As you go through Princeton, you will find nooks and crannies of time to pursue other activities if you desire. And there are a lot of skills that you gain as a musician that transfer to being a doctor! Teamwork, capacity for improvement, time management to balance everything ... you'll often be asked at an interview how what you've learned in your activities will help you be a better doctor, so reflect on that question regularly.

You should still pursue clinical experience that will help you demonstrate your commitment to medicine, and remind you why you're putting yourself through the rigorous premed path, but you can seek these experiences in the summer or in glide years, when you aren't in a lot of rehearsals and performances.

But yes, please invest the time in music--Princeton has great programs and you won't have the same time and access once you're in medical school and in practice. Health professions schools admire passion and commitment. Follow your heart on this one.

While it’s true that you should prioritize your academics, having some outlets to destress, connect, and otherwise find balance in extra-curriculars is important! 

First, spend some time assessing your time management and study strategies. Are there ways that you can make your studying more efficient, or be more productive with your time? The McGraw Center has some useful tips on both areas -- or if you’d prefer to talk about your specific situation, set up a learning strategies consultation to receive individualized advice.

As for what others do, every premed student is different in why they make their extra-curricular choices. Our hope is that at least some of those activities are helping you to develop and demonstrate some of the characteristics you want to use as a physician, such as communication skills, leadership ability, teamwork, cultural competence, and dedication to serving others. Talking with health professions school applicants, they often have one or two activities that were particularly meaningful as they considered their personal and professional development, and those were often activities where they felt a sense of purpose and an opportunity to leave a legacy on campus or in the larger community. They also tend to have one or two activities, formal or informal, that were just for fun and relaxation – be sure you have a couple of these stress-relievers!

We’re happy to talk with you about where and how you’re spending your time and provide our feedback, but it may be even more worthwhile to talk with some of our HPA Peer Advisers and learn how they’ve made decisions about how to spend their time.

Finding the right match for yourself goes a long way to making it feel like serving others is worth the time. If you’re working toward a cause you care about—reducing poverty, educating others, addressing disparities, protecting others’ rights, caring for those with health needs—in a way that resonates with you, it won’t feel like something you “have to” do for medical school applications, but rather something that brings satisfaction in doing good.
 
That said, there are a number of the medical school competencies that you may aim to develop in your participation in service (in fact, service orientation is one of those competencies, so participating in any service endeavor, you’re already working on one!):

• Cultural Competency is especially significant. Your patients will come from a broad range of backgrounds, beliefs, values systems—the more that you can get out of your bubble (and the Princeton bubble) to learn to communicate with and serve those different from you, the better prepared you will be to practice medicine.
• Teamwork can also be developed through service if you’re working with others toward a common cause.
• Social skills, communication skills, and ethical responsibility also come through in your work with others in service endeavors.

Participating in any service opportunities offered through the Pace Center or PROCeS, you’ll be joining an initiative with some infrastructure and support behind it, so as you seek opportunities, we’d recommend starting there. And beyond participating in service, reflect meaningfully on what you’re gaining by doing it. Both reflection and action are important elements of your personal development through civic engagement.

Student groups offer some wonderful resources and programming. Many have a civic engagement/service component, which can help you break out of the "orange bubble." They can also introduce you to a support network of peers who are interested in the health professions.

HPA has a listing of health-related student groups with brief descriptions and contact information on our website.

We encourage you to explore the interesting options available to you! If you’re a member of a group that isn’t listed, please let us know!

It’s a good sign that you enjoy service and find fulfillment in it since all health professions involve serving others. A sustained commitment to service will provide evidence to admissions committees that you are motivated by serving others. More importantly, it will help you better reflect on the ways that you can best serve and help you understand the needs of diverse communities and individuals. Prehealth students have been involved with just about every service opportunity that you can find on this campus and the wider community (and sometimes they’ve created their own). What you choose could be based on many factors: the skills you want to use or develop; the populations you’d like to work with; the amount of time that you have (maybe an opportunity that meets at the same time every week works for you, or maybe it’s better to find something that you can mold around a more variable schedule, or seek classes with a built-in service component). It’s great to do as much patient-facing service as you can find time for (e.g., hospital/hospice/clinic volunteering; working at summer camps for children facing disease; EMTing). But, it can also be very valuable and meaningful for you to find other ways to serve that employ your skills (e.g., coaching Special Olympics athletes in your favorite sport, coaching a Trenton student on your instrument of choice with Trenton Youth Orchestra), or introduce you and let you connect with new populations (e.g., participating in the medical mission trip with the SPA 204 class, tutoring the GED for incarcerated individuals with Petey Greene, or providing companionship with an elderly resident of a local rehabilitation center with Creative Minds). Attending a “Find Your Pace Coffee Chat” will help you get started on identifying activities of interest, or participate in their “Field Guide to Service” to gain a fuller understanding of how to “do service well.”

