Letting Passion, not a Resume, Dictate Your Gap Year

As dedicated, pre-medical student-athletes, we rarely have time to explore the “just for fun” passions that fulfill our lives. So why do we fill our gap years with “I need more _______ to get accepted”? While additional medical/research experience is important, I believe there are ways to prioritize non-medical passions while still increasing your stock as a competitive applicant.

Disclaimer: if you’ve always wanted to serve a certain population, start a specific research project, or work in a particular medical setting, then a gap year is absolutely a time to do that! Also, exploring other enriching passions and dissociating completely from the medical field are not the same - I encourage folks to gravitate toward the former.

As a proud native and nature-geek from Arizona, I spent countless hours of my senior year daydreaming of road trips to Sedona, boot tracks in the painted desert, fish in alpine streams, and unnamed high-country roads. At the time, I thought my upcoming gap year was strictly an opportunity to contribute meaningful research or impress admissions offices with some unique world experience.

In reality, after moving back home to Phoenix, I secured a part-time medical scribe position (key-word: part-time) and spent the rest of my gap year fervently exploring my home state.

So how did that pan out on the interview trail? It’s time for another disclaimer: by the time I graduated from Stanford, I had plenty of volunteer and leadership roles to talk about, and the content for my would-be application essays was set in stone. I’d spent two summers working at a medically related startup, but I had no real research experience whatsoever. Once formalities were over, interviewers inevitably looked at their calendar, and then at my graduation date, and asked, “so what have you been doing for the past 12 months?”

 Well… “After preparing for the MCAT and securing a job as a medical scribe, I made a conscious effort to prioritize passions that I never had time for because of my sport.” I’d go on to explain the recent road trip to relic ghost towns of the Wild West, the elk hunting excursion I enjoyed with my father, the post-work 4,000+ foot hikes outside of Scottsdale, and the faith journey I was embarking on along the way. Importantly, I never tried to “spin” this response into some broader message or insight into my professional career – it was just about me.

 So why was this one of my most well-received interview responses? Personally, I think it’s because it was my most genuine response. It showed that I was fiercely and unwaveringly passionate about something outside of medicine. It showed that I understood the values of time, balance, and truth to self. It showed that I wasn’t willing to sacrifice who I am for the sake of a resume. After all, admissions committees send acceptance letters to you, not to a list of your accomplishments. Being true to yourself and following your greatest passions may, in that sense, be one of the most marketable ways to spend your gap year time.

 Of course, there are limits to this approach, and if there are gaping holes in your application, you would be wise to tend to them. However, if you have passions outside of medicine that you can’t wait to pursue, dive in headfirst and be prepared to speak passionately about them on the interview trail.

- Matt Anderson, Human Biology ‘20 and MS1 at the University of Michigan School of Medicine