Is not taking a gap an advantage?

[medDaisuki]

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I will be a junior after the summer and I am not sure if I need to take a gap year or just apply after my junior year. By the end of my junior year I will be able to check all the boxes, and I will probably have 300 hrs of clinical volunteering. I have been doing research for 9 months, no pub yet. Other than that my ECs seem to be Cookie-cutter. I'm just wondering if I need to take a gap year to enrich my ECs and do more research. But being a premed just gives me too much stress so I want to get this over as soon as possible.
My question is: Is applying after junior year an advantage compared to those who take several gap years?


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[LizzyM]

This is a hard question to answer because some people take gap years because they haven't gotten their ducks in a row during the first 3 years of college. In that sense, they aren't comparable to you. Some people have their ducks in a row but want to take advantage of an opportunity to do something special in a gap year that they are passionate about and that has the added benefit of improving their application on paper (full-time research, service, fellowship program, employment). Those folks choose not to apply after junior year so we really don't know how they would have done if they had applied as you plan to do.

If you feel that being pre-med is too much stress, how are you going to feel when you go out of the pot and into the fire that is medical school itself?

 

[honey0102]

I think it really depends on one's personal situation. If you truly have what you think is necessary to get into med school...such as good grades, a high MCAT score, evidence of service, clinical and nonclinical volunteering, research, good LORS, shadowing and the like, I think it's fine to apply. Also, if you are willing to go through straight to med school without a gap year to do something other than school, it's fine to apply-this really depends on you and your preferences as some people are fine with it and others may want time off, doing something different. It is true that a gap year can enrich ECs and research, but there are plenty of people who have gotten into med school and begun right after undergrad. So in a nutshell it comes down to you, your achievements so far and your preferences.
Keep in mind that MCAT scores expire so if you take several gap years, a re-take may be necessary. Also, updated LOR's might be necessary too.

 

[efle]

My question is: Is applying after junior year an advantage compared to those who take several gap years?

No. The majority of matriculants at top programs have gaps now (in some cases like 60-70%), the advantage goes to the person that spends a year doing a major EC > the person trying to do some ECs on the side while mostly doing school.

In fact even for med school overall, in the last cycle there were just as many people with short gaps as traditional apps, with a trend towards more gappers in the future:

 

[aldol16]

You want to apply when your application is at its strongest. Med schools (that I know of) don't separate applications into bins based on when you apply (no gap year, one gap year, etc.). So your application is going to be viewed in light of everybody else's without giving you a handicap just because you don't have the added time of a gap year. Some applicants have strong applications and don't need to take a gap year. Others want to improve their already-strong-but-not-as-strong-as-it-could-be applications and take a gap year. Still others have to take gap years to fix some weakness in their application.

To give you a sense of the stats at top schools, about a third go straight through, a third take a gap year, and a third take more than one gap year. This is simple data and so it doesn't tell you whether there's an advantage in taking a gap year - only that the majority of med school matriculants at the top schools are taking gap year(s).

 

[medDaisuki]

Thank you guys


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