2 Gap Years ??

[Run2Med]

Hey guys, seeking relevant advice regarding the possibility of taking 2 gap years for good reason. I am currently about to finish my sophomore year of college, and will graduate next spring. The way I understand it, if I were to take a gap year then I would apply the summer immediately following my senior year. However, this sort of poses a problem for me.... I'm currently heavily dependent on financial aid to pay for my undergrad with loans mixed in there as well. Coming up with the money for MCAT examination fees (300+study materials) as well as application fees (roughly between 2200 and 3400) the summer following my senior year doesn't seem feasible for my situation. So I have outlined two possible scenarios that I would love to gain feedback on!
I plan on applying to mid level to lower tier MD schools, and most of the DO schools.
Current stats: cGPA: 3.56, sGPA: 3.64
No MCAT yet

1) My university allows me to take a 5th year before graduating if I choose to do so. This would allow me to space out my classes a bit as well as take some extra bio classes that could push my GPA up a bit. I could save the money that has been given to me through financial aid (as I have been) to try and reach the target amount I would need for application.

OR

2) I can graduate next year as planned, take 2 gap years off of school but still seek relevant medical field related opportunities (scribe/EMT/RA maybe) and use this as a chance to pay off my undergraduate debt, increase my poor credit score, and save more than enough money for applications.

I am a bit torn as to what to do to be honest. The first path allows me to bump my GPA up a bit, the second path allows me to save money as well as gain experience for research and scribe etc...

Any advice is welcome....

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[oopsaloo]

I'm no expert at this, but my hunch would be for the first option. From what I hear, if you push up your GPA it would def help your application - if GPA/MCAT are not up to par then the other activities dont matter as much. Better to take it at a good pace and beef up that GPA. Maybe you could do part time work or summer work on some of the other things (scribe/EMT/RA) so you get the best of both worlds.

 

[Run2Med]

I'm no expert at this, but my hunch would be for the first option. From what I hear, if you push up your GPA it would def help your application - if GPA/MCAT are not up to par then the other activities dont matter as much. Better to take it at a good pace and beef up that GPA. Maybe you could do part time work or summer work on some of the other things (scribe/EMT/RA) so you get the best of both worlds.

Yeah the GPA always seems to be the biggest hurdle for applications. Summer work was already planned! Just have to try and tighten up the budget as much as possible. Thanks for being the one person that replied, for some reason its very difficult to get responses sometimes.