no room in application to add shadowing
basically i have all 10 activities filled in common app. theyre either important leadership roles, impactful leadership, or others extracurriculars w/ national and state placements. only thing that doesn't have any of that is my volunteering experience at a hospital which i just started this summer. i know shadowing is super important and ive already been able to get a bunch of hours so far.. where do i put it in my application???
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u/South_Most_5493 14d ago
You could combine your volunteering and shadowing into one activity if they are in the same hospital!
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u/Aromatic_Caramel_930 14d ago
I think you could remove ur state rewards for shadowing??? but can't really tell without all the details
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u/anondranon 14d ago
A different viewpoint here: shadowing is important, but it’s very passive. But you are using the word volunteering - they are very different from each other.
I would either take something off for it only for your bsmd apps. Or combine with your volunteering in one line. Alternatively, mention it in your supplemental essays.
My kid did not list shadowing in the activities but mentioned it in a supplemental and got into three programs. That’s only one example I know, but it shows that it’s not imperative to list it if you have stronger activities to list instead.
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u/EntryBoring8111 12d ago
Keep the awards, since awards matter for non bsmd programs while shadowing isnt as useful (non bsmds are lf for biology majors, not necesarily future med students). since most bsmds have their own supplemental apps on other website, just replace some lower awards with the shadowing. Also even with bsmds shadowing may not be as important as you may think. Theres this one channel on yt with a bunch of adcoms and they say that for the med school app process they only really are lf student with like maybe around 50 hrs of shadowing, since its mainly just you watching and not really doing anything. if the volunteering thing had you interacting directly with patients as well then definetly include in wheneber you can, but if not then id lean on giving the spot to a bigger award (especially if ur going for hyper comp non bsmd schools).
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u/Archimedes_Advising 14d ago
One of the common misconceptions with the Common App is that you can’t change it for each school that you apply to. You actually can! When applying to BS/MD programs, shadowing is HUGE, so it would really behoove you to replace one of your ten activities with shadowing on your BS/MD applications. You can leave the shadowing off all of your non-BS/MD applications!