Cut Summer

[Asclepius293]

My school just reduced our summer from 12 weeks to 9 weeks in order to start 4th year 3 weeks earlier for more residency application time and earlier elective rotations.

Do any current 4th years see a benefit to this? I feel like I’m losing out on a full summer with externship/life experience opportunities just to add more time to what seems to be an already lax year (excluding interviews obviously).

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[libertyyne]

No benefit.

 

[evilbooyaa]

Likely benefit when it comes to residency planning, although for only a subset of the student body.

It gives you time to get ALL aways and rotations done for those going into competitive fields (who need 2-3 aways, as well as the LoRs associated with each of those) prior to ERAS opening, which can lead to greater success in the match process for the school.

If you're deciding between two fields, you can do sub-Is in both of them before committing to one without damaging your app.

You can take a month off and delay Step 2CK or CS or for a re-take without it affecting the completeness of your ERAS application on Sept. 15th.

I was in a school that had very late start to 4th year (July) and would've loved to have it start in May instead, to allow for more time for away rotations (which can be competitive to get into or already booked for the ideal timings), for the field I went into. I ended up doing aways in September, October, and I believe November IIRC, which was not as beneficial to me.

 

[Asclepius293]

Didn’t know anyone still got summer break between 3rd and 4th year.

3rd year ended on a Friday and 4th year started the next Monday for us...

Sorry for the confusion. I meant our M1 summer was reduced from 12 weeks to 9 weeks in order to shift our whole curriculum so that 4th year begins about a month sooner. Should have specified that.

 

[Lannister]

Sorry for the confusion. I meant our M1 summer was reduced from 12 weeks to 9 weeks in order to shift our whole curriculum so that 4th year begins about a month sooner. Should have specified that.

Honestly I think 9 weeks is still a decent summer, you can get a research project done in nine weeks. Obviously 12 would be nicer, but 9 should be plenty.

 

[WingedOx]

Didn’t know anyone still got summer break between 3rd and 4th year.

3rd year ended on a Friday and 4th year started the next Monday for us...

my school got 2 weeks.

edit: didn't read above. I know we didn't get anything close to 12 weeks between m1-m2.

 

[Donald Juan]

It will help those in the competitive specialties, as you are already on such a time crunch in 4th year to do sub-I + away rotations + step 2 prior to application cycle. It would also be nice for people interested in specialties that they don't traditionally get to rotate in on core clerkships (rads, path, gas, etc.,) as they would likely have increased chance to get exposure through electives.

4th year is overall a lax year, but the beginning can be rushed for many people to get squared away in time for applications and interviews. I would support the switch, and as said above you can still do research or other activities with a 9 week M1-2 summer.

 

[Redpancreas]

This is a great move. More time fourth year for competitive specialties like Dermatology for instance for exposure/networking, gives more time for Step 2 CK, gives you more time to wrap up research, and allows delayed students to catch up. I would support this switch. 12 weeks is too long.

 

[Goro]

That makes more sense.

I think two full months is still a lot of time between M1 and M2 to be able to do something productive.

And I think you’ll be grateful in a few years to have more time as an M4 for subIs and letter gathering.

In two months I have had students able to generate enough data in the lab to get their name on papers. Granted, their projects were good projects, and I've had others not have such good luck when ideas went south.