April 3, 2024
Written By
Michael Minh Le
Subscribe to the Premed Catalyst Newsletter
Most premeds know they need extracurriculars for medical school, but what does that even mean? You’ve probably heard that clinical experience, volunteering, and research are “important,” but no one tells you how much is enough, what actually impresses AdComs, or what makes your app stand out from the thousands of others.
This article breaks down what actually works in 2025. You’ll learn why the old “med school resume” strategy is outdated, and we’ll introduce a smarter, narrative-driven framework. Then, we’ll dive into the five most impactful extracurriculars plus how many hours you need, what pitfalls to avoid, and how to align these activities with your goals.
At Premed Catalyst, we’ve been through the stress of med school applications ourselves. That’s exactly why we created a free resource to show you what it really takes to get into schools like UCLA. You’ll get access to 8 full AMCAS that earned real acceptances so you can use them to create your own successful application.
Get your free resource here.
Clinical hours, check.
Research, check.
Volunteering, check.
If you’re viewing extracurriculars like this, then you’re playing a game that ended 20 years ago.
AdComs aren’t handing out white coats to the most obedient checklist followers anymore. Why? Because the “perfect resume” has become the most forgettable application on their desk. Thousands of premeds are still pouring themselves into this formula, and every cycle, thousands of those same students, even the ones with 4.0 GPAs and 520 MCATs, get rejected.
Med schools don’t need another robot who can follow instructions. They need changemakers.
It’s simple: patterns are easy to ignore. In 2025, AdComs have read thousands of applications built on the same premed template—EMT, hospital volunteer, a dash of research, a sprinkle of shadowing, all topped off with a soup kitchen Saturday. The moment they see this, they check out. Your story doesn’t even get a chance.
Take Melissa, who had 500 clinical hours, 300 research, 250 volunteering, and amazing stats. Three interviews. Zero acceptances. Now compare that to Ray. Fewer hours. Worse stats. But everything pointed to one interest: cardiology. His story wasn’t just a list. It was a narrative. That’s the difference.
There are two proven ways to build a med school application that doesn’t just get read. It gets remembered.
The first is thematic alignment. Choose an area of interest, whether it’s cardiology, public health, or immigrant care, and build everything around it. Let that theme guide your research, your volunteering, your clinical work. The second is world-class impact. If you don’t have a theme, fine. Pick something you love and be so good at it that no one else in the country looks like you.
One path is about focus. The other is about excellence. The best students combine both. That’s the framework. That’s how you get in. We’ll cover this more in-depth later to help you choose a path that’s best for your premed journey.
Every premed eventually asks the same question: What extracurriculars do med schools actually care about? And too often, they get the same recycled answer: shadowing, research, volunteering, blah blah blah. But if you're applying in 2025, it's not just about what you do. It’s about how and why you do it.
Still, some categories matter more than others. Here are five high-impact areas every serious premed should consider, not because they check a box, but because they offer real depth, real growth, and real storytelling power:
Shadowing is the unsung foundation of a strong application, not because it’s flashy, but because it’s the bare minimum proof that you’ve seen this profession up close. If you haven’t shadowed, med schools will wonder: Do you even know what you're signing up for?
So, how do you get meaningful shadowing experience? Start local. Ask professors, use your school’s pre-health advising, email physicians at nearby hospitals or clinics. Cold emails work, but only if you write them well.
Once you’re in, don’t just stand there. Ask smart questions. Watch how physicians interact with patients. Notice the dynamics between nurses, staff, and other providers. This is how you learn decision-making, body language, and emotional labor that no textbook will teach you.
And here’s the part most premeds miss: take notes after every shadowing session. Not just what you saw but how it made you feel. What surprised you? What stuck with you? What challenged what you thought medicine was?
These reflections are pure gold when it comes time to write your personal statement or activities section. If you wait until application season, you won’t remember the details that made those moments meaningful.
Med schools aren’t impressed by 300 hours of passive observing. They want to see that you made the most of your time, learned something meaningful, and reflected on it.
Aim for 50–100 hours. That’s enough to show serious commitment without looking like you were trying to pad your resume.
Shadow 2–4 different specialties, and make sure one of them is primary care. This gives your app breadth and shows you’ve explored the real range of the medical field.
Let’s make one thing clear: you’re not getting into med school without clinical experience. No matter how good your GPA or MCAT is, if you’ve never worked with patients, AdComs will doubt you’re ready for medicine. And they should.
Clinical experience proves that you’ve been in the room where patients are scared, sick, dying, and you didn’t flinch. You stayed.
But, it’s not about being in a hospital. It’s about what you’re doing there.
Here’s what counts:
And what doesn’t count:
Forget the Reddit guesses. Here’s how many clinical hours you’ll need for med school based on what we’re seeing from real 2025 applications that actually get accepted:
But here’s the truth: it’s not the number. It’s the story.
If you’ve got 1,000 hours scattered across random clinics with no clear thread, AdComs won’t know who you are or what you care about. But 300 hours that all point to the same values, the same kind of patient, the same deeper curiosity? That’s compelling.
Let’s kill the myth now: being “President” of a club that does nothing is not leadership. Think of leadership as a multiplier. If your work is meaningful, leadership amplifies that impact. If it’s stagnant, leadership amplifies nothing.
But more than that, leadership is about being responsible for change even if you aren’t in charge.
That means:
If your position didn’t move the needle for your team, your community, or your mission, it won’t move the needle for your application either.
