Gap Year + Application Advice

[Apophis14]

Hey everyone!

I had decided a while back that I would be taking a gap year after undergraduate school. I recently graduated from the University of South Florida with a degree in biomedical sciences and a 3.97 GPA. I have a bit of shadowing experience with surgeries in a foreign country, and with ALS patients domestically. This however, is the extent of my extra-curricular experiences. Since I will be submitting my application shortly after I get my MCAT scores (in August), am I hopeless for any chances of making my application more competitive? I am planning on spending my entire gap year shadowing, volunteering, and doing research. My main question is, will medical schools take into account what I am going to be doing during the year off, or will they instead see that I haven't done much up til now, and then toss my app. in the bin?

Let me know if any of you have any tips/advice, and thanks so much for your time!

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[rdyotz]

Chances are slim. Adcoms won't take into account that you say you will do something ECs during the application cycle, as anyone can say they plan on doing 2000 hours over the next year and then not do any. Take another year off, and apply next year with substantial ECs.

 

[MedicalDoge]

I didn't have much clinical volunteering/employment before I applied (maybe 30-40 hours), but my gap year is all clinical experience, and I did very well this cycle. I think they do take it into account, but it's not as good as having it done already obviously.

However, you say you're short on multiple facets (shadowing, volunteering, and research), and I think that is a negative because you have a lot of boxes to tick still. If you want my opinion, I would say apply next year. August is a little on the late side anyway.

In short, if you had just one box lacking, I would say go for it. In your case, I say wait