Hey guys, you would indeed only have two weeks to withdraw other acceptances after accepting your offer. Normally you would have until April 30th to use the choose your medical school tool, which also forces you to pick one acceptance and withdraw all others/waitlists, etc. AFAIK.
It is definitely a challenging decision, though an excellent problem to be dealing with as it means you have an acceptance to medical school. As for the January start, it is really just chosen to be in line with where the curriculum starts for the 6 years. It is unfortunate but it comes with many many MANY benefits. You have lots of time off in your first year. You also get the choice to Graduate in December instead of the normal summer graduation. This gives you six months before residency to pursue a research project, work another gig, get caught up on family time before residency, and take that two-week trip to Europe. It also allows you to start earlier in residency. Once you match, many residencies will let you start earlier than the original date and it can give you a real advantage in terms of acclimating to the program. Many students also study for step 3 during those six months and take it very soon after starting residency. So they don't have to worry about it during their intern year. There are some real plusses to the start and end times. You can also delay your graduation and have 6 more months of free choice electives if that is what you want. To explore more subspecialties or do research electives.
While I acknowledge that it is difficult to withdraw from other apps this early, it is necessary for them to lockdown their class size as soon as they can so they can start onboarding you. April 30th deadline gives a few months to most medical schools with the choose my medical school tool, their acceptances go out and thats about how much time UMKC gets here.
