Agree with this. First orientation is usually mandatory. Meaning nobody is going to let you skip it to ride your bike. Sorry but you have to have new priorities now. School trumps ECs. Second they do a ton of administrative stuff which would be a pain to try and take care of once school actually starts. Third, med school is a place full of cliques, and they start in orientation. If you don't show up, you may find yourself boxed out of anatomy groups and the like. Longterm friendships start during the drunken antics of orientation week, and believe me, you need a solid cadre of friends when med school gets going. Finally, there's actually some useful stuff you need to know that you might have a harder time finding out if you skipped orientation. A lot of it is boring and useless, but there's enough there that it merits attendance. And again, it's mandatory. You try to explain that you want to ride your bike across a number of states and they will say, if that's your priority, yo may as well just keep riding because if you don't show we are going to give someone else your spot. Something like this may sound cool as an EC when you are applying but it sounds *****ic if you are using it as your reason that you are going to miss orientation and some of med school. Sorry.
