<p>Our son is a junior on the pre-med track. He will most likely try to get in a medical school after college. particularly, he is interested in the MD/PHD program. He is in one of the top undergraduate universities (well, based on the USNews rankings), and he is doing OK GPA-wise.</p>
<p>Since he is interested in MD/PHD program, he thinks that his research experience is not that solid yet. He did a whole summer research in one lab after his freshman year. and no publication or anything close to publishable. He also went to Africa in the summer after his sophomore year (internship/volunteering in an AIDS education project). His major requires a significant amount of research in senior year before graduation.</p>
<p>He thinks that he would like to delay a year in applying to medical school. He hopes that his research experience in his senior year will increase his chance of being accepted into a MD/PHD program, and it will also ease his pressure on the last 1.5 years in college.</p>
<p>Any pros and cons for a "gap" year between college and medical school? Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>There is basically no con outside of the fact you are delaying getting your MD by an extra year and you have to support yourself for that one year.</p>
<p>MSTP programs have high GPA requirements so an “ok” GPA may not be good enough.</p>
<p>I’d agree w/ NCG. If anything, delaying a year is a good thing (from the schools’ perspective) as it gives your son time to be better prepared, have a few pubs, etc.</p>
<p>For MD/PhD, your son will need to match well w/ the school too (for the PhD part) which can be a challenge. Additionally, when you say “ok GPA for MD/PhD” I presume you know what those standards are? (I only ask because it never ceases to amaze me how many people have no idea just how competitive this process is – even those who are in the middle of it with their 3.4/28s and thinking they are above average and should do well.)</p>
<p>Regarding the senior project, i.e., research for credit during the senior year, I think most students on the MD-PhD track will likely take the most intense one, i.e., more than 20 hours a week working with a post-doc in a lab during both the fall and the spring semesters in senior year. About half a dozen of them may even start their research from the beginning of the spring semester of the junior year.</p>
<p>Assuming that your child is in one of the science majors (e.g., the biochemistry one, or the biology one), the proportion of the students who are taking the most intense two-semester one (20+ hours), the normal two-semester one (10-12 hours), and the less demanding ones are roughly 15-20% of all students, 40-60% of all students, and the rest, respectively. (Disclaimer: I am not so familiar about the break-down of students on the biochemistry side of biology/chemistry though, and also there are much fewer students in that department in recent years. Maybe the ratio of the number of professors and the number of senior year students is likely 1 to 1.5 or 2 there.)</p>
<p>So you can see that there is competition on the research front in addition to the GPA and MCAT fronts. Therefore, I think it may be worth delaying a year if your S is pursuing MD-PhD. Some kids can still manage it without a gap year though.</p>
<p>He is majoring in biochemistry, and he managed to have a 3.90 GPA in the first two years. I don’t expect him to maintain that GPA and hope it does not dip too much.</p>
<p>His senior year indeed has two options: 20 hours research per week and 10 hours research per week. I believe that he has chosen (or plan to choose) the latter one for some reason. He might start some research in the Spring semester of his junior year if indeed he wants to delay a year.</p>
<p>It seems that I need to get more info about his plan soon, at least I need to know how he is going to support himself that year. It is a very long process in MD/PHD program and he knows that, but he does want to do some other fun stuff (hopefully) before he dives into the 4 or 8 long years.</p>
<p>zzzz: Glad to hear that he has been doing very well in his first two years. I think his status is likely quite similar to my child’s after two years – with the exception that my child chose to write a paper at the end of the freshman year only (for POS) rather than staying for the summer after freshmen year. He is not into MD-PHD thingy for sure though.</p>
<p>For the biochemistry majors, I think (not 100% sure here) all students take the second semester of Biochemistry also and one or two semesters of p-chem. Some more ambitious students may start the biochemistry series starting from the fall semester of sophomore as the only requirement is orgo I, which many students, like my child, take in the spring of freshman year. My child chose to finish up physics in sophomore; do not want to risk stressing himself out by taking triple sciences: physics, orgo II and biochem I in the fall semester of sophomore (like some others did). He has been more laid-back than some of his science major peers for sure. (He said a selected few of science majors rarely sleep when he was a sophomore and he does not want to be like them.)</p>
