Questions for the Moms here!

[DollBabyKG]

Okay ladies, I have a question for you. I'm pretty comfortable with how I expect the rest of my application to look, and how I will accomplish the necessary tasks to get it there. But the section that I'm nervous about is the "extra-curricular" section. Between taking classes, working as an EMT (for clinical experience), volunteering, and taking care of my family, I'm a little at a loss as to how to fit in any extra-curricular activities besides the pre-med club. How do you ladies do it? What do you do for your extra-curricular activities, because to be quite honest, as a Mother I feel a little out of place in most of the extra-curriculars offered at my school. I am quite active in my Church, and obviously teaching and playing with my son make up most of my "extra curricular" time. Do my church activities qualify as EC's, or only school sponsored clubs?

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[Avana]

I am in the same boat. I have a great application for med school except my ec's. I have twin two year old daughts and am a single parent so ec's are pretty much non existant. The Ec's I do have are from on campus activities or things I can do with my children (book drives, ect...) they are hard to find and occasionally you have to start one yourself, but that just makes you look even better to med schools. Get creative!! I work at a hospital and we can always use christmas toys for kids. I had a volunteer collect $5000 in toys in one month with very little effort. She passed out flyers to friends and family to give to their friends and family, ect.... set up boxes at daycare/school or local business, Hospitals need toys for children year round. This is always a great way to show you care about the community.

 

[lilnoelle]

I don't know how to answer this other than to say everyones experience with their application will differ. My lack of extracurricular and clinical experience did not prevent me from getting interviews (3/5)nor did it prevent my acceptance (2/5). My interviewers seemed to accept my few outside activities (volunteering in church nursery)as acceptable in light of being the mother of two plus working full time. Im sure it would have been better if I'd had more clinical experience (I had almost none) but for some reason they let me in.

 

[montessori2md]

I think extra-curricular is a hard thing for any adult (ie, not under 22 and still a UG) to fill out -it's not like a post-bacc or grad program is going to have a ton of intramural sports clubs or what have you.

For extracurricular activities/hobbies, I listed things that I did in my spare time which I felt comfortable discussing in an interview. I also listed some of the things I did in college, which I felt were relevant, even though dated.

I was 3/3 for interviews, technically 1/3 for accepts, but 1 of the rejects was a waitlist and I decided not to pursue staying on their waitlist once I had my accept in hand from my school of choice, and the other reject, well, let's just say I didn't like the interview day and that was probably obvious to all.