Med school interviews with irregular work schedule?

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Hey all, I am on a gap year right now with a very irregular work schedule. We don't find out our scheduled shifts for the week until the previous weekend and the company operates 7 days a week, so I could be scheduled for literally any day of the week. I am planning on using my PTO days for interviews, but my main problem is that I am not eligible to use my PTO until September because of company policies. I submitted my AMCAS primary early and I already got some secondary invitations. I'm praying that my interviews don't start until September 1st, but if I end up having August interviews, does anyone have advice on how to go about taking time off from work without getting fired? Do I just wait until the morning of and call in sick? Should I just suck it up and tell my boss that I'm applying for med school and hope that he won't schedule me for my interview day?

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You'll likely get at least a couple weeks notice before an interview, especially this early in the cycle. It's likely that interviews won't be starting August especially with the delay in transmission, but if you do get an August date, you can reschedule with the med school for a later one.
 
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You'll likely get at least a couple weeks notice before an interview, especially this early in the cycle. It's likely that interviews won't be starting August especially with the delay in transmission, but if you do get an August date, you can reschedule with the med school for a later one.
I got a couple weeks notice even in February of interviewing. I think by this time though I had an interview already scheduled for August (1 month later) when I applied but the cycle this year appears to be delayed. My other friends who interviewed in March though had 1 week notice.
 
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You will get some notice and some schools will accommodate a schedule change request. However, the bottom line is that 60% of applicants do not get into medical school and 20% are accepted into only one school, so you should treat each interview as a precious opportunity. If you really want to become a doctor, I would prioritize medical school interviews over your work responsibilities.
 
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Hey all, I am on a gap year right now with a very irregular work schedule. We don't find out our scheduled shifts for the week until the previous weekend and the company operates 7 days a week, so I could be scheduled for literally any day of the week. I am planning on using my PTO days for interviews, but my main problem is that I am not eligible to use my PTO until September because of company policies. I submitted my AMCAS primary early and I already got some secondary invitations. I'm praying that my interviews don't start until September 1st, but if I end up having August interviews, does anyone have advice on how to go about taking time off from work without getting fired? Do I just wait until the morning of and call in sick? Should I just suck it up and tell my boss that I'm applying for med school and hope that he won't schedule me for my interview day?
Optimism is great, but receiving a few secondaries on the first day of primary transmission is not exactly a leading indicator of the need to schedule interviews in August. :)

Any secondaries you received so quickly are either unscreened or screened by computer based on nothing other than GPA and MCAT. The fun doesn't really begin until you submit your secondaries and LORs. Then your application will first have to be read and scored by humans to decide whether or not you will be invited to interview. Given that it's already the middle of July, the odds that you will receive an August II that cannot be moved to September if your schedule requires it is extremely unlikely, so you will have nothing to worry about as long as you have the freedom to schedule interviews from 9/1 forward. Good luck!!!
 
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