Taking a gap?

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sky1025

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Hi all, I am a junior who kinda screwed my first year, but I am keep on raising them since the 2nd year. I am trying to go in to MD school with a year off after graduation. Will that affect my application?

Have almost no EC except a psychology research assistant for a quarter.(not really related to pre-med health topic , more like psych+LGBT+social welfare)
Also started working at a Doctor's office this summer. Almost full-time during summer & planning to stay there for as long as possible.
Will be shadowing an internal medicine in a few weeks.
Did a part-time job for the first two years straight with about 25 hrs a week. ( At a restaurant, so assuming won't do me much good)

I was thinking of writing the MCAT next January and get things started, but I got worried I will be rushing everything, so I am thinking of taking the MCAT in August of 2014 and get a year off. In the meantime I could study my ass off to raise my GPA to be in that competitive range and do tons of EC's to boost up my application,
BTW my cGPA is 3.346 and sGPA is 3.167. Did a diagnostic MCAT and got a 27. I will be taking TBR review and aim for 30+

Do you guys think that taking a gap will affect how med schools look at my application? I mean, if I can raise my GPA, get some ECs, and work during that time off, they probably wouldn't, right? I know my current status seems very miserable so just trying to get the best I could do before I actually submit an application. Please tell me your opinons! Thanks!
 
Gap years are super common and not a problem. I bet about half of my class took one.

I'd look over the MCAT forum for study plans. If you're going to take it in January you should get cracking, but if you won't be taking it until next August you might be better off focusing on other things. When you're studying for that thing, you want as much dedicated studying time as you can get.
 
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