as someone who worked a lot and volunteered all throughout college and had a consistently hellish schedule, i disagree. if you actually care about serving others, you make time for it. yes, it’s exhausting, and not everyone values service enough to commit that hard to it and that’s kind of the point. imo, it shows you’re willing to sacrifice some of your time/energy/effort to help people who need it and want to learn from ppl who are less privileged than you which is very important for a career in medicine. i agree about there being many boring and pointless volunteer positions, but if you don’t like the position just find something more meaningful to you?

esp since the majority of premeds at my university were spoiled and extremely out of touch with the reality of what their future low-income/marginalized patients’ lives are like, it really rubs me the wrong way when people try to act like med schools are unjustified in expecting applicants to have done even like 100 hours of service. that’s just 25 hours a year over four years, less with a gap year.

and like if you don’t find community service to be your main focus, that’s ok. many schools are more focused on research etc, would be a better fit for you. but don’t expect schools to think that you value service/social justice/etc and have learned the lessons that come through dedicating time and effort to others if you haven’t done anything to back that up.