Dual enroll at a CC & gap year? Then Med school?

i_wanna_be_Brown
Fri, 01 Apr 2016 16:00:31 +0000

Will taking a gap year hurt my appearance to med schools?

No, but it’s definitely more traditional (and in my opinion, a better idea) to do a gap year between college and medical school rather than between high school and college. You’ll have much better job opportunities with a bachelor’s degree than an associate’s and you’ll be applying to medical school after graduation rather than after junior year which means more grades on the transcript, more ECs, and later MCAT test date. I also would rather be 22 than 18 during a year in which the point is to “live a little.” I don’t know how they handle high school-college gap year people, but standard practice is to not include anything on your med school app from before college unless it’s longitudinal or very, very, very prestigious. In contrast, you absolutely include what your college-med school gap year will entail in your app.

So will AP look better when I apply to med school?

I don’t think it really matters, but here’s the big difference: Whatever grades you earn in your dual enrollment will be reported to medical schools and factored into the GPA they use when screening applicants initially. AP course grades are not reported at all. If you get less than an A in DE, you start off your quest to a 4.0 with a handicap. Do poorly in AP courses, no handicap.