Plans slightly altered, obligated to alert schools?

[Hey Look Over There]

In my secondaries I mentioned that I would be tutoring and working as a TA during my gap year. The person who normally organizes TAs and promised me the position went on vacation and her replacement filled all the TA positions, I was never notified. She said that if I give her my resume early, I'll be able to get a TAship starting in January.

Is this something that I have to let med schools know? I'll still be tutoring to pick up the slack, and I'll likely be TAing in the next semester, although I now know a promise is not a guarantee. Obviously I now realize I shouldn't have said that I would be TAing before I actually started, but at the time I was told that it was set in stone.

Also if the answer is a resounding YES, is this likely to reflect very negatively on my application, or is it not that big a deal? Be kind, I'm unemployed now

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[Doug Underhill]

I would not send them a letter, but would instead try to find another TA position. Being dishonest will get you removed from the process. You weren't dishonest, you intended to be a TA and then circumstances happened outside of your control.

 

[Hey Look Over There]

I would not send them a letter, but would instead try to find another TA position. Being dishonest will get you removed from the process. You weren't dishonest, you intended to be a TA and then circumstances happened outside of your control.

I wasn't deceiving anyone, but if someone said "Well next semester I'm going to be doing cutting edge research exploring untapped regions of the brain with world famous researchers", I'm sure they would have to update schools if it didn't happen since that claim would be giving them major bonus points.

That's why I think you're obligated to update if you find out that your plans will significantly deviate from what you wrote, even if at the time you weren't lying. I just don't know if this qualifies as significant enough. Yes I'll likely be TAing at some point this year, but what I wrote in my application was "Starting in September of 2015 I'll be tutoring and TAing..." which is no longer precisely true.

 

[spaingirl17]

Personally, I would wait and try to find another position (doing whatever, not just TA, provided you are looking for a job) before sending out an update. Most places have a max number of updates you can do, so this way you are conserving an update and you can state how you rectified the situation. "Due to blah blah, my work has a TA has been delayed until __." I am currently working/volunteering as ___ blah blah..." Or something along those lines.

 

[Hey Look Over There]

Dont worry about; you are not going to be dinged for not having a planned activity work out. It is certainly not worth an update

Wonderful, thanks gonnif! I'm now much less frustrated with that woman if it won't negatively affect my application.

 

[danib2k15]

@Hey Look Over There - Something similar happened to me this cycle with my research. Try not to worry - you have an explanation which you can supply to med schools at your interview. In the mean time, focus your efforts on finding other things to do such as volunteering. This way you can move on to focus on what you have been doing, as opposed to what you couldn't do.

 

[Spector1]

I'm pretty sure they just want to make sure that you're not sitting on your hands all day. its not a big deal what exactly you end up doing (unless you have to apply for round 2)