For students who want to go straight to medical school, have strong grades and accomplishments, and are not considering any other endeavors, applying in their junior year would be the best option, according to Chatterjee.

Grant A. Sprow ’16, who intends to apply to medical school during his senior year, said he decided on medicine early in his college career.

“I just didn’t feel the need to take time off between college and medical school,” Sprow said. “A lot of other people have other interests and want to take the opportunity to pursue another interest and get work experience.”

Ved V. Topkar ’16, who hopes to pursue a M.D./Ph.D. program that typically takes about eight years to complete, said that he did not have time to take a gap year considering the program’s length, but strongly considered a gap year when he only planned on achieving a M.D. degree.

“I saw a lot of my classmates here having taken gap years before or during college careers...grow as individuals,” Topkar said. “Having unstructured free time to help yourself grow as a person...was the main draw for me.”

In the end, Mayer said that students should not feel pressure for either continuing straight to medical school or taking a gap year.

“What’s so important is that there is good mentorship,” Mayer said. “People are leaving the uterus, the womb of college, and now need to make some decisions. We all mature at different rates.”

—Staff writer Melanie Y. Fu can be reached at mfu@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter @MelanieYFu.

—Staff writer Jiwon Joung can be reached at joung@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter @YunaJoung.