Medical When should I apply?

[GoSpursGo]

As of right now, I am a second-year pre-med student and for financial reasons, I want to go into medical school right after college without taking a gap year. If all goes well, I'm planning on taking the MCAT in the spring semester of my junior year and applying into the 2022-2023 cycle. My GPA has been around >s3.5 >c3.7 for the past years. Would not having my senior year grades drastically affect my application? If I don't get in on this cycle, would being a reapplicant hurt my chances in the future? I do plan on applying to both DO schools and MD schools. Would it be better if I applied only DO during the 2022-2023 cycle? I honestly wouldn't mind going to a DO school if it was the only option of me going into medical school right after college.

You are describing the “normal” route that people do to get into Med school. This is certainly feasible, but you just need to make sure you get your ducks in a row, including getting plenty of volunteer hours, by next spring.

Many more people are taking gap years at this point because it is difficult to both check all the EC boxes without seeing your academics suffer. So whatever you do, don’t overextend yourself. You can always make up EC hours later in a gap year, but it’s really hard to repair a GPA once it takes a hit.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

This isn't any different than anyone else applying to medical school. Your GPA is ok, but you will need DO schools on your list with a 3.5. Make sure your ECs are ok.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

It depends on the school, but in my opinion, I see so many applicants who have their senior grades verified that you need to be sure you have done well enough with your upper-level science courses by the time you are done with junior year to get the benefit of the doubt for me. That is to say, I'm unsure that with your sGPA and grade trends that I would automatically assume a candidate will do well in senior coursework if I don't have their grades. I will say that when it comes to a tie between someone who took biochem and someone who has yet to take it, I have my preferences for the sure grade in making an evaluation, and there are more people who have A's and B's in biochem that I see than those who don't have it. Granted, the MCAT nowadays really wants you to take biochem before taking the exam compared to the pre-2015 MCAT days where it was more a senior year course appearing on transcripts.