<p>Is it wise to take a year to explore and then start medical school? What are the various options when you take a year? Study abroad/ research?</p>
<p>You might want to ask this on the Multiple Degree Programs forum under Pre-Med & Medical School.</p>
<p>Clearly it’s a personal choice and there are pros and cons. In the case of our daughter, she wanted to get going as soon as possible because it’s such a long path, especially if she decided to go to a specialty. One of her friends who was on a 7 year program did take a year off and went into research, but most of the ones she knows who did so was because they didn’t get accepted where they wanted to go and were using this year to bolster their resumes.</p>
<p>He is already accepted and did well on MCAT. Any pros for taking a year to better your resume for Residency or do Residency programs not look at undergrad achievements?</p>
<p>Residency programs do not look at undergrad achievements. The primary factors are:</p>
<h1>1 USMLE scores</h1>
<h1>2 LORs from clinical praeceptors in the specialty</h1>
<h1>3 clerkship grades from MS3 &4</h1>
<p>For some specialties, research and publications in that specialty (done during medical school) are also a highly important factors</p>
<p>The NRMP surveyed residency program directors in various specialties to see how they ranked various factors when selecting applicants.</p>
<p>The survey results are here:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nrmp.org/data/programresultsbyspecialty2012.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nrmp.org/data/programresultsbyspecialty2012.pdf</a></p>
<p>Note that different specialities rank factors differently.</p>
<p>is your son in a BS/MD program already but planning to apply to more schools?</p>
<p>Residency placement works exactly like wowmom said. Gap year only helps with improving your application to a med school by adding to the credentials.</p>