Deferring or has deferred acceptance anyone????

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medname

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I was wondering if anyone out there has ever deferred an acceptance to medical school. I am burned out from undergrad and would like to have some time for clear thinking before I start the next venture. It would be a good time to reaffirm my interest in the field and to take a needed break.

I wanted to know if there has been anyone that has done this. Have you been happy that you did, or have learned to regret it?? I have not been able to find many who are considering this or have done it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I have been accepted to one medical school already and am on the wait list at a few others. However, I have been rejected from my number one choice. If I am thinking about taking a year off anyways, should I turn down my acceptances to reapply to that school?

Thanks for your advice. Some real-life experiences would be a huge help!!!!!!

THANKS!!!

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This should depend on you. You need to ask yourself: Am I just tired of the medical field today or if you try to visualize yourself five to ten years down the road, do you think you would enjoy being a doctor? I definitely share the burn out feeling my man.
I went to undergrad like normal. Then my senior year I decided to go the med school route. I got married, went to a junior college to obtain all my pre-recs, which took two years, then took a few classes on the side after that, awaiting my admission to medical school. I also have three kids and work almost forty hours a week, so I am burned out alot.
There are some days when I wish I wasn't going into medicine, but the very next day, I am so glad I am. I have worked as a nurse's aide, phlebotomist, respiratory therapist, student athletic trainer (4 years of undergrad), and am a certified EMT. There are definitely days when I didnt want to go to work, but when I got there, it was a new opportunity to learn something new or polish my skills I will use down the road.

You have obviously done all the work to get into med school, since you have been accepted and waitlisted. The hardest part of med school is getting accepted. Once you are in, the school will do everything in their power to ensure you graduating.

But then again, if you feel tired of school and need a break.....take it. Then just get more medical experience and maybe a few more classes and prep for the next year. Maybe retake the MCAT depending on your score.

Hope this helped!! Good luck with whatever you decide

Chris
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by medname:
•I have been accepted to one medical school already and am on the wait list at a few others. However, I have been rejected from my number one choice. If I am thinking about taking a year off anyways, should I turn down my acceptances to reapply to that school?

Thanks for your advice. Some real-life experiences would be a huge help!!!!!!

THANKS!!!•••••I know it is highly frowned upon by admissions committees if you were accepted to medical school and then deferred the admission or did not accept it to apply to another school. Being accepted to any allopathic program is considered an honor and when you refuse your admission under the notion that you didn't want to go there and wanted another school may hurt you. If you're unsure about medical school, I have had friends that deferred for a year and spent some time on their own. One went to music school in London, another did AmeriCorps, and one is just bumming around the US.

I vaguely recall that on the AMCAS they ask if you had previously applied to med school, if you had been accepted, and if you didn't attend, why you chose not to attend. It was also on all of my secondaries. So, if you choose to defer for personal reasons, I would go ahead and recommend it if you feel burnt out. I personally waited a year to apply so that I could afford to apply and I could also indulge in activities I knew I would not have time for in school. But, if you defer to pursue another school, I would proceed with caution!
 
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A couple things to consider:

You need to check with the accepted schools to see if they will allow you to defer. Some let you, others for very specific reasons only, and some do not allow deferrals. Make sure you talk to someone in the admissions office knowledgeable about the deferral policy.

If you defer, you probably will not be able to apply to other medical schools. For example, some schools have you apply early decision through AMCAS (even though you were already accepted) to make sure you are not applying to other schools. Also, you should check with the schools that you are interested in about how they view reapplying if you have been accepted elsewhere before and turned it down. It may hurt your credibility as a reapplicant in this competitive process.

That said, if you're not sure, it's definitely better to find out now. Just make sure that you are aware of potential ramifications, and be careful of how you word your deferral request.
 
Thanks for all your advice. It can be a little difficult to think things through when you don't have a lot to go on. Advice is always good. Certainly if I do decide to reapply to get into my #1 choice, I think that I would have to turn down any offers flat out for next year, and couldn't hold an offer while applying elsewhere.

I think that I have worked very hard to get to this point as all applicants, med students, and physicians alike have. I am kind of bitter when I look at the work that I have done and all sacrafices I have made. I think that this has made me a little uneasy with a decision for medicine. I desire a career with balance, but when I look at the past few years, anything but balance has been lived.

Having a year to think about medicine and to get more experience to make more of focused desicion would do me well. Opinions??

I don't know if it is worth it to reapply to try to get in to my dream school. Has anyone done this?
 
I am planning to do the same thing because I have no choice. It's not so much that I want to take a year off before starting med school, but rather my thesis committee meeting ended last week and they told me that I need an additional 5 to 6 months after May this year to complete my degree... this was totally unexpected... So I have to defer a year. I spoke to quite a few people and they told me deferring is okay as long as you tell them early, and for wait-listed people, deferring is very very difficult because it is already too late in the process. So I would tell them now if I were you.
 
Thank you all for the advice!!! I really appreciate it!
 
Do you have a pre-med advisor? I would ask him/her opinion on the matter. I think you may need to consult your first choice medical school and see if they have any suggestions on your application. If you end up applying EDP to your school and are ultimately not accepted, you will need to apply to other schools. These schools will know that you were accepted previously, applied early decision to a certain school that cycle, and were not accepted.

Will you regret not having any acceptances to having one that many only wish to have had?
 
I'm currently spending the year out of school after deferring an acceptance from one of the schools to which I applied my senior year of undergrad. It has seriously been one of the best decisions I've ever made. The primary reason I deferred was to deal with extenuating family circumstances, but the year has been a really good opportunity to develop some of my personal interests outside of academics and to reflect on my decision to enter medicine. Working in corporate America this year, my decision to enter medicine has been reaffirmed a thousand times over.

You'll sometimes hear the argument that it's not worth it to defer from a financial standpoint because each year that you spend in deferment is another year of your life that could've been spent making mega-bucks as a practicing physician . . . but this argument means nada to me because the experiences I've had in this past year and opportunity to take a break from studies are priceless . . . money isn't everything.

I highly discourage you from turning down your acceptance in favor of reapplying to your dream school. As Dr. Kermit and others have noted, you have to state on your applications whether you've ever applied to other allopathic schools and what the outcome was. If adcoms see that you turned down an acceptance, they will frown upon it very strongly. One major component of admission is committment and desire to enter medicine, and if the adcom sees that you applied and turned down an acceptance, your committment and desire to enter medicine is totally blown out of the water. I'd double-check with your dream school (anonymously) what their stance is on this matter, but I'd venture to say that they won't be too thrilled with an applicant who turned down an acceptance for a reason besides "being burned out." Not that this isn't a valid reason, but again, it's not like you needed time to finish your degree as is the case with the other poster. Anyway, best wishes in your decision.
 
The beauty of medicine is your ability to make it whatever you want. You can have balance if you want it. You practice does not have to be in academic medicine. You can put up with the grief for four years and head off to a family practice (or some such) residency where you'll be able to create the life you want. There are few professions which allow that.

That said, the school will probably allow it and with what you've said so far, I'd highly recommend you defer.
 
There comes a point when you have to accept that things won't always be as ideal as you'd like. I applied to 6 colleges as a high school student and only got accepted to my backup. I'm very happy here, and I wouldn't change it for anything. I hope this helps somehow in your decision about enrolling/re-applying.
 
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