. Live and learn. By the end of your journey, instead of saying to yourself, "I think I have enough experiences to convince the admission committee to accept me into medicine", you should be able to say, "I've become the person that is ready for the challenges offered in medicine, and I deserve to be in this profession."

For many people, the first year of undergrad is when the thought of extra-curricular activities come into mind.  It is at this transition from high school into undergrad that most of us realize that everything you do from this point forward counts towards med school applications.  For many, the start of university is a prime time to join existing clubs, to start new ones, and to just get involved in general.  Inevitably we all end up at the same question: Which extra-curriculars should I choose? And seeing as how most pre-med students are keen (and often overly keen), this first question transforms into “What do MED SCHOOLS want me to choose?”.  Fortunately there is no straight answer for that (because if there was a straight answer, people would be doing those activities for the sake of getting into medicine and not for the more virtuous reasons).

So given that there is no straight and easy answer, how can you choose your extra-curriculars?  Well one philosophy that I have adopted over the years is to always aim to “Make myself a better person, make the world a better place”.  As much as I can I try to apply that principle to my decision making, especially the big ones.  To answer “What extra-curriculars should I choose?”, I instead ask you, “Which will make you a better person? Which will make the world a better place?”.  So this means that if you really enjoy working at the food bank, there is no need to stop doing that, because that clearly makes the world a better place.  If you enjoy competing in Dragonboat, then there is no reason to stop doing so. If you are an upcoming musician, than keep pursuing that as much as you can, because these are all interests that help to make you a better person. You will find that by following this very simple philosophy, you will be able to more easily choose your activities. Don’t worry about what med schools want. What they want is for you to be yourself, for you to show yourself through your work. The worst is to choose an activity that you think medical schools will like, even if you don’t want to do it.  You will hate the experience and when it comes time to talk about that experience in an interview or essay, it will be harder to describe what you gained from it because to be frank, you probably did not get very much.  Instead of benefiting from those experiences you likely just wished you were not there.

Of course there is this underlying notion that you should have some “clinically relevant” or “medically-related” experiences.  Well if you come across any clinically relevant experiences which you believe you will enjoy and that will benefit you, then why not do them!  So if you are excited to be in a hospital environment, then shadow a doctor, or volunteer in a hospital.  If you want to start helping people, then maybe volunteer for the Red Cross or St. John’s ambulance. Just don’t force yourself to do things just for the sake of your application/resume.  Even if med school is your endpoint, you still got to enjoy the journey right?

Trust me when I say that the most rewarding experiences are those that you enjoy – and likely the reasons you enjoy them is because they made you a better person, or made the world a better place.

Good luck hunting!