How many people take gap years?

[Seldon]

How many people actually take a gap year? If you did, what did you do? For how long?

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[mistafab]

Average matriculant age is approx 24 in the US. There are some outliers (non-trads) bringing this up, but for the most part I'd say the majority take a gap year. I have perhaps 3-5% of M1s in my class who went straight from college, approx 80-85% took a gap year or two, and the remaining percent are either coming from non-med background (pharm, english masters or PhD) or are non-trad.

Like the average matriculant, I took 2 gap years and spent it doing clinical work. This counted towards my doctor face time and got me paid while I got to relax from studying/school. I graduated with my B.S. 2014 and started med school Fall 2016.

 

[aldol16]

From what I've seen, about 1/3 of students take one gap year, 1/3 take more than one gap year, and 1/3 go straight through from college at the top schools. It's not uncommon now and there's really no "traditional" route in the sense that there's no "mainstream" route.

 

[jesie]

It's even more common with programs like MDPhD. At the interviews I've attended so far, it seems like between 2-4 of us out of like 15 are still in undergrad.


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[efle]

From the AAMC survey of matriculating students

 

[Seldon]

This is somewhat related, but how strange would it look to take 1.5 years off of school before finishing (assuming you are being extremely productive in the middle)?

 

[CLB_MD]

Definitely becoming more and more common. Went into undergrad with intentions of going straight to medical school, but took two gap years to strengthen my application. Current MD applicant this cycle with no interview invites, so it looks like I will be a reapplicant with a total of 3 gap years.

 

[cheesin]

I took one gap year and served through the Lutheran Volunteer Corps at a free clinic.

 

[Ignatius413]

I took a gap year and it was awesome. Basically, I just traveled around Europe, drank excessively and chatted up eastern European girls. I actually finished my primary and secondary applications while I was in Budapest, having lived there for over a month. If I remember correctly, there was a little bar/cafe in the Buda side of the river where I took my laptop to, typed up secondary essays and drank craft beer to the amusement of the Hungarian waitresses there. After a week, they didn't even bother asking me what I wanted and would just bring a pitcher of this Hungarian craft beer called "Chicago" out to me with a smile.

I lived in Portugal, walked the Camino de Santiago to Spain (I crossed a national border on foot, woot!), found temporary work in a hostel and was paid in free lodging/food/wine, tried to cross the Hungarian/Serbian border (the Migrant Crisis and posturing of Hungarian and Serbian armies along the border made it a pain), gave up and went to Romania, did some hiking/hitchhiking through Transylvania and then somehow ended up in Moldova.

I came back and got interviewed/accepted.

10/10, would do the gap year all over again.

 

[Seldon]

I took a gap year and it was awesome. Basically, I just traveled around Europe, drank excessively and chatted up eastern European girls. I actually finished my primary and secondary applications while I was in Budapest, having lived there for over a month. If I remember correctly, there was a little bar/cafe in the Buda side of the river where I took my laptop to, typed up secondary essays and drank craft beer to the amusement of the Hungarian waitresses there. After a week, they didn't even bother asking me what I wanted and would just bring a pitcher of this Hungarian craft beer called "Chicago" out to me with a smile.

I lived in Portugal, walked the Camino de Santiago to Spain (I crossed a national border on foot, woot!), found temporary work in a hostel and was paid in free lodging/food/wine, tried to cross the Hungarian/Serbian border (the Migrant Crisis and posturing of Hungarian and Serbian armies along the border made it a pain), gave up and went to Romania, did some hiking/hitchhiking through Transylvania and then somehow ended up in Moldova.

I came back and got interviewed/accepted.

10/10, would do the gap year all over again.

That sounds dope. Don't know if I'd want to do it exactly like that, but wandering around Europe sounds fun. Did you speak any of the languages?

 

[Ignatius413]

That sounds dope. Don't know if I'd want to do it exactly like that, but wandering around Europe sounds fun. Did you speak any of the languages?

I speak Spanish and Portuguese fluently. My french is okay, so when I went to Romania, it wasn't too hard to communicate with the locals with the help of a Romanian dictionary/phrase book.