Advice for post-graduation?

[gasbait]

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Hello everybody,

I’m a rising senior and plan to graduate in the spring. Unfortunately, I have still yet to take the MCAT. The plan was to take it on August 15th, but after gauging my progress after a month of studying, I felt that I needed more time to do well on the test. That, and I didn’t want to have to study for an entirely new test in case I did worse than I expected.

Because of the classes I’m taking my last two semesters, as well as all of my extracurriculars and other things, I won’t be able to take the test until at least the fall of 2015. And since I don't want to apply late for the next cycle, it seems I’m looking at a two year gap, ouch!

And herein lies the question! What should I do during my gap years? Of course I’ll take the MCAT, but I (hopefully) don’t think I’ll need all those two years to get at least a 30. I’m an officer of a bunch of clubs; my GPA is good (3.9, 3.8 sGPA); and I have a lot (100+) of shadowing hours but no clinical volunteering or research. Should I be spending my time working on the last two things?

Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks again for your time!

 

[Keladry]

Yep, I'd say working on clinical volunteering and/or research would be great. You could also get a clinical job and do some other sort of volunteering - whatever floats your boat. Seems like you have a decent idea already of what you should be doing. 🙂

 

[schog]

Texas tech

 

[Radon XP]

Definitely look into racking up some clinical volunteering and some non-clinical community service too. This can be done in addition to getting a job.

 

[gasbait]

Thanks for your replies, everybody! You've all been super helpful!

 

[masaraksh]

Dude, you have 2 months until Aug 15th. Unless you're taking classes now to working full time, you have pretty much no excuse not to study for MCAT full time.

Research + volunteering or something during gap year is what if recommend.