Community Service Question

[Drom117]

Hello,

I am reviewing my community service hours and currently have 155. By the time I apply, I will have roughly 250+. I was speaking to a friend who applied in a previous cycle and he mentioned that many of his hours were rejected because they were done with his church. I went on a 2-year mission trip for my church and during that time I volunteered at soup kitchens, multiple goodwills, and helped to build multiple parks. This was all volunteer work and not any of it was required by my church.

That being said, is there a stigma against community service hours that were done during a mission such as this? Should most schools accept these hours?

Thanks in advance,

Dominic

[Drom117]

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

[hmtpnw]

I’m not certain I understand your question... What do you mean by “accept?” 

All volunteer hours will be considered when looking at your application. They will be listed under the category of “volunteering,” and they will be accepted as a non-healthcare volunteer experience. Schools will not “deny” any kind of volunteer experience as there is no “right” or “wrong” kind. 

If you’re asking if these non-healthcare volunteer hours will be counted as healthcare or patient care experience, they will not. CASPA does a good job explaining each category of experience. You can find that here: https://help.liaisonedu.com/CASPA_Applicant_Help_Center/Filling_Out_Your_CASPA_Application/3._CASPA_Supporting_Information/2_Experiences

[Drom117]

 

11 minutes ago, hmtpnw said:

I’m not certain I understand your question... What do you mean by “accept?” 

All volunteer hours will be considered when looking at your application. They will be listed under the category of “volunteering,” and they will be accepted as a non-healthcare volunteer experience. Schools will not “deny” any kind of volunteer experience as there is no “right” or “wrong” kind. 

If you’re asking if these non-healthcare volunteer hours will be counted as healthcare or patient care experience, they will not. CASPA does a good job explaining each category of experience. You can find that here: https://help.liaisonedu.com/CASPA_Applicant_Help_Center/Filling_Out_Your_CASPA_Application/3._CASPA_Supporting_Information/2_Experiences

Thanks for the reply. I apologize if my question was unclear. What he said was that after being rejected from the school, he asked one of the interviewers why he wasn't accepted. They told him one reason was that his community service hours weren't heavily weighted because they were completed through his church, rather than individually sought out. It is possible that I do not have enough detail regarding his situation.

[hmtpnw]

14 minutes ago, Drom117 said:

 

Thanks for the reply. I apologize if my question was unclear. What he said was that after being rejected from the school, he asked one of the interviewers why he wasn't accepted. They told him one reason was that his community service hours weren't heavily weighted because they were completed through his church, rather than individually sought out. It is possible that I do not have enough detail regarding his situation.

I would say it’s really unlikely this was why he was rejected. When programs look at your application they’re primarily looking at your GPA, patient care experience and healthcare experience in addition to letters of recommendation and your personal statement. These are the pieces that make or break an application. 

Community service and volunteerism is a very valuable part of an application that can help you stand out, but not a necessity. And I would be surprised if a program nit picked how the hours were obtained to this degree. 

Program will be very particular about your patient care and healthcare experience. They are very specific about what will and will not be accepted. 

[Drom117]

26 minutes ago, hmtpnw said:

I would say it’s really unlikely this was why he was rejected. When programs look at your application they’re primarily looking at your GPA, patient care experience and healthcare experience in addition to letters of recommendation and your personal statement. These are the pieces that make or break an application. 

 Community service and volunteerism is a very valuable part of an application that can help you stand out, but not a necessity. And I would be surprised if a program nit picked how the hours were obtained to this degree. 

Program will be very particular about your patient care and healthcare experience. They are very specific about what will and will not be accepted. 

I appreciate your help. Is both HCE and PCE necessary? I have over 1k hours in PCE and though there was HCE involved, it was primarily the former. Will my lack of HCE be detrimental even if I have PCE?

[hmtpnw]

19 minutes ago, Drom117 said:

I appreciate your help. Is both HCE and PCE necessary? I have over 1k hours in PCE and though there was HCE involved, it was primarily the former. Will my lack of HCE be detrimental even if I have PCE?

No, PCE is what’s important! Don’t worry about not having HCE. 

[rev ronin]

On 10/18/2018 at 9:30 PM, hmtpnw said:

I would say it’s really unlikely this was why he was rejected.

I dunno, there's plenty of anti-religious bias, and anti-LDS bias is among the strongest sort.

But if that's why they didn't want you there, did you really want to go there in the first place?

[Notfall]

I wouldn’t necessarily say there is an anti-religious bias, in fact I would say the opposite! I am personally not a religious person persay, and I feel as though this has greatly hindered me due to religious biases. Every other candidate I spoke with said volumes about networking and volunteering through their local church, whereas I was stuck cold calling every business that seemed like they helped the community. 

OT: Volunteer experience is almost like a life resume, it’s what you do outside of school. If there are two candidates and one has shown a consistent commitment to bettering the community through their church, and another has none, who sounds better? 

Now those personal biases on the other hand... at one of my interviews I was handed a piece of paper with two graphs and one had the demographics of Texas and the other were the accepted PA school student demographics, the question was “how do we fix this?”. My answer was that they were looking at the wrong demographics, show me the stats for the applicant demographics. The interviewer then pulled out another sheet of paper and there was a strong correlation between applicant demographics and accepted demographics. What is the issue here? The issue is just because the average applicant is a 24 year old blonde female student doesn’t make it politically correct to have your average accepted student be a 24 year old blonde female student.

My answer was I saw nothing wrong, I was waitlisted at that school. Maybe she didn’t like my brown eyes or brown hair, or my gender Maybe it’s maybelline. Could of been my subpar patient care experience or gre scores, but it was probably the hair.