There are so many ways that our prehealth students support each other! Here are a few highlights:

• HPA Peer Advisers (HPA PAs): We select a cohort of residential college Peer Academic Advisers (PAAs) to also serve as HPA PAs. You’d apply to become a PAA through your res college and then do some cross-training with our office. This is a great way to get to know the HPA advisers and learn more about the ins and outs of being prehealth while also providing guidance on course selection and academic preparation to your zees.
• HPA Jock Docs: We invite prehealth student-athletes who we know to serve as Jock Docs. They do a lot of the same things as HPA PAs specifically for other athletes.
• Peer Health Advisers (PHAs): University Health Services trains and oversees the PHAs, who support student wellness. As a PHA, you’ll learn more about health education and community and public health.
• Residential College Advisors (RCAs): Care for the overall health of a small cohort of students individually and as a community, with meaningful professional development, teamwork, and other skills-building throughout the year. Being an RCA hits many of the core competencies sought in medical students.
• McGraw Learning Consultants: Learn to quickly establish rapport, ask meaningful questions to understand your student’s presenting and underlying concerns, and work together to find solutions. Sounds a lot like what a doctor does with their patients!

You can also support prehealth peers as a departmental representative or student organization leader. We’d love to see the Princeton Premedical Society or other inactive health-related student groups revived—come chat with us if you’d like support in reinstating student groups!

Start by thinking through all of the activities that helped you grow personally and professionally. Your three most meaningful activities should be those that were most meaningful to your development as a future physician. Hopefully, these are also activities that you’re passionate about, where you showed enthusiasm and dedication, as those are often the easiest to write about in an authentic, impactful way.

You may want to aim for a balance of experiences that showcase different aspects of your candidacy and your narrative. What aspects of being a doctor are most important to you (e.g., leadership, mentorship, advancing knowledge, developing longitudinal relationships with patients, working with certain patient populations, innovating, addressing health disparities, improving policy)? Which of your personal qualities do you feel will make you an effective doctor? How can you demonstrate those interests and qualities in the activities you highlight as your most meaningful?

If you’re having difficulty choosing between your activities, try writing out the potential “most meaningful” ones in both the “regular activity” character limit (700 characters, including spaces) and the “most meaningful” length (700 + 1325 characters). You may find you need more space to talk about some than others. Also think about what you’re writing about in your personal statement—maybe one of the potential activities comes across better in that essay than it does in your activities list.

When you apply to health professions programs, you'll complete an application similar to your college application, where you will provide the name of each activity, type of activity, dates of participation, time spent, location, supervisor, and a brief description of your participation. Some individual schools may request a resume or CV in addition to the application, but you should be prepared to write short essays about each activity in addition to the bullet point style list that you provide on a resume.

There are no restrictions to what activities to list (beyond a maximum number--for MD programs, you can list up to 15). You are allowed to list activities from the past and anticipated activities in the future. The most value tends to be placed on activities that you've participated in recently and those where you have committed significant time or had a high level of responsibility.

On the MD application (the AMCAS), you can report up to 15 activities. Each activity will have a title, contact person, date, number of hours, category, and short description.

The categories you use to classify your activities are:

• Artistic Endeavors
• Community Service/Volunteer - Medical/Clinical
• Community Service/Volunteer - Not Medical/Clinical
• Conferences Attended
• Extracurricular Activities
• Hobbies
• Honors/Awards/Recognitions
• Intercollegiate Athletics
• Leadership - Not Listed Elsewhere
• Military Service
• Other
• Paid Employment - Medical/Clinical
• Paid Employment - Not Medical/Clinical
• Physician Shadowing/Clinical Observation
• Presentations/Posters
• Publications
• Research/Lab
• Social Justice/Advocacy
• Teaching/Tutoring/Teaching Assistant

Based on a survey of admissions officers(Link is external), community service, physician shadowing/clinical observation, unpaid or paid medical experience, and leadership were rated as having the highest importance, so it would make sense to have at least four of your fifteen activities “boxes” dedicated to these areas. If you find that you’re not interested in these types of activities, then it may be worth reflecting on whether or not medicine is really right for you, since being of service to others, learning about the profession, and preparing to lead the healthcare team are all key aspects of becoming a successful physician.

Beyond that, it’s more a matter of doing what you love, then thinking about how that intersects with what drives you toward medicine—think about what makes you want to be a doctor and seek activities that will help you develop the skills and preparation that will best prepare you. For example, if you want to become a physician so you can advance knowledge by taking your observations in the clinic to your research, then we would expect to see a lot of research in your activities. If you’re motivated by addressing unmet needs for patient populations and increasing access to care, we’d expect to see more service and maybe social justice/advocacy. Most of you will also have some extracurriculars or hobbies that you’ll include, and that’s welcomed—medical schools want to know about you as a whole person, not just as a premed! Be true to yourself and think of how doing what you love is uniquely preparing you to be the kind of doctor you want to be.

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) provides guidance on what to include. The categories you use to classify your activities is also useful in considering what "counts."

So your thesis, which is a research experience, should certainly be included. As part of the HPA Preapplication Process, we give you more guidance on the kinds of activities to include. We ask you to generate your activities list as part of our process and we provide feedback on what you've included and how you've described it to help you prepare for your application.

