What is the traditional med school path and how feasible is it?

[dubnation30]

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If I wanted to do 4 years of undergrad and then go to med school directly after undergrad, do I really only have 2 summers (in addition to the school year) to finish everything I need? You would need to apply the beginning of the summer after your Junior year correct? How do people get so much volunteering + MCAT + shadowing done in that little time? I thought I would have way more time to get everything done.

 

[thegoatis11]

Yeah you have two summers to get everything done, and it's doable but getting less and less so as the time passes. If you look at the AAMC MSQ (Medical Student Questionnaire) results, fewer than half of matriculants have been straight out of college for a couple of years now and that number continues to drop.

With that said, I did it but wouldn't recommend it. Just take the gap year and have some time away from school, trust me!

 

[candbgirl]

How much time did you think you’d have? I’m thinking you don’t know enough about the process of med school applications. The application process takes a long time. From application to matriculation takes just over a year. And that’s not including the build up. Think about taking a gap year or two. Spend some time reading AMCAS and the various threads on here. The application cycle for med school matriculates for summer 2020 started last Friday. So it’s a lengthy process.

 

[907914]

Yeah you have two summers to get everything done, and it's doable but getting less and less so as the time passes. If you look at the AAMC MSQ (Medical Student Questionnaire) results, fewer than half of matriculants have been straight out of college for a couple of years now and that number continues to drop.

With that said, I did it but wouldn't recommend it. Just take the gap year and have some time away from school, trust me!

Have students just been choosing to take gap years to focus on their school work and do the rest later on or is the gap year just because students are increasingly needing more and more hours for things?

 

[LizzyM]

Have students just been choosing to take gap years to focus on their school work and do the rest later on or is the gap year just because students are increasingly needing more and more hours for things?

Some folks don't finish the coursework needed to be well prepped for the MCAT until the end of junior year. At that point, they spend the summer prepping for the MCAT, take it just before senior year begins and then spend senior year setting up a gap year activity (NIH research, employment, MS program, etc). For some people, having the fourth year of grades provides a little boost to the GPA. There is also the expectation that one will have greater longevity in activities and more hours than would have been on the application a year earlier. In this arms race, the gap year is almost becoming obligatory.

 

[907914]

Some folks don't finish the coursework needed to be well prepped for the MCAT until the end of junior year. At that point, they spend the summer prepping for the MCAT, take it just before senior year begins and then spend senior year setting up a gap year activity (NIH research, employment, MS program, etc). For some people, having the fourth year of grades provides a little boost to the GPA. There is also the expectation that one will have greater longevity in activities and more hours than would have been on the application a year earlier. In this arms race, the gap year is almost becoming obligatory.

I know thinking of my application, the only benefit of a gap year would be that my cumulative GPA would’ve been around a 3.73 instead of a 3.65. However, I didn’t think that a 0.08 GPA booster was a sufficient boost to my application to justify a year wait due to the high quality of the test of my app.

Do you think that in the near future even applicants who are nontraditional will need to take/consider a gap year?

 

[faerie62]

I chose my undergrad based on wanting to go to med school and then I planned out my life starting day 1 of undergrad based on applying to med school after junior year. This strategy is heavily contingent on having good study skills immediately out of high school. I think it is known as “gunning.”
In hindsight wouldnt really recommend, but that’s how it’s done xD

 

[907914]

I chose my undergrad based on wanting to go to med school and then I planned out my life starting day 1 of undergrad based on applying to med school after junior year. This strategy is heavily contingent on having good study skills immediately out of high school. I think it is known as “gunning.”
In hindsight wouldnt really recommend, but that’s how it’s done xD

I did something very similar to this where I had my entire degree planned out beforehand, as well as when I needed to start research by, shadowing, MCAT study plan etc.

Granted, I did the whole Army, homeownership, have a kid thing beforehand - but in essence I am doing the same 😆

 

[capriccio]

Yeah, it's basically 3 academic years and 2 summers. I think it is entirely possible to do very well applying traditionally, but speaking from personal experience you need to be pretty organized and engaged from day 1. I pretty much locked in onto my long term student clubs and research during freshman year, though I didn't actually start clinical/non-clinical volunteering until sophomore year! So I wouldn't say that you have to have all your volunteering and such figured out from day 1 or even that you 100% want to apply to med school, but IMO you also don't have the luxury of soul searching for too long or spending your whole freshman year or even your first semester solely focusing on academics while you adjust to college, otherwise the later years turn into crunch time ECs-wise. So basically you need to have pretty good study skills from the get go.

