Right now I’m in my senior year of undergrad, but will be applying this summer. I had always planned on taking a year off b/t undergrad and med school. Ideally I would have gotten an acceptance this year and deferred it for a year. However when it came to taking the MCAT in May of my Junior year I was no where near ready (and I was leaving to do research in France all summer so I could not take it in June). I discussed this with my Kaplan instructor who said that taking it later was better than getting a horrible score on record, so I have a clean slate except for what will seem a strange gap in my plans…
Considering my wacky planning, what is the best way to utilize this year off? I plan on using the extra time to strengthen my volunteer work (going to become EMT certified w/ a volunteer ambulance, starting hospice volunteer work). But the main reason I wanted to take a year off in the first place was to travel, for fun of course but at the same time perfecting my Spanish, volunteering at hospitals in Central America/Mexico and volunteer teaching at a school for mental/physical disabilities in the Bahamas. However the abroad experience won’t even be on my applications by late summer/early fall….
How’s the best way to present myself with this gap year?
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