People taking gap years seems to be the norm. We are dealing with a different generation of students. GenZ believe in a work(or school)/life balance. They are also more aware of stress and its havocs on mental health, which older generations have either swept under the rug or deal with it in a nonchalant way (it is what it is). So what if they take a year or two to travel, to experience life before starting the med school grinds? So what if they delay getting their clinical hours until after theyâre done with undergrad? The opportunity for clinical shadowing could be so much greater for someone who already works as an EMT or a medical scribe at a hospital.
The costs of schooling have also been on the rise and there are more work that they can both get paid and get credits for toward their applications. With more people with more interesting things to say in their personal statements and during the interviews, fewer spots can be given out to college seniors.
In a lot of cases, taking gap year(s) is a matter of choice. They arenât looked down as âtheyâre not good enough for med school.â Theyâre instead considered as âbringing something (life experiences, especially those who are in their 2nd career) to the table.â
According to the 2022 MSQ (most recent available since the 2023 wonât be available until fall,) 28.9% of newly matriculating medical students reported taking less than 1 year between graduation and starting med school. 47.2% reported a 1-2 year gap; 15.4% reported taking 3-4 gap years and ; 8.5% reported 5+ years between college graduation and starting med school.
@CottonTales is correct, the percentage matriculating directly into med school from undergrad has been declining over the past 15 year. And 2022âs 28.9% is down from 33.7% on 2020.
Any data, if it exists at all will be internal to a specific school. And that data will be suspect because there is no consistent way itâs reported.
AMCAS publishes a list of undergrads that produce at least 50 med school applicants in a given year. However that number does not distinguish between current students and prior graduates.
I realize such âofficialâ data does not exist.
But some schools (not all e.g. UCSD, USC) report such data.
There are too many people in this forum and other forums (SDN etc) lurking around for decades and I am sure some of them have built such database (of course individually sourced) for advising purposes. I am hoping some of them will care to share ? That may make undergrad premed decision probably little easierâŠ
How would it make undergrad decisions easier for future classes? The applicant pools for medical schools are constantly changing. Acceptance rates are falling.
Students applying as premeds in undergrad should go to a college where they will be happyâŠbecause happy kids do better in collegeâŠand GPA is a solid criteria.
But back to the thread.
This is about BS/MD/DOâŠand those programs are highly competitive all around.
UCSD does not use a commitment letter so they rely on self-reported data from students about who applied and what their outcome was to identify their âsuccess rateââsuch data is inherently unreliable. USC which use a committee to track [coughâcontrolâcough] what students apply to med schoolâagain relies on students to self-report whether or not they were accepted to med school. But at least at USC there is a fairly accurate denominator; UCSD has no way of actually knowing what their denominator is.
AMCAS does track what undergrads the matriculants come from, but that data is only available to enrolled AAMC members who have been identified as adcomm members by their home medical institution.
BTW, AMCAS data only captures MD application data. It does not capture data on the ~22,000 osteopathic med school applicants. Osteopathic med grads are physicians with full licensing and practice rights in the US, and DOs work and train side-by-side with MD colleagues.
Your reflections remind me so many of recollections from our Câs experience :-). In a good way of course. Yes not only Orgo 1 in which C got an A, but the preceding freshman 2nd semester advanced chemistry 2 was so demanding too that they had to be on their toes all the time. I think it was after 2nd mid term or something that the Prof (who was undergrad from JHU, PhD Columbia and post doc Harvard), was distributing the corrected papers that C was wondering after getting the papers if it was even possible to get a B in that course with that kind of a score (76.5%). Once the Prof was done with distributing the papers to the 60 odd students in the class he would announce the median score if the class on the test was some 52 or 55 and the highest 76.5
At times I would ask C not to stress for perfectionism and let others who donât have the guaranteed admission take the lead in scoring for which I would get a blunt response, what do you want me to do? Go to the exam unprepared? Not my fault if I happen to be top scorer though I donât want to.
