Taking Time Off Taking Time Off More and more people are taking time off before medical school. Some take time off while in college. Others do it after college. That is, they are not straight out of college, but have worked for a bit, or even been through law school or grad school.
Time off serves a variety of purposes.
First, if you are not sure you want to go to medical school, you should take time to figure it out. The last thing you want is the stress of the MCAT and the cost of applying only to find out that you hate working with sick people. Second, time off gives you time to beef up your application. The majority of people work in labs and take premed classes, but you can travel or do just about anything you can think of. Of course, the more medically-related, the better, so don't scoop ice cream for a year, but time off gives you a chance to make your application better.