The Downsides to gap year before med school

Mwfan1921
Tue, 22 Jul 2025 17:43:54 +0000

NiceUnparticularMan:

I would not necessarily be inclined to make assumptions either way. Like, I definitely would not assert I know they will all work to an older age as physicians, but I am not at all sure they will all work to the same age. I actually suspect this would get even more complicated if you really tried to model it, as of course not all people who go to med school actually work as physicians, or not their whole careers, and I am not confident that taking gap years would not interact with those variables as well.

I agree with all of this. Plus applicants who have taken a gap year(s) have higher acceptance rates than those right out of undergrad, so that would have to modeled in too. Those coming right out of undergrad and even those with only one year of gap experience might never even make it to becoming a physician because they aren’t successful in their apps, so they just move on to a different job/career. Tricky to model all of these factors that have been mentioned, but it’s certainly possible.