I have been thinking if I should get a job in order to save up money for medical school. But then I realized that I should just graduate a semester early. I have 20 AP credits and I can just take 16-20 units every semester. On one hand, I will be better prepared to handle medical school. On the other, I would be able to save up a lot of money AND get a good job for 5-6 months.
Would medical schools care if I graduated a semester early to save money?
- Thread starter JoyKim456
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They don't care.
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Also realize that it's unlikely you will get a decent paying job for those 5-6 months off. Even if you have a college degree, nobody is going to hire you for a well-paid position when they know you're just going to be leaving.
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Don't let your GPA sacrifice for taking too many classes per semester, but if you can graduate early by pushing yourself then do it.
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+1. Granted, it came up in interviews. But that was merely to question my motivations for doing so. I gave a reasonable answer and have had no issues.I graduated an entire year early (with good grades and a double major). It was a great choice for me, and no schools mentioned it/cared
you don't have to necessarily tell them you plan on leaving in less than a year unless they ask you to sign a contract.
i got offered a job paying $16/hr with no experience in direct patient care the day before graduation. they never asked about how long i felt i was going to stay. i just said that i was interested in healthcare based on my family history (nurses, dialysis) which isn't a lie.
most jobs would fire you on the spot if they had a better opportunity, so why give them a reason not to hire you? like i said, unless there is a specific contract or they directly ask you how long you plan to stay, then i don't think it's unethical.
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No one cares if it took you 3 or 4 or 5 years to graduate. You GPA, MCAT, PS, LOR, and EC's are all that matters. If finishing college a semester earlier will negatively impact any of these then stay the four years. I have had friends take only 3 years of school (came in with lots of AP credits). But make sure you do things during your time off like volunteering/shadowing/research/teaching/traveling/job....Do not sit at home and relax. Taking 16-18 credit semesters will not prepare you for medical if thats what you are hoping to gain from this. From what I hear from everyone, medical school is entirely different in the work load and studying habits. So don't comapre undergrad with medical school.
@PlaqueBuster Your argument is that taking extra credits will not help me in medical school. Do you deny that taking extra credits (16-18 vs 12-14) helps develop time management skills and ability to handle workload or do you deny that these skills are important in medical school?
people have shown time and time again that turnarounds in medical school are possible.
taking 16-18 hours may help you better handle high courseloads, however if taking 16-18 hours makes you get a 3.0 average, good luck getting into medical school to "show off" your acquired talents.
it's a delicate balance. unless you take 12 hours every semester i don't think most ADCOMS would even bring it up. there is nothing wrong with taking 15 hours straight or a semester or two of 12-13 hours. they understand that you have a life outside of class as well (hopefully)
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Time management skills are important but can be developed in other ways like balancing courses, Ec's, research, tutoring, etc. This will add strength to your interviews and essays when you talk about how doing all of things prepared you and taught you to manage time. Saying I learned time management skills by only taking 16-18 credit courses a semester is not a good example in my honest opinion. Also I mentioned that you should not take more classes to demonstrate time management if it will negatively impact you.
To give you an example, during my spring freshman year semester I enrolled in 21 credits of classes because I wanted to do research which gave me 3 credits. I was over the 18 credit maximum and I though I could handle it because I was a good student. Well, as I went through the semester, I was spending 12 hours at my lab weekly, including weekends, and my grades in classes were going down. I withdrew from 1 class to compensate for this and ended the semester doing well in my other classes but I had a W on my transcript now. This was my only W I ever had and I learned from this situation and elaborated this o my secondary essays. So I wanted to give you some insight about the difficulty of handling a heavy courseload. You have to be realistic in your abilities and how much work you may have, if you are doing other things and not just coursework
To give you an example, during my spring freshman year semester I enrolled in 21 credits of classes because I wanted to do research which gave me 3 credits. I was over the 18 credit maximum and I though I could handle it because I was a good student. Well, as I went through the semester, I was spending 12 hours at my lab weekly, including weekends, and my grades in classes were going down. I withdrew from 1 class to compensate for this and ended the semester doing well in my other classes but I had a W on my transcript now. This was my only W I ever had and I learned from this situation and elaborated this o my secondary essays. So I wanted to give you some insight about the difficulty of handling a heavy courseload. You have to be realistic in your abilities and how much work you may have, if you are doing other things and not just coursework
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I agree with @PlaqueBuster . That being said, not all 16-18+ hour semesters are created equal. Make sure to talk to upperclassmen about specific and professors and classes to get a good appraisal of what the demands will actually be. There are some classes that require very little work outside of attending to lecture and paying attention and some classes that are 3 hour classes but are actually a 12 hour semester all on their own.
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Just have a answer for what you plan to do with the semester like I do. No one will care and if part of the answer is to save money then feel free to say it (I know I did).
