Rules for deferring

It depends on the school, but most school have strict policies and will only allow deferrals for certain activities (i.e., peace corps, teach for america, fulbright, rhodes, marshall, rotary, and other prestigious post-grad fellowships), if at all. I think in most cases, the referral will be denied. Adcoms are pretty intent on filling a class each year based on the current year's applicants. Though I don't understand why this is, considering many med students take off time at some point during med school. Basically, if you have want to pursue something other than medicine, in adcoms' minds, you aren't ready to apply.

 

I have a friend who deferred for a year. He said he was going to go to South America to volunteer in sundry activities. They granted the deferral and well, then he decided he'd rather stay back in the states and smoke copious amounts of weed.
He's now an MS1.
I don't think they verify anything, but they will let you continue work you've started. So, if you've got an interesting research project or a brand new vaporizer (or both! I christen thee "Duke Puffington".) you could probably petition for a deferment.

 

Please tell your friend that I am intrigued by his views and wish to subscribe to his newsletter.

 

I'd wait until spring.
I know two people who have done this successfully-- one did it because of clinical depression and needed to figure out meds, the other did it 'cause of pregnancy. Both requested in the late spring and neither received harsh feelings from the deans or any other b.s. scare tactics you'll see on sdn. They were both wished well and everyone was happy. no worries.

 

exactly.

OH! I just remembered-- if your credit stinks, i know deferrals have been granted to clean up credit and save more money. So, that might pertain to many of us... (shudder)

 

I'm pretty sure it depends on the school. I know from personal experience that Iowa lets one defer for one year, no questions asked. They also like to make sure the people who marticulate want to go there so they don't care if you apply to other schools. So if it's the only one you got into, didn't know if you wanted to go there, then they don't mind if you reapply to other schools.

As I was a late applicant last year, (interviewed late Jan/Early Feb) I didn't know that I was accepted untill the spring. The one request they had was that if you were going to defer, you let them know ASAP so they could fill your spot from a wait list. One pain in the a$$, you have to refill out your AMCAS application.

 

It depends on the school. </what everyone else said>

I considered deferring from Wash U last year for personal reasons. I think their deadline was mid-June. You had to write a letter requesting it. I called up and talked to one of the deans. He said that Wash U generally grants deferral requests because they don't want people there who don't want to be there - better that you figure out medicine isn't for you during your deferral year than during MS1. And they're supportive of other pursuits (grad school, travel) as well.

My personal situation ended up working out in such a way that going straight to school was the best choice, so I didn't end up requesting a deferral, but if things had gone differently it might have been the best decision for me.

Two pieces of advice he gave me that might be applicable to people reading: first, if you're considering deferring, and your admission/scholarship/research advisor/whatever isn't already finalized, don't tell anyone. Some people (like the dean I talked to) won't care, but it's fairly likely that some people will think you're not committed to medicine, and deny you the admission or scholarship or place in a lab or whatever it is. Obviously don't lie or back out of any commitments, but don't go around advertising it either.

Secondly, deferring due to finances is not a good reason, unless you're going to have to declare bankruptcy or something. For the vast majority of people going to med school, your post-med-school earning power is going to be so much higher than your current earning power that it just doesn't make financial sense to put off med school - even if you have to take out private loans to cover your car payment (or whatever), the interest you accrue on those is still going to be outweighed by the increase in lifetime earnings you get by starting school a year earlier.

I have no idea how much of this applies to you, tigress, but I thought I'd put it out there for general consumption.