<p>If a student can finish his or her undergraduate requirements in three years, is it better to take up a job in the fourth year or do a 1 year master's program instead before going to medical school (assuming that you can get in of course)? Many colleges offer integrated master's programs which one can be done in one year. Would the med school admission committees view one differently than the other? There is of course another option, namely do an additional major or minor(s) to simply enjoy one more year of college.</p>
<p>Benefits of each approach that I can see:</p>
<p>Take up a job: Make some money to offset some of the med school costs</p>
<p>Going to Grad school: Get a higher degree that you can proud of and displayed against your name. May be get a little more erudition in the process. Once you become an MD you will be so preoccupied with other things that you will never even think of going back to school to get a master's degree. So now is the time.</p>
<p>More UG major/minors - Do this to simply relax. You will never get this kind of carefree life again once you become a doctor and get into the daily grind.</p>
<p>Each person is doing what he/she wants. There are no better or worse strategy. Everybody’s situation is different, what works for one is not available for another.</p>
<p>So, if you have offer for a job and Grad. School acceptance, then you choose what is going to work for you the best. If you do not have one or have none, what is a question? Either of them is not that easy to obtain.</p>
<p>^^Assuming that you do have a job offer as well as the opportunity to complete a one year master’s program which one would be better for med school admission?</p>
<p>depends what the job is and depends on what/where the master’s is</p>
<p>What you should do in the gap year is strengthen your app. If you are deficient in clinical activities, then you should get involved. If you are deficient in ‘research’, then you should do that.</p>
<p>In general, graduating early or obtaining a Master’s is of no value to professional school admissions. (A Masters which led to performing research in which you were deficient, however, would benefit you. But so would just working in a research lab for a year and saving the costs for the MS.)</p>
<p>Don’t assume a job would allow you to save money, you’d have to support yourself in a new city and pay taxes out of that income.</p>
<p>I would do what was best for me personally. Are you driven to be done and get out in the world, taking a break from academia? Do that. (do you know you’ll get a good job?)</p>
<p>Are you fascinated with some subject in which you would like to learn more, pursue that.</p>
<p>Don’t do anything to look good to adcoms, do what is right for you and then show them why that was a great thing.</p>
<p>OK, if you insist, here is just one example. If I was advising my own D., I would advise her to go to Med. School right after she gratuates. Again. it all depends in you personal circumstanses. It is impossible to find any opportunities in our home town. She did majority of her EC’s during school year at college, she would be wasting whole year, if she decided to have a gap year. See, it is very different from person to person, you have double opportunities, while she would have none.</p>
<p>…if you have both opportunities, why not pursue both. I have been working full time and going to Grad. School and so did many around me. We also all have families to take care of, sometime multiple kids with working spouse. So, take both, you are so lucky!</p>
<p>To add another anecdote, opposite of Miami’s, my DD had to take the MCAT in August after junior year, that meant she should apply summer after senior year. Okay, so automatic gap year. In her case, besides the late MCAT a senior year of all upper division science classes with As was helpful, in addition as an athlete the prior three years, she took time off from sports and did all her shadowing, internships etc senior year, plus since she was at a very large school, she needed those smaller senior upper division classes to have the time to connect with profs for LORs. At least at Berkeley, one would rarely be lucky enough to connect well enough in pre-med pre-reqs to garner a strong LOR.</p>
<p>She used that senior year to strengthen her app, but really what strengthened it was all the things she did to explore whether or not she really wanted to be a doc. SO, she did nothing to impress and it all fit into her overall profile. For her gap year she took a paid research assistant job in a university lab, she worked with half a dozen grad students plus the prof, was in operating rooms and presented at a conference. That was her only research experience as she was not interested in research earlier. She is still not interested in research, but she now has the experience and has a full understanding as to how it works, and knows how to read the papers. Plus she paid for her cost of living, took a mental break from school, had great health benefits, and had no classes to conflict with interviews.</p>
<p>For DD, the gap year was perfect, for others, not so much. It’s about you, not about the adcoms.</p>
<p>somemom–your DD is doing exactly what D2 is probably going to do. Except that she has the research-a lot of it. And is having problems deciding which way to jump–MD or PhD or MD/PhD. (One thing I’m grateful for is that her summer program introduced her to a new acronym: MSTP.)</p>
<p>She will take at least 1 year off between undergrad and med school; more likely 2 while she takes a mental break from academics. She’ll probably work as a research lab tech at a medical school somewhere (looks like she has one possible job offer already) where she will continue exploring her interests and get firm grasp on which career option best suits her.</p>
<p>Of course, Miami–the kicker her is that she’s looking nationally for her jobs. She likes her hometown, but isn’t committed to ONLY looking in her hometown. (The tentative offer she already has is 1500 miles from her hometown. I wouldn’t dream of suggesting she restrict her search.)</p>
<p>^Just more examples of how different each applicant is. My D’s senior year was so easy, was not much left to take and whatever she had to take was easier than before. She has her first exam at Med. School this week. She said that she had a bit of hard time adjusting back to studying hard, since she got so much out of it during her senior year. So, having relaxing year has both pluses and minuses and D’s senior year in UG happened to be relaxing, just going to Med. Schools interviews, great weekends, she still got all A’s but they were not part of her application, she also got some major awards, they kept coming and coming right before graduation. Apparently she did not need any of them to get accepted.</p>
<p>Do what seems to be the best in your personal situation. Do not look at others, they are not you, they have their own circumstances.</p>