<p>I know a young man who's planning on applying to med school after taking a year off following graduation. Actually, he'll begin the process in June following graduation. He's considering spending that year teaching English in Japan. Just wants some time off, before beginning the long haul of medical school. </p>
<p>His mom, my friend, is concerned about the logistics of the application process---secondary apps, interviewing, etc....He blithely told her he was sure there was a way to get it done from overseas. Any suggestions/experience related to applying to med school while abroad?</p>
<p>I know of some people who were spending the fall semester abroad and applying to medical school at the same time. And got in. They arranged to do their interviews over Christmas holidays and early in the spring semester. But I don’t know of anyone who was spending the entire year abroad. Doing the secondaries abroad probably wouldn’t be a problem, but to my knowledge, most school won’t accept telephone interviews or anything like that. He’d probably have to fly back to the country for his interviews, though it’s conceivable that he could arrange them all within a few weeks or something so that he’d only have to do it once.</p>
<p>My DD applied from abroad, but she was still in North America. I was her administrative assistant and often she needed to complete secondaries, scan & email them to me at which point i would print & mail them along with the photo. Some schools allowed everything to be uploaded, but many did not. That was very workable.</p>
<p>The interviews were stressful, international flights, even on this continent, were never a deal. She had interviews in August, September, October, November and then got into her #1 choice with more interviews scheduled for November/December/January.</p>
<p>I think it would have been possible, under the circumstances, to group them all over a long break home from Asia; there was a story on SDN about a girl who did that. She wrote a letter to all her schools asking for one trip home to do all her interviews. I suppose DD would still have gotten into her #1 choice had she delayed the interview, but that would have been mentally tough to delay all those interviews until December.</p>
<p>Bumping…Now this young man is thinking of spending next year in Europe on a fellowship. His mom is thinking it’s at least more affordable to return to the east coast from Europe, but she’s very nervous—wants him to have this great experience, but is afraid it might be a nightmare. Any experience/knowledge to share regarding logistics–secondary apps, interviews, etc??? Must be others who’ve dealt with this…</p>
<p>I was thinking about doing this, but honestly it would be hell. Think about it, you fly back, and your flight was damn expensive, you have to do an interview while suffering jet lag, you can’t stay for many days back in the u.s, because you are missing classes at your college abroad. I would not recommend it…</p>
<p>I do want to throw out there that some interviews come without a lot of lead time (in Texas, sometimes a couple of weeks) . Some are less than easy to re-schedule. Just a bad idea to be abroad, IMO. Application season needs to be about applications, first and foremost. As much as possible, everything else has to be secondary.</p>
<p>Even flying from Canada was crazy expensive to plan, so Europe without the flexibility to plan way ahead could really hurt! The medical schools are not set up to really care about the applicants situation and whilst some may be flexible, many won’t really care about his complications.</p>
<p>Believe it or not, I got a call from one school asking if I could come interview the next day. I think that if I’d said that it was impossible to make it, they would’ve found another time for me to interview, but I wasn’t going to risk it.</p>
<p>I think that Somemom’s got it right–a lot will depend on how strong a candidate he is (and at least somewhat on what he’s doing on his gap year).</p>
<p>If he is a strong all around candidate, he might be able to request up front interviews timed around his Christmas break (assuming he is coming home for that anyway) and ask all the schools to offer him times in a particular break time.</p>
<p>My daughter was in graduate school and living in the UK as she applied to medical school. She left the US early in October and had most of the paperwork done before departing. She put off interviews until her Christmas break and she came back to the US one more time (I think sometime in late Jan) for another round of interviews. All the schools allowed her to reschedule.</p>
<p>Rescheduling interviews for a month or more down the road is not viewed as the best strategic move and may well have caused her to end up on some wait-lists. She knew that she was not going through the application process in a way that was likely to give her optimal results but it was her decision. She was fortunate…by December she had choices and the pressure was off. Ultimately she ended up at her top school so it all worked out. </p>
<p>I would recommend the applicant get as much paperwork done as possible before he leaves. My daughter also touched base with her undergrad pre-med advisor from time to time while she was abroad.</p>