Is DOFE gold worth it for a medicine application

Hello, I am a Year 12 student and I was wondering if doing Duke of Edinburgh Gold will be beneficial for my med school application, or if there is no point.
doing this award includes volunteering, developing certain skills and doing something physical and all of these are what med schools look for in an application, however would the admissions teams prefer that I do these things outside of school rather than as a part of DofE which is technically a school activity. I am also aware that there are things that you do have to do outside of school, volunteering as part of DofE and simply because I want to are arguably two seperate things and I am not entirely sure how I could manage to try and fulfil both

Also, I have not done the silver award so this will take me longer to complete.

Any advice will be much appreciated, thank you.

Reply 1

smem12345

Original post by Oscarb1123

Hello, I am a Year 12 student and I was wondering if doing Duke of Edinburgh Gold will be beneficial for my med school application, or if there is no point.
doing this award includes volunteering, developing certain skills and doing something physical and all of these are what med schools look for in an application, however would the admissions teams prefer that I do these things outside of school rather than as a part of DofE which is technically a school activity. I am also aware that there are things that you do have to do outside of school, volunteering as part of DofE and simply because I want to are arguably two seperate things and I am not entirely sure how I could manage to try and fulfil both
Also, I have not done the silver award so this will take me longer to complete.
Any advice will be much appreciated, thank you.

As long as you have done volunteering, relevant work experience and any activities that can show a relevant skill (e.g. having a job shows you have good teamwork and cooperation skills) you will be a good candidate. From reading my peers personal statements, none of them have included anything to do with DofE, including me. Hope this helps :smile:

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Reply 2

Jonjon7

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by Oscarb1123

Hello, I am a Year 12 student and I was wondering if doing Duke of Edinburgh Gold will be beneficial for my med school application, or if there is no point.
doing this award includes volunteering, developing certain skills and doing something physical and all of these are what med schools look for in an application, however would the admissions teams prefer that I do these things outside of school rather than as a part of DofE which is technically a school activity. I am also aware that there are things that you do have to do outside of school, volunteering as part of DofE and simply because I want to are arguably two seperate things and I am not entirely sure how I could manage to try and fulfil both
Also, I have not done the silver award so this will take me longer to complete.
Any advice will be much appreciated, thank you.

if you have not done silver, I would advise not to go for gold as you need to get both done n dusted. Very time consuming as you juggle transition to yr13.

I did my gold but personally it did not add much to my application to med school and I did not mention it at all in my personal statement, although one can talk about teamwork and leadership, but it's not related to med (extracurricular activities). PS is changing from next year, so characters restriction is of concern.

If you aspire to go into medicine, the volunteering and any med work experience you can garner is more important, imho. Plus preparing UCAT!!!!! The dreaded assessment that I still hate.

However if you are keen to do dofe and could manage your time well enough, do go for it.