Absolutely. It is insane competition especially in schools like county level focused magnet schools in some states. These kids are all highly accomplished to get into such schools in the first place, probably pushed by parents to do so for the same reasons as being advocated here, will look fancier during application cycles, will get more exposure, parents can brag about it for next 4 years etc, etc.
But once in the school where pretty much all of them have similar aspirations, similar capabilities, shooting for similar opportunities and probably half the class at any point applying to the same BS/MD programs, it makes it a wild challenge for the admission folks. They normally donât invite more than 4 students for interviews from the same school. Within the 4 some may be better in gpa and standardized scores, others may be in their activities and yet others in maturity and interviews. The selection committee will go crazy who to offer and who to turn down. That is the classic case of people shooting each other down.
I have almost never come across two students from the same high school getting accepted into a given program. Only once 2 kids from the same high school did get into the erstwhile BU SMED, but they both were truly exceptional (and from a non magnet school) with different foot prints without much overlap.
NYC may not be for everyone. I have been trying to persuade my own kid to try NYU, given that it has an accelerated 3-yr med school for those who already knows whihc specialty they want without going thru all the rotations. His reply was âI donât think I want to live in NYCâ
To my knowledge⊠I donât think there is a data that points out this metric
All i can say is UW PreMed is tough (or has a curve fit or deflate) because itâs like playing with Jordan or Magic Johnson in pickup game⊠( maybe similar in Harvard or Stanford too).
As far as applying out ⊠i do know few kids who went out to other MD schools⊠but it depends on their individual resumes (grades, extracurricular etc., apart from the UG from UW).
I thought they all go thru the same 1st year. What they deviate from the 4 year program is the research project with the department where they got accepted for residency during the summer between MS1 and MS2. They skip right over the curriculum for the regular MS3 (normal rotations). The curriculum for their MS3 looks exactly the same as regular MS4.
Someone who already plans to apply out to NYU needs to get a prehealth committee letter for their application, which is something that the AMCAS doesnât require anymore, but NYU is one of a short list of institutions that prefer it over individual LORs.
Very trueâŠgood points. Gap year should not be treated negative
TBH, Gap year is possible even in 4+4 BSMD too as many finishes UG within the 4 year and do other stuffs (extra degree or work/feel for what specialty or fun) . My D is on that path too.
In traditional path, one can/should use that Gap time to boost up their resume⊠to have better shot.
I just wanted to ask a quick question. I know that sometimes, people are able to email the Dean of Admissions after being rejected, and appeal their case. Is doing such wise? Is doing such for BS/MD programs wise? What are your guysâs thoughts on the matter?
The data (Google sheet) that you shared in one of your post above is highly valuable⊠From the construct of it, it looks like that information is not publicly available (I know AAMC publishes some basic IS/OS application data) but someone probably built that sheet with recommendation/commentsâŠ
Some programs actually say to not appeal. Do what you think could work to your advantage. The worst case scenario would be you wasted an email. No harm done!
Absolutely true. 100%. We did not realize it until experienced it. Not BS/MD, or medical school, but when my oldest daughter applied from magnet HS to top Engineering schools like Michigan and GaTech, she discovered that all her classmates applied to both⊠Then each school took from EA one kid into Michigan and one into GaTech. Both schools waitlisted all other kids! DD eventually got off the waitlist in Michigan, but was stuck with the waitlist at GaTech. With the advice of a friend, we decided to send a letter to admission about all her acceptances and remind that she is a legacy (admission asked not to disturb them, but we had nothing to lose with only one week left before May 1st), and she got warm email back and got accepted in 2 daysâŠ
This scenario with top Engineering schools was repeated a year after year with all our friends with kids in magnets. If situation is the same with Medical schools (and I am sure it is), you are better off being a student from the middle of nowhere solid LAC with top research papers and experience than the 21st student from the top student from CornellâŠ
All I know is 3 years program is LI campus. Yes, preclinical will be same as 4 year program. 3 year ones will do fewer electives and probably no research.
