<p>D is a 4.0 biology major at one of the big UC schools. She will be taking the MCAT in January and applying to med schools in June. She is currently a junior and could graduate at the end of this year. She has looked over med school requirements and believes she will have all the classes needed to apply. </p>
<p>She is thinking of graduating a year early and then using the year 'off' to do volunteer work.</p>
<p>What do med school admissions think of graduating in 3 years? Will it be a detriment or a help?</p>
<p>In general they don’t seem to like it, they seem to give the impression of wanting to see the student be fully involved. But if your DD is not trying to begin med school right after her third year then she will have just as many classes on her transcript as other applicants.</p>
<p>They don’t technically like it so her entire application would need to show why this was right for her, how she used her time differently etc. Why is she able to graduate early? HS cc classes? AP credit? Summer school? </p>
<p>She would need to do something medically related and interesting during that glide year so she can talk about it at interviews. For example, work in medical research for the year, do some really interesting medically related volunteer work, etc. </p>
<p>What about LORs? Has she had a chance to get to know her profs well enough to get strong LORs?</p>
<p>She has worked in a research lab on campus for three years, two years with the same doctor on the same study. She can get a good LOR from him. The other LORs would come from professors. </p>
<p>She has worked in a pain clinic also but its more research than patient care. She thinks she needs more time to volunteer at a clinic or something like that to round out her application.</p>
<p>The other alternative would be to get a minor in cognitive science to add to the biology major. Or go for a Master’s Degree. </p>
<p>Somehow graduating early just seems like a mistake to me. </p>
<p>Anyone have any experience graduating in three years and using the off year for something else?</p>
<p>One way of looking at it would be to have her cake and eat it, too. Why not stay the extra year and fill it with mind and world view expanding courses (with well “vetted” professors ;)) and have the time to do the clinical exposure without what must have been a heavy science-laden/research driven schedule like she had the first 3 years?</p>
<p>Med schools won’t care that your daughter graduated from college in 3 years (if that’s what she chooses to do). It’s neither a “positive” nor a “minus” on her app.</p>
<p>That being said, what’s the rush? :-)</p>
<p>Admissions committees do care about GPA (particularly in science courses), MCAT scores, community service/extracurricular involvement, enthusiasm/motivation, and maturity.</p>
<p>It’s worth noting that if she stuck around for a 4th year, she’d be able to take interesting upper-level courses with low faculty-to-student ratios – something that most students look forward to, particularly at a large UC school. She might also be able to undertake a more independent, more “substantial” basic science research project. She may find that experience more fulfilling than what she has done in the lab so far.</p>
<p>I would caution your daughter from embarking on a year of volunteer work just to increase the strength of her med school app. That’s a significant time investment…and, if the primary drive isn’t to help people, she may end up being rather unhappy.</p>
<p>I’m glad that your DD is so very focused towards her goal. But what about getting involved in the school where she attends? Has she had a chance to get involved in any clubs or volunteering that’s not med school related? Has she taken non-sciencey courses?