Regards to MCAT studying... yeah you've just got to make the time and go for it. I front-loaded my schedule so that all my prereqs were complete prior to taking the MCAT, and then having a good foundation from classes and efficient study strategy were important.

I'm happy with choosing the traditional path, personally. Being able to schedule tons of art and music classes in a light schedule and just kick back with my non-premed friends during my senior year was a really nice bonus.

 

[meronebib]

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[907914]

It’s a harder path that’s more likely to lead to burnout. There is no rush to become a doctor at 30 v/s 31-32. A gap year will allow you time to rest from your studies and also to potentially get valuable real world experience. Finally, applicants are super competitive these days, and taking gap years can increase the competitiveness of your application. In fact, many top schools are comprised of mostly “non-traditional” students (I put that in quotatations because taking a gap year or two is becoming the new traditional route to these schools).

I would reword that last bit. Taking a couple gap years between graduation and application, as you rightly address with the quotations, is not really non-traditional. A non traditional student is one who has had a career before going back to school, switched careers after school, has a child, did military service etc. etc.

I guess, as a nontrad, that is what pops in my head when I read “NonTraditional”

 

[907914]

According to the AAMC MSQ 2018 survey "well over half (63.4%) of new matriculants reported that more than a year had passed since graduating from college (up from 60.6% in 2016 and 62.6% in 2017"

This would mean 37% had started immediately after senior year and thus applied a year before. Presumably, the majority of the these were "traditional" college students. So at least 1/3 of matriculants applied after a typical junior year in college. I dont have data on their distribution in the applicant pool to say if they are less or more successful than non traditional applicants

Anecdotally, it seems the majority of my classmates plan the gap year, so my guess would be that traditional pathway students reflect an equal portion of matriculates as they do applicants.

It seems that with the rise of forums like SDN, only the students who know they are competitive are applying without the Gap year.

 

[907914]

There has been a shift in college demographics over the past 20 years where the majority of students are not following the path of direct from HS and graduate in 4 years. Trend is across academic disciplines, not just premeds. And I advise most applicants to spend summer after junior year to prep and take MCAT before classes start in fall and apply after senior year.

So we see that most/many students are taking both gap years between HS/College AND between college/MED school?

 

[907914]

Not that clear cut. Students going part time and/or taking terms off between starting and finishing is probably larger factor. Also people working before starting college as opposed to just the time off gap year.

Gotcha, I know how that goes. Took off 2 years for the Army, started for 2 quarters, then took another 18 months off before resuming now. For students who do such things, do you still tend to recommend gap years?

 

[Goro]

If I wanted to do 4 years of undergrad and then go to med school directly after undergrad, do I really only have 2 summers (in addition to the school year) to finish everything I need? You would need to apply the beginning of the summer after your Junior year correct? How do people get so much volunteering + MCAT + shadowing done in that little time? I thought I would have way more time to get everything done.

Read this:
Med School Rx: Getting In, Getting Through, and Getting On with Doctoring Original Edition by Walter Hartwig
ISBN-13: 978-1607140627

ISBN-10: 1607140624

 

[FlowRate]

Well, you have about 100 hours a week to allocate, assuming you spend 9 hours a day on some mix of sleeping, eating, hygiene, etc.

I was in a very difficult major, spending about 60-80 hours a week just on class, problem sets, studying, etc. (sometimes more!) With the remaining 20-40 hours I committed (on average) about 4 a week to volunteering, 1-2 to shadowing, 2-4 to teaching/tutoring, 4 to research/other jobs and the remainder to leisure and miscellaneous EC activities (a couple of clubs, a sport, etc.) I took prereqs each summer that wouldn't fit into my major schedule, did MCAT over sophomore summer, and also ramped up the other activities during that time.

If you start these things early in freshman year, that'll get you to pretty respectable numbers of hours when it comes time to apply: 500+ volunteering, 100+ shadowing (IMO too much, do something else), 500+ teaching/research/etc. The key is to commit to something early, carve out enough time to do something meaningful, but not too much that you compromise your grades. Back in my day, the common wisdom was also that med schools like to see continued involvement (as long as it's productive), which is also why getting started early helps.