Gap year before med school and application?

[anaiq]

I heard a lot of people are for taking a gap year after their bachelor's. I am a little confused about the time line. I am a senior now. So, I will graduate in spring of 2011 but I will have to apply to medical schools in summer of 2011. Is that right? and then I will have one full year when I can do anything I want. Then, I will go to medical school (ofcourse if I get accepted)?

Since my applications will be submitted to school in the summer of 2011 which is right after I graduate, so the medical school will not know of what I did in the gap year...so my medical application is basically everything that I do before the summer of 2011..is that right?


And when people say that they want to take a year off after graduating because they want to strengthen their appilcation...how will they strengthen their application..because the application goes in right after they graduate. Do they mean that they will have 2 gap years before medical school? because the only way the adcoms would know what we did in the whole 1 gap year, is when we apply to medical school after the first gap year and then wait another gap year for the appilcation process.


so stressed out about the medical application deadline and MCATs.

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[2050vlsb]

I heard a lot of people are for taking a gap year after their bachelor's. I am a little confused about the time line. I am a senior now. So, I will graduate in spring of 2011 but I will have to apply to medical schools in summer of 2011. Is that right? and then I will have one full year when I can do anything I want. Then, I will go to medical school (ofcourse if I get accepted)?

Since my applications will be submitted to school in the summer of 2011 which is right after I graduate, so the medical school will not know of what I did in the gap year...so my medical application is basically everything that I do before the summer of 2011..is that right?


And when people say that they want to take a year off after graduating because they want to strengthen their appilcation...how will they strengthen their application..because the application goes in right after they graduate. Do they mean that they will have 2 gap years before medical school? because the only way the adcoms would know what we did in the whole 1 gap year, is when we apply to medical school after the first gap year and then wait another gap year for the appilcation process.


so stressed out about the medical application deadline and MCATs.

Yeah, the timeline is a bit confusing .. I had the same issue when I was deciding whether or not to take a year off, but you've got it correct.

If you're going to graduate in May/June 2011 and take a year off, you'd submit your AMCAS between June - Sep 2011, work on secondaries/interviews between then and May/June 2012 .. and then matriculate in Aug/Sep 2012

Your AMCAS application can only include grades and activities that you've already started and/or completed .. i.e. if you get an internship that's supposed to start in the fall after you've applied, you can't list that on your AMCAS. However, there are a couple ways that taking this year off can strengthen your application.

For one, when people apply to begin school right after completing their undergrad, they apply after finishing their junior year, so their GPA only reflects three years. If you're taking a year off, your GPA will be calculated to include all four years .. which can be a big help if you do well your senior year. Of course, if you apply to start right out, you can update schools through the year with new grades .. but if some schools have GPA cutoffs that your "up to junior year" GPA doesn't meet, it won't matter how well you do senior year.

As for activities, again yeah your app will only reflect activities you've started or completed up through June-Sep 2011 (ie when your submit your primary). However, a lot of schools will ask on secondaries what you're doing with your time off if you're taking a year off. You can also talk about cool experiences with clinical experiences/research/work/whatever during interviews