Plan on Gap?

[Cynaic]

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Hi,

I’m currently a sophomore at a top 10 public university in California. I have a 3.85 GPA and am predicting it will go up (current upward trend, 4.0s except for one bad quarter, even in that quarter nothing less than a B, due to a personal issue). I have 500+ research hours and am supposed to be 3rd author on a paper to be submitted in two months which looks very promising. I have ~150 community service hours already which will continue to grow and am starting clinical volunteering ~8hours a week this quarter which will continue for a year. I plan on having 300+ hours of clinical volunteering before applying and 50+ of shadowing. I’m not sure what to do with this summer. I have leadership in two clubs which I am highly involved in. One is a club sport.

Should I study full time to take the MCAT this summer so that I may apply at the end of my junior year or should I plan on a gap year. If I plan on a gap year what should I focus on for this summer? I have a good relationship with a postdoc in my lab who would be happy to have me work with him fulltime again this summer which could lead to another paper. I’m not sure if I would be able to find a fulltime clinical experience for summer but could perhaps volunteer clinically and do community service all summer. Even if I study full time for the MCAT this summer I will be doing 8 hours a week of clinical volunteering. What, if any combination of clinical/community service/research should I do this summer if I choose to take a gap year?

I heard that if I want to be competitive for top 20 medical school it would be smarter to wait because they like older (more mature) applicants and this would allow me time to rack up more hours. Is this true? Are there any pros/cons I’m not considering? My school advisor is strongly pushing me to take a gap year but I’m hesitant because I feel I’ll have enough time to get everything ready for my application by the normal time. That being said, I suppose the extra research/volunteering hours couldn’t hurt.

All advice welcome, thank you so much.

 

[HotelOrange]

A gap year is highly recommended and continuing research is a good idea because most T20s place heavy emphasis on research.

 

[stickgirl390]

All of your hard work could be screened out by top 20s if your MCAT doesn’t pan out. I think the above advice is good, but MCAT prep is high yield for you right now.

 

[sophop]

Just my .02, but take a gap, or 2 - or 3. Stick your head out of the education foxhole, experience the real world, and ask yourself if you really want to spend the next 7-10 years on the med school/resident/fellowship voyage. Several of my UG and med school classmates and I got RA jobs, others just found things they were interested in doing that they might never have time to ever do again. It also let us concentrate on (and enjoy) our last year in college, then spend "full time" studying for MCATs and dealing with the application/interview process (having a job also helps pay for it). We weren't alone. The latest MSQ shows almost 64% of those of us who got in during the last cycle took at least a year off. As for this summer, I'd try to find something that you're interested in and gives you more stuff to write about on your apps and talk about during your interviews (hopefully involving helping people, since that's what you want to do the rest of your life).