Traveling during interview season?

[RickandMortyFan]

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Hello all!

As 2016 rolls around, I'm planning on a backpacking trip to Asia that (hopefully) will last a month or two (I have family scattered throughout). I feel like this will be my one opportunity to go abroad, and I want to make the best of it. I'm incredibly lucky and blessed to have gained an acceptance to medical school a few weeks ago, so there's great peace of mind associated with that.

While I would love to go to this school, it isn't necessarily my top choice (costs, external factors, etc.).

I'm thinking about a potential situation where I'm halfway through my trip, and I get an interview to a place I'd really like to go. It's very costly to go back and forth overseas. What are some ways applicants deal with this? I know interviews get scarcer and scarcer as time goes on, and I guess I could wait until a couple more months into 2016. But I'm very tempted to just book my ticket and go.

It seems strange to turn down interviews just because I'm overseas and don't want to spend the money. A few weeks ago, I interviewed at a school I had no particular feelings about, but after my visit it became one of my top choices.

Any ideas/hints?

 

[Lost in Translation]

4-5 months? Damn. I wish I had that kind of luxury (monetarily as well as temporally.)

The best you can do is send an update to schools that haven't sent you an II yet saying you have plans to be out of country.

Though they'll probably not want to give you an II then, since if they wait until you get back the interview season will have already been long over.

Flying back and forth really is the only option if you truly want to attend these interviews. You could try and convince schools to Skype you or something, but I wouldn't.

 

[RickandMortyFan]

Sorry let me revise my post: I won't actually be backpacking the whole time, maybe one month out of that time. But I will be with my family for several months overseas, working (teaching English).

 

[Lost in Translation]

I almost got accepted to JET (rejected post interview, probably because I'm Asian), and my plan was to fly back and forth for each interview.

It would have been hell. But if you want it, you will find a way to make it work (hopefully). You said were accepted to a school you would like to go to. I say narrow down your list of schools that haven't sent you anything yet to 3 schools you would want to go to over this one. Withdraw from all others. If you get IIs from any of those 3, go.

 

[Glandzburg]

You'll obviously have to be here for any interviews you want to attend. This is really just a personal decision about what is more important to you. I'm not sure what kind of hints you are looking for, as there is no way around this.

Your options seem to be: 1) stick around and cross your fingers for more II's that may or may not happen, 2) Go on your trip and weigh the option of coming back if you do happen to get a desirable II, or 3) take your acceptance and run, ignoring any more II's that may come.

You're just going to have to pick one.

 

[tea guzzling traveler]

I would personally wait until February/March, where the last of the interviews trickle in, that still gives you ~4 months abroad before med school would start.

 

[takeurmeds02]

Yea, it's slippery slope. People could argue either way. Enjoying life's experiences because you only get one shot at it vs. not jeopardizing chances that could determine your future..it's already been said, but it's really a personal choice.

I'd err on the side of caution but I'm more cautious by nature anyway