So I have a 3.93 cGPA, 3.95 sGPA and a 36 (14BS,12PS,10V) MCAT. Problem is my extra curriculars are pretty weak. At my school it's more or less impossible to find anything willing to take you on unless you have access to a car which I didn't until this past semester. As such I have:
~20 hours of ED volunteering in a hospital (committed to 100 hours - does this even matter?)
~20 hours of shadowing an orthopedic surgeon + a week of PCP shadowing I'll be starting next week and shadowing a NP potentially later in the summer
~35 hours of volunteering through big brothers big sisters
~20 hours of volunteering with the red cross around campus drives
-spent a semester on a committee organizing a rare disease day probably about 70 hours total: sort of leadership but altogether not hugely signficant
~600 hours of research: two projects, one up for publishing now where I should be a top 5 author, starting a new project this summer and will continue into the semester, obviously this is where a lot of my spare time was invested though I did it for credits during the semsters
It's not awful but I'm worried my lack of volunteering will really bring me down. So I wanted to know if you guys were in my situation if you would take the gap year to work on the weaknesses. I'd absolutely prefer not doing so for a variety of reasons but at the same time I don't want to go through the process and end up somewhere I won't appreciate or worse just not get in anywhere. Thanks in advance.
~20 hours of ED volunteering in a hospital (committed to 100 hours - does this even matter?)
~20 hours of shadowing an orthopedic surgeon + a week of PCP shadowing I'll be starting next week and shadowing a NP potentially later in the summer
~35 hours of volunteering through big brothers big sisters
~20 hours of volunteering with the red cross around campus drives
-spent a semester on a committee organizing a rare disease day probably about 70 hours total: sort of leadership but altogether not hugely signficant
~600 hours of research: two projects, one up for publishing now where I should be a top 5 author, starting a new project this summer and will continue into the semester, obviously this is where a lot of my spare time was invested though I did it for credits during the semsters
It's not awful but I'm worried my lack of volunteering will really bring me down. So I wanted to know if you guys were in my situation if you would take the gap year to work on the weaknesses. I'd absolutely prefer not doing so for a variety of reasons but at the same time I don't want to go through the process and end up somewhere I won't appreciate or worse just not get in anywhere. Thanks in advance.