When you complete your professional school application, you'll list a contact name for every activity. It is wise to keep track of who's in charge of these experiences as they happen. Ideally the contact person would be a University staff member of faculty member if it's a University-related activity, or if the experience happened away from Princeton the person would generally be a supervisor.

Even if that person you worked with is long gone by the time you apply to medical school, you will be asked to supply their name. That is the only 'recognition' you'll need. Don't worry, medical schools do not typically contact these people (or even attempt to), the only exception being cases where something else (perhaps comments in the personal essay, in the letters of evaluation, or the interview) raise suspicions as to the veracity of what you listed as an activity.

At HPA, we’re lucky to engage in regular conversations with students and alums about the many ways that their activities have informed their future in health professions. Princeton students are more likely to be over-involved than under-involved during their college and postgrad years. Don't stretch back to high school just to fill those fifteen boxes on the medical school application--quality of involvement is more important than quantity, and more recent, meaningful experiences are going to be more salient to admissions committee members.

There are two exceptions to this advice: first, if you had significant shadowing/work with patients in high school, it can be worthwhile to indicate that longstanding commitment (but you should also continue to engage in clinical experiences in college). Second, if there is a direct connection between college commitments and previous activities, including high school activities can again signal continuity / deep engagement. Maybe you began working in a lab in high school and continued researching there during your college years. Perhaps you’ve been performing with the same choral group since tenth grade. If an activity didn’t continue into college but you feel that it had a meaningful effect on you and you’d like for the admissions committee to know about it, you can always incorporate a discussion of it into your personal statement or HPA can mention it in the committee letter, or you can find a way to tie it in with other parts of your application materials.

A lot of soul-searching and decision-making goes into compiling the common application for medical school. If you have more than 15 items or aren’t sure which entries to include, HPA advisers will work with you to craft your final list.

There’s a lot of flexibility in how you shape the work/activities section of the common application. You can report up to 15 activities and each will have a category, number of hours, and space for a short description. If you did very little shadowing/volunteering, you might classify the activity as “Paid Employment – Medical/Clinical” or “Research” and briefly mention the other activities in the description. If you were volunteering weekly and want to draw attention to that part of your summer separately, you might split those hours into a separate activity with its own description and classify the activity as “Community Service/Volunteer – Medical/Clinical.” Many applicants group all of their shadowing hours into a single activity under the category “Physician Shadowing/Clinical Observation”. While the classification category is important, what you say in the description of the activity is more important. Spend some time thinking about how you contributed, what you learned, and what competencies you developed or demonstrated while your summer is fresh in your mind.

We checked in with Pam Cohen at the Center for Career Development – she encourages you to make an appointment or bring your resume to drop-in hours, but here are some suggestions to get you started:

• Consider your “target audience” – the people reading your resume – and what you want them to know about you for a particular role/industry.
• Don’t devalue resume content just because it’s from high school. A strong resume showcases relevant roles from a variety of experiences.
• Emphasize demonstrable skills. This may mean listing fewer activities, but writing more about the ones you keep to show a prospective employer what you have accomplished.
• Review the resume guide online for more formatting and content tips!

When you apply to medical school, you will have up to fifteen work/activities experiences. You will assign each to one of 19 categories. Most of our applicants have at least some time spent in five of these categories: 1) Community Service/Volunteer – Medical/Clinical; 2) Physician Shadowing/Clinical Observation; 3) Community Service/Volunteer – Not Medical/Clinical; and 4) Research (due to the senior thesis); 5) Extracurricular Activities.

Most of our applicants also have summer internships or jobs that will fall in the Research or Paid Employment categories. Many of our applicants take on campus leadership activities that fall under “Leadership Not Listed Elsewhere” or “Teaching/Tutoring/TA”. The balance depends partially on your personal narrative and motivation. If you want to be a doctor whose primary focus is patient care, then you’re more likely to have significant time spent on Medical/Clinical and Service activities rather than Research/Lab; if you’re applying MD/PhD, you’ll still want to show your clinical and civic engagement, but the balance is going to be more heavily on the Research/Lab category.  

Quality and quantity of experience are both taken into account, so it isn’t all about hours, but if it looks like 90% of your time is in the Hobbies category, or all of your clinical time was back in high school, or only 2% of your activities are service-based, then that may cause concern. Also: schools are aware that some applicants have financial or other obligations that may affect their number of hours--they'll take that into account as they consider how you spend your time (and we'll help them be aware of that context in our committee letter of recommendation).
 
In addition to checking your balance in terms of experience type, also ensure that all of your core competencies are represented. For example, a student athlete’s hours may be heavily focused on Intercollegiate Athletics, but when they write their description of that experience in their application, they can comment on how they’ve demonstrated and developed many of the core competencies (like teamwork, resilience, capacity for improvement, oral communication). Use the AAMC Core Competencies self-assessment guide or a simplified self-assessment that we put together to gauge where you stand and how you may want to adjust how you spend your time. And bring your ideas to an HPA meeting and talk it over with us—we’re happy to help you brainstorm next steps based on the self-assessment!