Question about applying to one school initially

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Hello,

I'm sorry but I read this on another thread or post but I lost it and could not refer back to it! So I took my MCAT the other day and did not feel very confident with it. I'm certain I will not reach my goal of at least a 30.

I've heard people that have went ahead and applied to only one "throwaway" or less important school so that they are verified and all set up for when scores come out and then go ahead and add your preferred schools if your score is competitive.

How do I go about doing this?

Also, would it be wise to sign up for another retake date ASAP or actually waiting until late July for a score? I'm afraid by then I'll be even further out of the running.

You just fill out AMCAS completely and choose one school to submit to. Am I missing something?

Originally Posted by Adaptive

I'm sorry but I read this on another thread or post but I lost it and could not refer back to it! So I took my MCAT the other day and did not feel very confident with it. I'm certain I will not reach my goal of at least a 30.

I've heard people that have went ahead and applied to only one "throwaway" or less important school so that they are verified and all set up for when scores come out and then go ahead and add your preferred schools if your score is competitive.

How do I go about doing this?

Also, would it be wise to sign up for another retake date ASAP or actually waiting until late July for a score? I'm afraid by then I'll be even further out of the running.

See this thread where the poster thought they'd scored ~29 and instead got a 37: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=925107 May you be so lucky.

When you are ready to submit, just designate one less-selective med school, like a forgiving state school, for example. When the score is known, you are allowed to go back into the AMCAS program and add further schools, depending on how competitive your are (or not). This way you only risk the initial fee for a single selection if it turns out you are not very competitive. If your score is good, you don't waste 4-5 weeks waiting for verification by applying later in the cycle.

When you add new schools, pay for them, and recertify the application, the newly added schools will get your entire application within a business day. To save more time you might also prewrite Secondary essays for more schools from prompts you'll find here on SDN in the School Specific Forums.

If money is not a huge issue, and you are certain you did poorly but that it was a fluke, by all means, sign up for another date as soon as possible. You are less likely to get an ideal test date if you wait another month before signing up (depending on where you live).

Very informative, thank you.