Makeup, Lattes, and Medicine

For my own enjoyment, I want to share the knowledge I have collected as a pre-med and as a medical student while also sharing my passion for all my favorite things, like makeup and lattes.

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Thursday, February 2, 2017

Premed Tip #3- Planning Gap Year and Summer Experiences

Noel 5:00 PM , , , , , , , , No comments :
While I am not a believer that everyone should consider a gap year, it does have its benefits for those that have "holes" in their application. Summer, gap semesters, and gap years are all perfect times to have experiences that will make you stand out and make you well-rounded.

 The first step to planning these months with no classes is to find where the holes in your applications are and what will truly add to your applications. The formula that I stuck to that worked for me is:
  • 2 shadowing experiences
  • 1 clinical experience
  • 1-2 research experiences (if you are MD/PhD, you want more involvement than this)
  • 2-3 community involvement/ volunteering experiences
  • 2 unique experiences to you and are uncommon for many applicants
You can accomplish many of these things during the school year, but you can also work on these during your time off. Now this list is all relative and is intended to span your years in college and the years before you apply. For example, if you have shadowed 2 physicians for months vs 5 physicians for 2 weeks, it will even out in the end for the stories you can get from the experience most likely. Likewise, you can have some experiences "double count" for categories such as volunteering in a clinic. This list is meant to give you enough experiences so you have great stories to tell in your application and enough experience to justify your interest in medicine. 

 A list like this can help you fill any holes in your application. If you want to go to a top 50 school, you need to do research so maybe spend a summer in a lab working on a project. If you do not have enough clinical experiences, maybe be a scribe for your gap year. Do you have similar experiences to every other applicant? Maybe spend a couple of months or a year working in health policy or designing a medical device to give you perspective on another aspect of medicine.

Another note I would make is to look on how similar your experiences are. I had a lot of experiences that were involved with newborns and new mothers, which made it easy to talk about what I loved about medicine because I could connect my experiences easily. At the same time, I made sure that I learned different things from each. Like, if you shadowed for a couple of months in an ER and then decided to scribe in one for a year, these might not add as much to your application as if you scribed in a clinic. Remember, your application is selling your interest in medicine so make sure your experiences make you stand out and give your stories to back up your claim.

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