Lacking research but is it necessary?

[neurocali]

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I’m in my last semester of UG and decided I want to pursue medical school. I’ve seen a few posts on SDN with a few people with stats like me and they’ve been recommended to even apply to some ivy leagues. I’m taking a gap year for sure but here are some EC’s. But I just have zero research experience.

D1 Athlete for two years, full scholarship, but career ending injury so a pretty strong why.

Nurse Technician - just started but will continue to work full time during my gap year.

Ronald Mcdonald Volunteer, Food Bank Volunteer, also volunteer at a clinic for the uninsured.

MCAT practice tests range from 513-515. Gpa will be hovering around 3.5 cum and 3.4 science if all keeps going well. URM.

 

[BenzeneToluene]

I am absolutely not an expert, but I am a current URM applicant. Long story short, it is not necessary to have a successful cycle, but it can only help. If your other extracurriculars are solid, which they seem to be, you can absolutely have a good cycle without research. I applied this cycle with no research on primary application submission, but started doing some shortly thereafter. I've seen moderate success this cycle so far. Personally, if I had to do it over again, I would have waited until next year to apply with the best application possible(i.e, one with research). Not having research can definitely close some doors or make acceptance harder at some schools. Try to get some if you can, you wanna keep all doors open 🙂.

 

[neurocali]

I am absolutely not an expert, but I am a current URM applicant. Long story short, it is not necessary to have a successful cycle, but it can only help. If your other extracurriculars are solid, which they seem to be, you can absolutely have a good cycle without research. I applied this cycle with no research on primary application submission, but started doing some shortly thereafter. I've seen moderate success this cycle so far. Personally, if I had to do it over again, I would have waited until next year to apply with the best application possible(i.e, one with research). Not having research can definitely close some doors or make acceptance harder at some schools. Try to get some if you can, you wanna keep all doors open 🙂.

thank you so much!

 

[eigen]

Some of this depends on where you're applying and what specialties you're considering.

For more competitive (research focused) schools, research helps more. For more competitive specialties, you're going to likely need research experience in medical school to help your application and having some already will help with that.

If you want to go into general practice/family medicine and are targeting schools with that mission, then research is a nice bonus but not needed (in my experience).

 

[GoSpursGo]

Useful but not necessary.

 

[neurocali]

Some of this depends on where you're applying and what specialties you're considering.

For more competitive (research focused) schools, research helps more. For more competitive specialties, you're going to likely need research experience in medical school to help your application and having some already will help with that.

If you want to go into general practice/family medicine and are targeting schools with that mission, then research is a nice bonus but not needed (in my experience).

I'm not looking into neurosurgery or anything like that. I think the most competitive specialty I will be interested in is Anesthesia, but that is still up in the air. The main focus is Internal Med, Psych or EM right now. But it is definitely too early to commit. I do not wanna potentially make it harder for myself, so I'm gonna try to get into a lab now and stay in it during my gap year.

 

[eigen]

The key isn't whether it's helpful, but whether the time is better spent on it than other areas. For a lot of students, I think getting more clinical experience or volunteer work is going to be a bigger application boost than starting research, especially for folks interested in IM/FM/EM.

 

[Hollow Knight]

The key isn't whether it's helpful, but whether the time is better spent on it than other areas. For a lot of students, I think getting more clinical experience or volunteer work is going to be a bigger application boost than starting research, especially for folks interested in IM/FM/EM.

+1

I want to do primary care- I had a ton of research, but looking back, it was completely unnecessary.

Now I've also had the admissions dean at Vanderbilt tell my friends and I when I was in college that, if you didn't have significant research experience, don't bother applying.