How late is too late?

Your overall application looks solid. In general, the earlier you apply to medical schools, the better your chances are of acceptance. That being said, not every med school is on a rolling admissions basis. A rolling admissions process means that acceptance letters are sent out at intervals throughout the application cycle on a first-to-interview first-to-be-accepted basis. This essentially means you would be competing for fewer and fewer open spots the longer you wait to apply. However, not all med schools use a rolling admissions process--in fact, some pride themselves on not having a rolling admissions. You should certainly seek out the DO schools that do not use a rolling admissions while still applying to the others you are interested in.

I would try to make the time to get your primary (and secondary) applications submitted. You could submit your applications at the end of September and still get an acceptance letter, but the longer you wait, the smaller your chances of acceptance become at most schools. If there is any way to get your applications submitted in August, do it! Getting into medical is the most important step of your career at this moment in time. Make it your top priority if you can.

Last thing. If you do submit your primary applications in September--or even August, complete your secondary applications as soon as you get them. You can shave off a couple weeks in the process if you bust through your secondary applications in a few days.

Best of luck! It looks like you have the makings of a good application.

I think you'll still be fine by then. If you hit November, you're starting to get into trouble.

You'll be fine.

ChipChi said:

Hey all,

I'm going to be very busy for the next month or so, so I may not be able to submit my primary until late September. Will it be too late to get accepted into the "upper-tier" DO schools if I don't submit my primary until Sept 31st?

Here are my stats:

3.37 GPA for both cumulative and science (strong upward trend, 3.6 my junior year and 3.7 my senior year)

34 MCAT (11P, 10V, 13B)

2 years AmeriCorps experience (not health related, tutoring low-income kids in math and science, founded an internal math tutoring program, ran summer programs)

50 hours volunteering at hospital

30 hours shadowing DO

microbiology lab assistant

internship at Pfizer developing ELISA test

lots of tutoring-specific EC's

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