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[quote=Anonymous]How common is it? Is it the mark of a weaker application?

DS is a rising college senior, came home for the summer, and is basically chilling (will do some lab work and EMT work this summer but hasn't started yet). DH and I were under the impression that he'd be applying to med school this spring/summer, in order to hopefully have acceptances in hand by year end 2023, so DH was wondering why he isn't using his downtime to do that. DS lets us know - nope, he'll be applying at this time NEXT YEAR and thus will end up taking a year off between college and med school. We have no problem with that but when asked why/what he plans to do in that year, he just shrugged and was like IDK - more shadowing, part time lab work at school and/or part time EMT.

I'm not understanding the point of submitting your application in say July and then continuing to shadow or do lab work for the rest of the year. Sure he can make a few $ an hour in some professor's lab, but unless I'm mistaken how is it helping an already submitted med school app? FWIW I have no issue with a kid taking time off before med school to actually DO SOMETHING; I started my career in finance and had a few friends who were like eh I know I'm going to med school but I just want to try out i banking or consulting for 2 yrs so they did; I know others who delayed because of Fulbrights; heck I'd even understand delaying to travel for a yr. To me that's different than working a few part time jobs 20 hrs/wk (it's not like these jobs will make him so much money either so it isn't about defraying a lot of med school cost).

DH's only opinion on this is fine when you graduate, you can come back here and live for free but you need to be doing things at least 30 hrs/wk OR if you choose to stay at school to shadow/lab/EMT, fine but you are paying for your own apt and food so whatever jobs you cobble together better pay for your luxury apartment or you need to plan on moving someplace cheaper. Having already paid 4 yrs of room and board (and we'll cover it for med school too), we just aren't looking to pay $2400/mo for a whole year of doing nothing. He goes to UNC and we live about 20 miles away, so it's not like he couldn't live at home and drive to whatever he's doing at UNC.

How common is this? Would you just let it lie given that he's a grown man now?[/quote]

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