<p>Well… I randomly jolt down something that comes to my mind – really do not have much to say :-)</p>
<p>My DD ended up applying the summer after graduation, summer 2009. I have seen several benefits:</p>
<p>A} She is working full time in a research lab, getting great exposure & experiences & making enough to live on. She will be published, too.</p>
<p>B} She is not having to juggle senior classes and multiple interviews- ask Curmudgeon about how this was stressful for his DD</p>
<p>C} She had more time to prepare her strong app and get to know profs, a benefit at a flagship public, her strongest LORs came from senior year profs, and she got As & A+s in most every class.</p>
<p>D} She is working, not in school, for the first time ever and meeting many people in a new town who never went to college and are living lives on a different path than she is choosing. She has become more committed to her path, she wants to go back to the more narrow path of intellectual pursuit; I think it is really good for her to have experienced all this before she heads into 4 years of tough med school.</p>
<p>Thanks, somemom. It is good to hear the benefits of delaying a year from someone who has been through that process. </p>
<p>mcat2, thanks for your info: Our son has finished his biochem and orgo. as well as general biology before his junior year. He delayed the physics into his junior year. He is taking p-chem in his junior year (I am not sure it is one- or two-semester class). This semester, he is taking three science classes (physics, genetics, and p-chem), with two labs. He feels that the labs take too much time (two reports every week) and he does not see anything less demanding in his last three semesters. That is why he feels he would be better off if applying one year later.</p>
<p>zzz, I don’t know hardly any MD/PhD’s who go into their programs straight from undergrad. A few, but not many. MD/PhD’s generally take even more time off, on average, than the usual medical student, who already starts school at an average age of 24 or 25.</p>
<p>zzzz: Many students dislike physics labs but I do not know why (tedious maybe?). I heard that one particular non-premed student decided to switch to the Chemistry department partly because he wanted to skip the physics labs. Well… when you have the physics name as a part of the department name, it is hard to let the students to skip its lab part. They are required by all the premed grinds any way. Genetics may be less demanding but the team-taught format does not appeal to some students.</p>
<p>I think you should congratulate your S for sticking to a tough course sequence as demanded by that department and having done pretty well. If he manages to get into the lab of that particular superstar professor (I think he might have taken biochem II from his wife last semester), he could be very successful in his pursuit of MD-PhD. I do not know whether this professor accepts undergraduates into his lab though. But your S does not have to be in such a high power lab in order to be successful.</p>
<p>^ I am really not qualified to give you inputs as my knowledge is second-hand (and I pick up a little bit knowledge only when ms S is willing to mention it.) But let me try my best and please read it with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>At his school, it seems to be harder than general chemistry but a little bit easier than one of the orgo and harder than the other orgo. But I think the biochem lab gave him more stress than the lecture (isn’t it always the case here, i.e., the lab is more taxing?). If my memory serves me well, the biochem lab may be two afternoon sessions per week.</p>
<p>For the lecture, I heard that there is a little bit overlap between the cell bio and the biochem at the beginning of the semester. Most students seem to have taken the cell bio before the biochem. They need to memorize a list of thingies during the first couple of week or so (Is it nucleic acid or something?) They seem to appreciate the usefulness of both orgo and cell bio after taking this class.</p>
<p>Maybe some others who have more direct experiences could give you a better insight.</p>
<p>^Thanks. Hopefully D. will be OK. Gen. Chem. is very easy for her. Orgo was challenging, with lab being more challenging than lecture. Cell Bio has been also hard, as all of Bio classes at her school, but Bio is what she likes a lot.</p>
<p>I was trying to talk my D into a gap year or two, but didn’t get very far. She won’t be applying MD/PhD, but I still think the positives of a gap year far outweigh any negatives.</p>
<p>Considering the length of the commitment, there is little downside to taking more time to strengthen credentials for MD/PhD, and to be sure this is what he wants to do. Yes, there is a financial issue during the time off, but some MD/PhD programs have better financial aid than regular MD, so one can end up ahead. </p>
<p>As for anyone considering a PhD in science it is worthwhile to be sure a research career is what he wants. You do not need the PhD for medicine, so more time seeing research up close is very valuable.</p>
<p>By the way, biochem is a great background for research or clinical medicine.</p>