2016 Nontrad Applicants' Progress Thread

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Okazaki Frag Grenade said:
How would one go about finding this?! I have no idea where to start or who to ask
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I just called my high school; they still had them on file 18 years later.
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Anyone else apply to George Washington U? Looks like a great school, but holy high rent...
 
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My AMCAS application isn't verified yet but I got an email from one school that says application from AMCAS received. How can this be?!
 
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Nontrad8 said:
My AMCAS application isn't verified yet but I got an email from one school that says application from AMCAS received. How can this be?!
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Quite a few schools that don't screen pre-secondary do this, apparently. It's normal.
 
AMCAS sends a list of applicants that have selected the school as soon as they hit submit, so if they send 2ndaries to everyone they send them out before verification. I got it for Tufts and Geisel the same day I hit submit

And had to give you a little bit of a hard time, it was right there! The google machine wins all
 
I was slogging through writing essays for the sea of secondaries today when I unexpectedly received an interview invite from a Texas school. :heckyeah: I didn't think I would get any love from Texas: out of state and my undergrad GPA was, ehm, less than stellar. I hope that everyone can maintain a positive outlook through the stress of this year. Miracles do happen, it seems. Get those apps in so that we can all meet up on the interview trail! I'd love to put some faces with the names of fellow nontrads. Good luck everyone. :luck::luck::luck:
 
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gyrfalcon said:
I was slogging through writing essays for the sea of secondaries today when I unexpectedly received an interview invite from a Texas school. :heckyeah: I didn't think I would get any love from Texas: out of state and my undergrad GPA was, ehm, less than stellar. I hope that everyone can maintain a positive outlook through the stress of this year. Miracles do happen, it seems. Get those apps in so that we can all meet up on the interview trail! I'd love to put some faces with the names of fellow nontrads. Good luck everyone. :luck::luck::luck:
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Holy Heck, Texas is interviewing already? Congratulations, kill it!! :highfive:
 
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can interviews be held as early as august? just not sure to plan a week away then or not
 
VegasPreMed said:
Anyone else apply to George Washington U? Looks like a great school, but holy high rent...
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Im applying. What'd you see for rent? Would think that leaving the immediate dc area would be cheaper
 
timsk said:
Im applying. What'd you see for rent? Would think that leaving the immediate dc area would be cheaper
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>$2000/month for two bedrooms. I have a wife, two kids, and a dog so I should be expecting it...was looking as close as possible to the school to reduce travel times.
 
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First secondary submitted. Only possibly 7 more to go!
 
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Yeah, it's definitely an expensive city. That's actually quite a bit cheaper for me compared to where i'm living now (seattle). That said, when having no income and surviving only off of loans, rent above and beyond $100 a month will feel excruciatingly painful! Good for you for applying even with a family in tow!
 
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I only applied to 3 coastal schools (UCLA, Harvard, and JHU). After doing grad school at UCLA I don't particularly want to live anywhere but the midwest ever again. The costs are just bonkers.
 
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timsk said:
Yeah, it's definitely an expensive city. That's actually quite a bit cheaper for me compared to where i'm living now (seattle). That said, when having no income and surviving only off of loans, rent above and beyond $100 a month will feel excruciatingly painful! Good for you for applying even with a family in tow!
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Haha living in Las Vegas has spoiled me. $800 a month for a three bedroom house and a backyard in a decent area in Henderson. Seattle must be expensive. I have a friend living up there and he's always shocked when he comes back to visit because he forgets how cheap it is down here. Seattle seems like an awesome city though!
 
VegasPreMed said:
Haha living in Las Vegas has spoiled me. $800 a month for a three bedroom house and a backyard in a decent area in Henderson. Seattle must be expensive. I have a friend living up there and he's always shocked when he comes back to visit because he forgets how cheap it is down here. Seattle seems like an awesome city though!
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It is, just high cost of living.

And waiting for verification is brutal. Stupid quarter system
 
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mavric1298 said:
It is, just high cost of living.

And waiting for verification is brutal. Stupid quarter system
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I hear you. Due to that transcript mishap back in June my AACOMAS is still not verified. Very frustrating. Only possible benefit is at least I can get the tide of AMCAS under control first.
 
I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area and my partner and I are very excited at the possibility of moving elsewhere and paying reasonable rent. The prices here are just unfathomable!
 
Yeah, I went from paying $800 a month for a room in a 3 bedroom apartment in LA and needing to pay utilities to $500 a month for a room in a duplex that included utilities in Minneapolis. The Midwest is awesome.
 
We were paying 1300 for 500 square foot studio 5 years ago in Seattle when we basically lived downtown. Now we are paying a mortgage, and luckily bought exactly at the bottom of housing prices. Just refi'ed and value was up 30% in 4 years, can't complain about that!
 
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Just got verified! Thank God my estimated GPA's were not too far from what I thought they'd be (had trouble categorizing some classes taken for allied health).

