TL;DR(but you should read 😞) Semi-updated spreadsheet of postbacc programs, will update in Fall of 2026
Note: I plan to write a comparison between various postbacc options for MD/PhD applicants. I got quite sidetracked when I realized that many of the opportunities that I used to refer students to no longer existed, and wanted to give updated guidance
One of the questions I discuss at length with many applicants is one of time, namely whether or not they should take gap years before applying to MD or MD/PhD programs. To understand the necessity of this, it would be nice to anchor analysis in fact, however, it’s hard to say things with complete confidence because the AAMC only gives us certain information. Looking at the 2025 Facts, there aren’t meaningful changes in the key metrics they report - MCAT score or GPA, and they notably don’t report research hours of applicants versus matriculants so instead I will have to rely on anecdote. The number of research hours/research experience seems to be a part of the general arms race in MD and MD/PhD applications, and the resumes of applying and matriculating students to the institution I attend seem to increase in impressiveness year over year. When I applied, the expectation of post-undergrad gap years devoted to research was not universal, but it seems to be somewhat of a necessity nowadays. This is reflected in the data, with the number of applicants who had taken gap years increasing from 53% in 2013 to 75% in 2020. As someone that went “straight through” (with a semester in between due to my Fall graduation), it’s hard for me to be a staunch proponent of gap years - their impact on the “time to R01” is pronounced, and creates additional hurdles for those either wishing to start families of their own or needing to support parents or siblings financially, in addition to the pernicious comparisons of those around you who are able to do those things earlier in their life than you. However, the utility of these programs in both a) providing resources for application and b) allowing students to work on research full time with greater ownership of a project can help them understand whether or not they want to do the extended training path of MD/PhD programs, so in general I suggest them to students that I advise. Nevertheless, as noted in the paper above in figure 10, there is no significant difference in time to completion between those who took fewer than 3 gap years (and I still personally think the strongest predictor is which lab you join), and the main explicit benefit thus seems to be the number of publications and abstracts at the time of application.
In previous years, it’s been easy to advise students on this topic and connect them with potential programs. However, one of the consequences of the upheavals in scientific funding post-2024 election is the funding one of the main pipelines that connects undergrads to graduate school/MSTPs: PREP programs. Most of these programs were cut on the first day of the Trump Administration, due to no longer effectuating administration priorities due to DEI. The goal of these programs is primarily to give undergraduates from schools that have fewer resources for undergraduate research the opportunity to do mentored scientific research and help them apply to graduate school, and frankly I hadn’t considered the possibility of these programs being cut, as the desired outcome of producing scientists seems clear and potentially less politically contentious than news may lead you to believe. This was a naive assumption on my part. The scope of the loss of these programs became clear when I began to edit a spreadsheet compiled by Dr. Richard Behringer containing information about these programs for the students that I mentor, as individual links that I used to send seemed to be inactive. Fewer than 1/3rd of the programs remained after the cuts, as you can see in the spreadsheet linked at the top of the page. While the NIH IRTA has experienced hiring freezes in 2024 and 2025, the program is still currently active and accepting applications, which is critical for MSTP applicants as the PREP programs are primarily geared towards PhD applicants due to the differences in the timeline of the applications cycles between MD/MSTP and PhD programs. As Dr. Dahle would say, my crystal ball is cloudy, and making predictions on the future of these programs is a fool’s errand. However, based on recent R25 applications it appears that at least some of the programs are slowly trying to rebuild through reframing of the work. For the sake of the future scientists in the pipeline, I can only hope that the situation improves and stabilizes.