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MD School won’t let me delay graduation
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Many schools will allow you to delay graduation, but they are under no obligation to do so. It's especially tough because you gave them extremely short notice.
What is/was your plan for your gap year, and why are you just now deciding to delay graduation?
What is/was your plan for your gap year, and why are you just now deciding to delay graduation?
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Name and shame?
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Lol this is not on the school that he is giving them such short notice. My school would not have allowed it either.
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Agreed. I’m all for naming and shaming and this sucks for OP, but isn’t the school’s fault.
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Strongly recommend against posting publicly. Based on what you've posted here and elsewhere, I think you would be readily identifiable, and you're still going to need your school's help with your reapplication.
And not to kick you while you're down, but I agree with the other posters, this isn't the school's fault. I get what they're saying about it appearing like fraud from a financial aid perspective--it does look super fishy if you're enrolled as a "student" but not taking any rotations or other courses. Maybe they could have figured out a way to make it work if given more time, but with just a week I'm not surprised the reflexive answer is no.
I think the lesson for future students is that if you want to delay graduation, you really need to start that conversation ASAP after match day, even if it's going to be dependent on an NRMP waiver. And don't assume anything until you have it approved.
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Most reputable schools will allow you to delay graduation. The short notice is a separate issue. sounds like they wouldn't have let him delay anyway.
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The school cannot allow you to delay graduation with no more rotations left for you to complete. You'd basically spend the year doing nothing. I don't think this has anything to do with reputation.
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I'm not sure this is universally true. But certainly, having one or more rotation left to do makes it easier to justify.
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Some schools don’t want to hurt their match rate twice in a row so they’d rather just let it be
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Idk how things are run at your school. At mine they allow you delay graduation after going unmatched if you do not want to take your chances in the SOAP. This allows people to pivot from ortho into rads/IM dual application the following year (for example).
It seems incredibly scummy for a school to try and force a student out.
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Oh, of course most schools will let you delay graduation, but not after you've completed all your rotations in mid-May (1 week or 2 from graduation). OP is technically 1 week away from finishing his last rotation, what excuse are they supposed to use keeping OP for 1 more year after he has completed his degree's whole curriculum? That's the reason they say it might look like a fraud on a financial aid perspective. What are they going to charge OP's account with for 2 additional semesters?
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What are you talking about, this has nothing to do with the school, my gosh.
Not sure you really know what you are talking about, tbh, unless that is, you are an expert on the vast majority of "reputable schools" that have allowed students to delay graduation.
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Anybody applying ortho, ent, optho, neurosurgery, plastics should probably just apply IM the first time around. Given how low match rates are getting, if you’re not successful the first time, it’s unlikely the second too
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Your right. just an n = 5. each of my friends all have an option to delay graduation if they go unmatched so they keep their applicant status.
Has everything to do with the school. I think applicants would want to know if their admin is going to force them out if they go unmatched. A school with good admin would try and get students to their desired destination.
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It is somewhere between what the two of you are saying. Yes, most schools will give applicants who fail to match to highly competitive specialties a chance to delay graduation and do research/additional rotations. No, it isn't guaranteed or possible in every situation. Anyone who is considering applying to a highly competitive specialty should talk to their school at the beginning of 4th year so they concretely know what is and is not possible as a contingency plan in the case that they fail to match. One should not just assume that it is possible, but by starting the conversation early it maximizes your chances to keep all options on the table.
There are two problems for the OP here. The first is the obvious one that has already been discussed, which is that they gave their school way too late notice. The second, and which is hard to speculate on, is that it sounds to me (based on the fact that he had to apply for an NRMP waiver) that he either partially matched with a prelim/TY, or SOAPed and then decided to back out. This may actually have made it impossible for the school to simultaneously move the OP towards graduation (in case the waiver was denied) while also leaving open the possibility of returning to school. Again, completely impossible to speculate without more details which the OP is unlikely to divulge.
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Yeah this is a classic sdn where we are lacking some key pieces of the story.
Even with what we have, I would not let such a student delay either. Personally I would want plenty of notice so I could pull them off rotations before they met all graduation requirements and then I would also want a written plan for how the extra year is going to help them achieve their career goals.
With such low match rates in competitive fields, it quickly becomes untenable to allow large numbers of people to delay and it places the upcoming class at a disadvantage as well. I know in ENT it’s already harder when a school has a large number applying; adding more to that only hurts everyone else. If we had a bunch of people on our short list from the same school, our PD would ask contacts which where the best of the bunch and only interview those 1-2 students.
Even with what we have, I would not let such a student delay either. Personally I would want plenty of notice so I could pull them off rotations before they met all graduation requirements and then I would also want a written plan for how the extra year is going to help them achieve their career goals.
With such low match rates in competitive fields, it quickly becomes untenable to allow large numbers of people to delay and it places the upcoming class at a disadvantage as well. I know in ENT it’s already harder when a school has a large number applying; adding more to that only hurts everyone else. If we had a bunch of people on our short list from the same school, our PD would ask contacts which where the best of the bunch and only interview those 1-2 students.
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