I am no expert in this area, but I have heard that med schools are much more apt to accept someone who is older and nontraditional than a 20 year old.</p>
<p>while graduating in 3 years might be a negative if one’s goal is to go straight to med school, OP’s daughter is planning on a gap year, so she would be the same age as someone who graduated in 4 and went straight through. I therefore think that in this case it won’t make a difference, but my personal preference would be to do what was described above: take advantage of a 4th, more relaxed year. Once you get into medical school, all academic freedom is lost and you simply won’t have time to learn/explore things that aren’t related to medicine. College is the last chance to learn something cool just for the sake of learning something cool.</p>
<p>I was in a similar position a few years ago in that had I busted my butt slightly more during junior year, I could have completed everything then and graduated a year early. I opted to stay for my senior year, and holy cow was it great.</p>
<p>I’m going to assume she’s a bright student and is happy at her school (meaning she has friends, a nice place to live, has enjoyed being involved, etc). There’s something to be said for being a senior with your friends, for getting to take those random upper-level classes just for fun (eg my senior thesis was about the 1918 flu pandemic, and the 15-person class was taught by one of the most brilliant scientists on campus), for continuing to build relationships with professors and mentors who can go to bat for you on your LORs, for taking advantage of time-sucking things you couldn’t do when you had lots of academic requirements (eg I had an internship at the state capitol, 30min away, working on health policy with a state rep), for taking that bartending class and working weekends at a college bar (a real class at my school!), for building up your leadership experience with various extracurriculars, for going to one more season of basketball games, etc etc etc. </p>
<p>Now don’t get me wrong, I love med school. It is a dream come true for a smart kid who wants to be a doctor. I love learning the things that I do, the environment is incredible, my friends are awesome, etc. But it is a ton of WORK. It sucks all of your time up. There is very little time to do things that aren’t med school. There’s very little time to hang out with people who aren’t med students. You can’t really take classes that sound cool or learn how to rock climb or go to all the football games or pick up a health policy internship because it might be interesting.</p>
<p>She’s in a great position to craft a senior year that will be fun, interesting, and useful now that all the required junk is out of the way. I completely agree with the above posters about taking the year and just enjoying it–plus, I imagine living up your senior year at school will be a helluva lot more fun than moving back in with mom and pop to go volunteer full time somewhere ;)</p>
<p>Would adcoms care? Who knows. You’d go crazy if you were trying to live your life so adcoms approved of it. Heck some of the most exciting parts of my college career had absolutely nothing to do with premed requirements and instead were things that I thought sounded cool so I gave it a shot. </p>
<p>She worked hard for an easy year! Time to reap the benefits.</p>
<p>She has taken non-science classes to complete her graduation requirements. She has to take another quarter of English (which she dreads). She would rather take an advanced honors chemistry class than an ‘easy’ humanities class. To her OChem is a much more interesting class than English literature. So branching out into other areas really doesn’t interest her. </p>
<p>I’m still trying to talk her out of it. The campus offers some clinical volunteer programs through the university. She can do more research as a senior for a senior thesis. She does love the campus and has lots of friends.</p>
<p>(She didn’t take rock climbing, but she did take surfing, ha).</p>
<p>Note that she has other choices, in that she can finish in 3+1/3 or 3+2/3 years, as well as 3 or 4 years (assuming a quarter system school). She could spend the “extra time” taking whatever free elective courses she wants (advanced chemistry?) or courses which may prove to be useful in a medical career (statistics, social studies, courses about language and culture of immigrant ethnic groups, economics and business, physical education academics, etc.).</p>
<p>As an input if it is helpful at all, my D. was in combined program. Her program specifically did not allow them to take les than 4 years in UG and less than 5 years in case of engineering major (they did not care what major at all). So, instead of graduating earlier, D. had 2 minors, no single summer classs and she did all of her EC’s during school year, so basically she had relaxing summers with her HS firends with very few EC’s that she was able to get into in a summer. </p>
<p>On the other hand, there are plenty of combined programs that are 3+4 or even 2+4, but it is different as they go straight to Med. School (my D. applied out). Accelerated combined programs as they are called usually reguire to take up to 21 hrs and no summers off. It is all very different.
