Gap Year Before Medical School: How to Decide If It’s Right for You

Today, I’m going to answer the question: should you take a gap year before medical school?

If you’re thinking about taking a gap year before medical school, you certainly aren’t alone. Many students take gap years before successfully applying and matriculating to med school. It might be the right choice for you for a number of reasons.

Maybe your GPA or MCAT score is lower than you need to get into your top-choice schools. Or perhaps you’re short on shadowing, patient exposure, or research experience.

Or maybe you’re a competitive candidate for medical school, but you just need a break before med school to gain real-world experience, travel or pursue a passion.

Whatever the case, and any of those reasons are certainly valid, you’ll want to make sure you approach the decision carefully.

Today, I’ll help you answer whether a gap year is the right choice for you and discuss the most important considerations when deciding how to spend your gap year. We’ll go through whether taking gap years hurt your admissions odds, what type of student would benefit most by taking a gap year, and of course, what you should be doing during your gap year. By the end of the video, you’ll know exactly how gap years are seen by AdComs and you’ll take away a couple of popular options to increase your admissions odds on your time off. Let’s get started.

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TIMESTAMPS:
[00:00] - Introduction
[01:34] - Do Gap Years Hurt Your Admissions Odds?
[04:23] - Who Would Benefit Most From A Gap Year?
[07:31] - The Best Way To Spend Your Gap Year
[09:28] - Enrolling in A Post-Bacc Program
[11:33] - Enrolling In A Special Master's Program (SMP)
[12:54] - Enrolling In A Master's in Public Health (MPH Program)
[13:58] - Studying for the MCAT
[14:57] - Bolstering Your Clinical Experience
[15:22] - Conducting Medical (Or Medically Relevant) Research
[17:01] - Miscellaneous Experiences
[17:53] - Final Thoughts

Who we are:
Shemmassian Academic Consulting (SAC) was founded by Dr. Shirag Shemmassian, a medical school admissions expert with over 15 years of experience helping thousands of students get into top programs such as Harvard, Mayo, and UCSF. Despite a roughly 40% medical school matriculation rate nationally, the SAC team’s approach has resulted in over 90% of their students getting accepted the first time they apply. SAC has been featured on The Washington Post, US News and World Report, and NBC.

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