Let’s be real: research isn’t mandatory for every med school, but if you’re aiming high (think UCLA, UCSF, Harvard), it matters. Not because med schools want you pipetting for the rest of your life but because research proves you can ask hard questions, stay curious, and think critically. That’s what future doctors do every day.
And no, it doesn’t have to be in a shiny NIH-funded lab. It doesn’t even have to be in the sciences. If you’re doing deep, original thinking like designing a study, analyzing real data, drawing conclusions that could impact people, then you’re doing research that matters.
You could:
Bottom line: only go deep in research if it aligns with your goals. Don’t overcommit to something you hate just because Reddit said so. But if you do like research, commit hard and make it part of your story.
There’s no perfect number. But here’s the breakdown:
Let's be clear: clocking random hours at a soup kitchen once a semester isn’t going to cut it. The strongest community service work starts with one question: What do you actually care about?
Is it immigrant health? Mental health advocacy? Health education in under-resourced schools? Find your cause, then go deep. The goal isn’t variety. Its impact.
Here’s what that might look like:
And don’t wait until application season to start reflecting. Keep a journal. Write down moments that hit you. Conversations that shifted your perspective. The families, patients, or peers who reminded you why you’re doing this in the first place.
When it comes time to write your app, that reflection becomes your advantage. You won’t be scrambling to remember what you did. You’ll already have the stories.
Think med schools only care about your clinical hours and research posters? Think again. Some of the most memorable applications we’ve seen had a secret weapon: a well-developed, totally non-medical passion.
Your hobbies and interests outside of science aren’t a distraction. They’re your X-Factor. They show schools that you’re not just a premed robot doing what you think AdComs want to see. You’re a real human being with curiosity, creativity, and emotional depth.
Whether it's playing jazz piano, competing in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, running a food blog, or leading a spoken word collective, these passions build the soft skills that matter:
The best part? These passions often make your interviews fun. When you light up talking about something you love, it’s unforgettable, and that energy can tip the scales in your favor.
Grades and MCAT scores get your foot in the door. Your extracurriculars? They’re what show med schools who you really are.
AdComs aren’t just scanning for buzzwords like “shadowing” or “research.” They’re asking:
They want to see real commitment, not just hours, but impact. That can come from clinical roles, research, leadership, or community service. And yes, it can also come from something non-medical, like coaching a youth soccer team or building a tutoring nonprofit. What matters is that it shows initiative, empathy, and growth.
When you write about your extracurriculars, your job isn’t just to list what you did. Your job is to reflect. What did you learn? How did it change your perspective? What values did it reinforce?
Different med schools care about different things. A school like UCLA? They care deeply about community impact, so if your app shows you’ve been serving the very populations they serve, you just made their decision easier.
Bottom line: your extracurriculars aren’t just filler. They’re your chance to show med schools why you’re the kind of person they want in their white coat.
When it comes to extracurriculars, most premeds are stuck trying to do everything and end up standing out for nothing. But the applicants who get in, especially to top schools, tend to follow one of two strategies. Some even pull off both.
We call them: Thematic Alignment and Exceptional Impact.
This is when your entire application pulls in the same direction.
Let’s say you’re interested in cardiology. Your research is on heart failure. You scribe in a cardiology clinic. You volunteer at a community blood pressure screening program. Suddenly, your app isn’t a bunch of random experiences. It’s a story. One where every chapter builds toward the same theme.
You don’t need to know your exact specialty. Thematic alignment isn’t about locking yourself into a career path. It’s about showing intentionality. Maybe your theme is immigrant health, mental health, health equity, or health education. Whatever it is, the goal is clarity and depth.
Not everyone has a clear theme, and that’s okay. If your path is more varied, you can still stand out by going deep instead of wide.
This strategy is all about being undeniable in one or two areas. Maybe you:
This isn’t about having a long resume. It’s about having one or two experiences so meaningful, so full of traction and growth, that they carry your whole app.
Too many premeds pick activities like they’re ordering off a menu—one research, one volunteer, one shadowing, and maybe something spicy for the personal statement. And then they wonder why their application feels flat.
If you want to stand out, you can’t just ask what looks good. You have to ask: what actually matters to me? Because when you build from that, it’s real, and AdComs can tell.
What are you genuinely interested in? Health equity? Neuroscience? Education? Community organizing? Start there. Strategy can come later, for now just start getting experiences that align with your curiosity. That gets you out of bed, gets you showing up, and keeps you going long enough to start carving a path that’s meaningful to you.
Don’t chase titles. Chase responsibility. Find spaces where you can do more over time, whether that’s taking on leadership, building a program, or taking ownership of your work in a lab or clinic.
Two years at one clinic where you know everyone’s name will always be better than bouncing between six one-off volunteer gigs. Med schools want to see sustained effort. That’s how they know you’re serious.
Ask yourself: Could this activity support a bigger narrative? If not now, could it later? Even if you don’t have a theme yet, start thinking like a storyteller. Every experience should push your story forward.
If the thought of writing 1,325 characters about an activity makes you groan, it’s probably not the right one. The best experiences are the ones you can’t wait to talk about. That energy comes through in your application.
If you’re like most premeds, you’ve spent way too much time wondering: Is this enough? Will this stand out? Am I on the right track? The truth is, you won’t find those answers on Reddit threads.
That’s why we created something better: a free resource with 8 real AMCAS applications that earned acceptances to schools like UCLA and UCSF.
You’ll see exactly how students structured their experiences, what they wrote in their most meaningfuls, and how they used extracurriculars to tell a cohesive, unforgettable story. Don’t guess your way through this. Study what worked. Then, model your own success.
Get your free resource here.