I would contact adcoms of potential Med. Schools with this question and do what they say.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what med schools some of the posters in this thread have attended.</p>
<p>I found that I had ample time, during my first 2 years of med school (preclinical at my school), to pursue non-medical interests. I learned how to rock climb, took up scuba diving, and trained for a marathon. In contrast, the 3rd year of med school (clinical rotations) took 100% dedication in terms of mental and physical effort to do well. The 4th year of med school (clinical electives) was a return to regular hours, for the most part.</p>
<p>Certain med schools have different approaches to the preclinical curriculum. Last I checked, Duke, for example, crams the 2 preclinical years into 1 year. This frees up students to do an MPH or a significant research project…and still graduate with an M.D. in 4 years.</p>
<p>Once med school starts it’s not the end of your life. :-)</p>
<p>Your daughter can certainly graduate from college in 3 years, go straight to med school, and have a successful medical career. In fact, if she wants to have a family someday, it might be advantageous to take the fast-track through medical training.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I’ve never heard of a med school admissions committee being impressed by a student who graduated from college in 3 years. Bear in mind that the vast majority of “smart” kids enter college with enough AP credits to approximate “sophomore” standing.</p>
<p>"I found that I had ample time, during my first 2 years of med school (preclinical at my school), to pursue non-medical interests. "
-Not the case with my D. at all. No time whatsoever. it does not mean that she does not participate, she does in more than most others. But she has no time to even call us while walking home from classes. She usually goes over material in hear while walking. Her good breaks are doing dishes (no dish washer) and doing laundry. She participates in musical, tutoring of HS kids in her area, interviews Med. School applicants, president of religious organization, she went abroad after first year, she visits her UG and us back home, but it is nowhere near what she was doing during school year at UG.</p>
<p>“Once med school starts it’s not the end of your life”
-I would say opposite, it is, Based on D’s experience. Her school does NOT “cram the 2 preclinical years into 1 year” . But her 3rd year starts in March of second year and she has only one summer off (after first year) - which are probably the case with most Med. schools anyway. There is no denying, academics is very rigorous, especially amount of memorization. There is not much conceptual material, which would make it somewhat easier.</p>
<p>DD is in clinical years now, she would say she had more time years 1&2 than now, but she did not realise it at the time
Yes, she did play on some rec level sports teams and rock climb in med school, but not to the level she had in undergrad.</p>
<p>The schools represented on this thread are a top state school, an Ivy, a private in the NE, a private in the midwest, (my) state med school, and whatever yours is. Two of us are students and the others are parents of current students.</p>
<p>I’m currently a second year at a state med school in the midwest. I didn’t mean in med school you have zero time to yourself; just that, compared to senior year of undergrad when I had nothing required except to fill my time with fun classes, it’s significantly less. Another thing that’s interesting to me is that (at least at my school) med school makes it very clear that they own your time, and if they tell you to be there, you’re there. Come in on a Saturday to learn ophtho exam? Done. Get here at 6am to round on patients? Done. Stay until 8pm for other required things? You betcha. While most of my schedule is predictable (I probably only have 1 thing at a time outside normal school hours a week), I find that required things preclude having a predictable schedule for hobbies or for having as much free time as I did in undergrad.</p>
<p>At the same time, I probably lump a lot more things into “med school” than I did into undergrad. For example, in undergrad, I had classes and extracurriculars and free time–so time spent “doing school” was kind of minimal. But in med school, my extracurricular involvement is hard to separate because it’s all related to school–things like hosting kids who are interviewing, or taking on leadership roles at our free clinic, or meeting with various faculty about research projects, or mentoring premeds, or going to interest group meetings, etc. So, I lump all of those activities into med school and thus conclude that I have substantially less time for fun stuff and free time than I did in undergrad. </p>
<p>I guess the point I was trying to make is that an open senior year would be a great time to explore all those interests because you will have nothing BUT time during that year; and while you can find time to do things you like during med school, at least in my experience you have to be a lot more choosy with your free time because there’s not as much of it and it’s not as predictable.</p>
<p>As always, agree with Kristin. By no means do I mean my life is over now but it’s much more focused.</p>
<p>In college I was a double major in science and humanities, a division 1 athlete, heavily involved in Greek life, and a Kaplan tutor. I usually only opened a book the week of a test and was only in class for about 2 hours a day.</p>
<p>In med school I’m in class more like 4-6 hours a day (sometimes 8 as a second year), studying for hours almost everyday, and outside of class I’m involved in student government and admissions. So just like Kristin, my extracurricular activities are far more school related, and my coursework is entirely medical.</p>
<p>Did my life end with med school? No. Did my opportunities to do things wholly unrelated to medicine end when I started med school? Not quite but pretty close.</p>
