How much can a gap year help your app?

[okazaki123]

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I will be applying to med school after my senior year, so I'll be taking a year off. I'm hoping to do something health related during that time that I enjoy, but that will also help build my resume a bit. I know I won't be able to list my year off activities in my application, so how much weight will they hold? Any advice on how I can use this time off to my advantage in terms of increasing the strength of my application? Thanks in advance!

 

[DoctaFuture]

I will be applying to med school after my senior year, so I'll be taking a year off. I'm hoping to do something health related during that time that I enjoy, but that will also help build my resume a bit. I know I won't be able to list my year off activities in my application, so how much weight will they hold? Any advice on how I can use this time off to my advantage in terms of increasing the strength of my application? Thanks in advance!

you can list your activities that you participated in your time off on your app.... just do activities you like, community service, health related, maybe get a job, etc. just try to keep busy b/c on secondaries there will be questions asking what you've been doing with your time off. I'd say it helps if you're a weak candidate. But it's still fine if you're a good candidate to take off time.

 

[mvenus929]

Depends on what you're deficient in. A gap year probably won't help too much if your weakness is GPA or MCAT score (unless you spend the time off studying for a retake). But if you're on the lower side for any non-academic experience, it should help.

It depends on when your interviews are too. If you just start something in August after you graduate, and you interview in September, you may not have much to talk about, but if you interview in January, it can help a lot.

And, of course, it's always good for the sanity.