Gap year, research necessary?

[romanjetfighter]

3.6 gpa, 3.6 sgpa, upward trend, 3.0->3.2->3.4->3.5->3.6
no mcat yet, practice test that was done by kaplan around 25 (n=1) no studying, will practice this winter break

a UCI outreach person went to our school and said research after graduating "doesn't matter that much", that they favor people who are volunteering in the hospital or working as a scribe.

does that apply to all schools, or just UCI? i don't plan on attending UCI, but ia m curious. i already have some research, but no publications or anything. my main concern is schools will see a whole year of research without any publications or presentations, then look at it as a bad thing, like i signed up for something but didn't put my heart into. in reality, it was partly due to factors out of my control. i still feel i learned a lot, from troubleshooting, to doing basic stuff like running gels, culturing cells, running columns, etc. is that enough for MD schools? i am looking at DO schools as well, but MD schools have really cool programs for PCPs in rural/underserved populations, which i am thinking of being.


since i have borderline stats (i have a big upward trend), do you think i should be more sensitive to what med schools want? doing research 100% (without classes) for a year would certainly get me a presentation or maybe even a publication. because of my lack of publications/presentations, is additional time for research recommended for me? i like research, btw.

thanks for any advice!

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[bucks2010]

You don't need pubs to be competitive for MD schools. I didn't have any; the great majority of other undergrads don't either.

You should do something productive with your gap year. Either obtain full-time employment somewhere (lab, hospital or elsewhere) or do some sort of year-out program (i.e. Americorps, which I believe is 2 years long).

Also, it's doubtful that any pubs you may or may not obtain in your gap year would seriously affect your application. Say you start in June, the odds of being published by Dec/Jan are pretty slim if you have no prior experience in that lab. I wouldn't go all-out for a research position next year if you're just doing it to boost your application credentials for MD schools.

 

[capn jazz]

3.6 gpa, 3.6 sgpa, upward trend, 3.0->3.2->3.4->3.5->3.6

how can you have a 3.6 gpa/sgpa if your lowest gpa was a 3.0 and your highest was a 3.6?

and no, research is not necessary. do what interests you.

 

[Freeinfinity]

how can you have a 3.6 gpa/sgpa if your lowest gpa was a 3.0 and your highest was a 3.6?

and no, research is not necessary. do what interests you.

3.0->3.2->3.4->3.5->3.6

I think he means each step along the way his cumulative gpa went from a 3.0 to a 3.2 to a 3.4 to a 3.5 to a 3.6. It makes sense, since the alternative would be to get an increasing semester gpa of .1-.2 increments, which is somewhat strange unless you planned to fool around with your gpa like that (which I'm sure no one here would attempt).

 

[gloeotrichia]

I don't think research in a gap year doesn't matter. I've been researching full-time for two years since undergrad and I think it's been looked on favorably by adcoms. If you like research and have some options for positions, it's a good way to spend a year while getting paid, though volunteering in a clinical setting in your free time is a good thing to do along with it. Publications are great, and they do impress people, but they're definitely not necessary for med schools, and as someone else pointed out it isn't likely that you'd even have a publication out by the time you were applying/interviewing. Publishing takes a long time.