People who have taken a gap year before dental school?

So I am doing a gap year right now and am an AmeriCorps VISTA Volunteer. I love what I do, and it has been a very beneficial experience to live alone and in a different region of the country than where I'm from.

Pros:

-Flexibility with traveling to all of my interviews; this can't be taken lightly. I was strongly considering doing Teach For America and my friend who is doing it now says it would be nearly impossible to get enough days off for interviews

-Different experience. I work with child victims of sexual abuse/neglect. It's unrelated to dentistry, and opened my eyes to a whole new world. It would be an experience of growth even if I didn't pick up and move to a different region where I knew nobody, but that made it all the more of a challenge.

-"Looks good". Don't do anything for the sake of making your application look good, do it beccause you want to. That being said, my AmeriCorps experience was a talking point at every single interview, and I believe people looked highly on it

Cons:

-This is a year long volunteer position. You get a cost of living stipend, and because I'm in rural Appalachia where the cost of living is so low, mine is $822/month. I get a $5,400 educational award to go towards tuition next year, but still, if you're chasing the almighty dollar in order to save for the very expensive application/interview process then you need to consider this.

-Brain decay. While all the current dental students on my interviews who had also taken a gap year told me that it isn't a real issue, I am afraid that I will not be able to study, memorize, and learn as efficiently as I had been able to during undergrad, and that I will have a hard time re-adjusting to the grind. Time will tell.

Check out this website: http://ift.tt/1H5ih7l Thank @Incis0r for showing me this.

You can basically go anywhere in the world and work at school, orphanage, hostel, farm, pretty much anything for 25 hours per week in exchange for free food and housing. You can schedule a gap from August to November to attend interviews, and spend the rest of the time meeting people from different cultures and backgrounds, as well as volunteering for good causes and picking up new skills. If I had a fat stack of cash, I would have considered doing this for an entire year (while it is the cheapest way to see the world flights aren't free). I am considering doing it sometime this summer once my AmeriCorps term is up (May 2015-May 2016).

If you have any questions let me know.

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People who have taken a gap year before dental school?