Deferring a year and reapplying

[Danielle]

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Are you able to defer a year at a DO school and reapply to an MD school? Do the DO schools know if you are reapplying or not?

 

[jlee9531]

you should ask Adapt about this since he applied to both DO and MD schools. I thought that they were on 2 different application systems and thus would not know. But this is just my educated guess.

Regardless, reapplying again for MD schools would be tough because you would have had to improve the weaknesses on your application without even really taking any time off to do that since you would be reapplying basically when this application cycle is coming to a close.

Hope you get some more responses to the topic and good luck on your whatever you decide to do.

 

[SpiritiualDuck]

why did you apply DO if you were willing to go? I didn't apply to any schools that I didn't think I'd attend.

Also, are you planning to enter into primary care because DO will serve you well. Why take the year off? The only reason to apply MD, imho, is because you want to enter into a competitive residency program and you want to do academic medicine.

 

[Danielle]

why did you apply DO if you were willing to go? I didn't apply to any schools that I didn't think I'd attend.

Also, are you planning to enter into primary care because DO will serve you well. Why take the year off? The only reason to apply MD, imho, is because you want to enter into a competitive residency program and you want to do academic medicine.

I am willing to attend the DO school however I don't want to go into primary care. I applied there because my familiy physician is DO. I hope to go into neurology and I don't want to stop doing research that I have been doing for many years now.

 

[omarsaleh66]

u could easily do neurology from a DO school. And there are prolly gonna be alot of research opportunites at the neurology dept there as is the case at every med school.

I wish u the best, im just saying this just in case u didnt know this already

 

[WatchingWaiting]

Are you able to defer a year at a DO school and reapply to an MD school? Do the DO schools know if you are reapplying or not?

The answer is yes. AMCAS and whatever the osteopathic association uses are different application systems and the osteopathic schools won't know you applied allopathic during your deferral years, nor will the MD schools know you're sitting on an osteopathic acceptance (unless of course, you're foolish enough to tell them). As mentioned though, you'd better know why you didn't get in allopathic the first time and have an effective remediation plan to improve your application enough the second time to make a difference. You'd probably have to talk to a couple of allopathic admissions offices, preferably where you interviewed, to find out what went wrong the first time and if you'll be able to fix it. If it's a low MCAT, you can try the August retake, but if it's gpa, you probably won't be able to rectify that in a year anyway.

 

[Lion-O]

Does a deferment carry some kind of contractual obligation to attend? You would think the school that defers you would require this.

 

[Adapt]

The answer is yes. AMCAS and whatever the osteopathic association uses are different application systems and the osteopathic schools won't know you applied allopathic during your deferral years, nor will the MD schools know you're sitting on an osteopathic acceptance (unless of course, you're foolish enough to tell them)

The DO schools use the AACOMAS system.

First, I don't think every DO school has a deferral policy. I think DO schools are wise enough to know that some people are sneaky enough to do what you described so they don't allow deferrals.

Second, I believe it is unethical to do what you said. It's just wrong. In the case that the particular school has a deferral policy and you don't care about the ethics of the situation, the school may ask why you are deferring and have certain rules. Certainly for MD schools, you cannot apply to other medical schools while deferring. This may be the case for DO schools also including crossing over and applying to MD schools.

What you should do is specifically call the school you want to defer at. If they allow deferring, ask the rules of it and see if they say you can't apply to other schools. If they don't then go ahead and apply MD.

I hope you do not choose to apply again to MD schools though. You will be wasting a year, and having looked at many DO match lists, I would say it is fairly easy to specialize as a DO as long as you're not talking about derm, optho, or other highly competitive residencies. You will also go through the pain of wasting all that money applying again and all the problems that come with it.

 

[Danielle]

I agree with you. I am just at a crossroads with choosing between a DO and an MD school.

The DO schools use the AACOMAS system.

First, I don't think every DO school has a deferral policy. I think DO schools are wise enough to know that some people are sneaky enough to do what you described so they don't allow deferrals.

Second, I believe it is unethical to do what you said. It's just wrong. In the case that the particular school has a deferral policy and you don't care about the ethics of the situation, the school may ask why you are deferring and have certain rules. Certainly for MD schools, you cannot apply to other medical schools while deferring. This may be the case for DO schools also including crossing over and applying to MD schools.

What you should do is specifically call the school you want to defer at. If they allow deferring, ask the rules of it and see if they say you can't apply to other schools. If they don't then go ahead and apply MD.

I hope you do not choose to apply again to MD schools though. You will be wasting a year, and having looked at many DO match lists, I would say it is fairly easy to specialize as a DO as long as you're not talking about derm, optho, or other highly competitive residencies. You will also go through the pain of wasting all that money applying again and all the problems that come with it.