I'm retaking the MCAT next week though. Do you think that'll set me way back some? Not sure when to add in all the schools, I'm assuming it's okay to wait until I get the official ones (since it should go through right away since I've been verified) so I'm not blinding applying?
 
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AACOMAS finally verified. Trying to get through a slight backlog of AMCAS secondaries this weekend so I'm not buried under a new surge. Hope everyone's keeping their heads above water!
 
Just submitted my first two secondaries- georgetown and george washington (was so nervous i'd mix up the references to the schools during my essays). Hoping they were some of my most expensive ones! My MCAT scores won't be released until July 21st, so i'm not feeling a lot of pressure to get the secondaries in ASAP but it feels good to have started submitting them.
 
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Finally submitted AMCAS, as well as finished my AACOMAS personal statement (hope to submit Monday -- away all weekend). All this chatter of secondaries has me anxious again! Haha oh well. Only, what? 6?-9?-12? more months of this? +pissed+

On rent: I'm moving from dirt cheap to expensive (with any luck--SO needs a job!). I guess that's the benefit of loans?
 
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how many schools are you applying to? There are still several schools that i have not yet received secondaries from even though my application was sent on the first. I am thinking some of it may be because my MCAT scores aren't released until the 21st, although i didn't think many schools did any initial pre-screening before sending out secondaries.
 
timsk said:
how many schools are you applying to? There are still several schools that i have not yet received secondaries from even though my application was sent on the first. I am thinking some of it may be because my MCAT scores aren't released until the 21st, although i didn't think many schools did any initial pre-screening before sending out secondaries.
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I'm thinking you're asking me. I only applied to a few schools, but my MCAT and grades are all posted already so that may be why. Half of mine prescreened secondaries, half did not.
 
First pre-secondary rejection this morning. Band-aid needed to be ripped off sometime!
 
I'm actually happy for the delay in receiving secondaries as i'm still waiting for my mcat scores to be released (on the 21st). From what i had read there is this huge pressure to get everything submitted ASAP and that any delay means other students are filling spots and that taking the mcat when i did (june 19th) was starting to get risky. That said, because of the delay in receiving secondary applications (my app was sent out to schools on first possible day), not having my mcat scores released until the 21st doesn't seem to actually be delaying me much. That's a relief, and something i wish i had known at the start of this whole process.

@Eccesignum was the school that rejected you a reach? Were you anticipating that might have been the result or did it come out of the blue? Hope you hear better news from your other schools!
 
timsk said:
@Eccesignum was the school that rejected you a reach? Were you anticipating that might have been the result or did it come out of the blue? Hope you hear better news from your other schools!
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Everything's a reach when you've done massive GPA repair, heh.

Bit out of the blue, though. DO school that says I don't meet the minimum requirements, though according to what's on their website I do. I'm not going to worry about it. The game is the game, que sera sera.
 
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timsk said:
I'm actually happy for the delay in receiving secondaries as i'm still waiting for my mcat scores to be released (on the 21st). From what i had read there is this huge pressure to get everything submitted ASAP and that any delay means other students are filling spots and that taking the mcat when i did (june 19th) was starting to get risky. That said, because of the delay in receiving secondary applications (my app was sent out to schools on first possible day), not having my mcat scores released until the 21st doesn't seem to actually be delaying me much. That's a relief, and something i wish i had known at the start of this whole process.

@Eccesignum was the school that rejected you a reach? Were you anticipating that might have been the result or did it come out of the blue? Hope you hear better news from your other schools!
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Isn't the fact that you don't have secondaries possibly due to the fact they don't have MCAT scores? I know several schools won't send them without.
 
I think that could definitely be part of it. That said, few of the schools i applied to mentioned doing a pre-screen, so i think i'm just surprised by that as well. But even for the schools that have been sending me their secondaries there is a delay. For instance i just got Rush's today. Just wasn't expecting this and am pleasantly surprised.

And hello @mavric1298, from a fellow seattlite.
 
Just got verified! Have two secondaries to schools that didn't screen nearly complete and ready to send those along too! Getting my official MCAT score on the 21st along with a bunch of you guys and hoping that my 90th-100th percentile gives me a boost. GPA repairs for the win.
 
BryanBeid said:
Just got verified! Have two secondaries to schools that didn't screen nearly complete and ready to send those along too! Getting my official MCAT score on the 21st along with a bunch of you guys and hoping that my 90th-100th percentile gives me a boost. GPA repairs for the win.
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Did you guys get an unofficial percentile or how did that work (sounds like you already know before getting your score). If that's the case, not fair! That mcat score wait was brutal haha.

And yeah, some schools screens include mcat so I would assume you'll be held up at those. I just wish I would be verified sometime remotely soon. Want to get the ball rolling again. So restless!
 
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The day of score release was the absolute worst. I think mine was damn near 4 pm EST that it was finally released. I sat and refreshed twitter every 3o seconds or so for like 6 hours at work... Then I jumped up and down like a child opening a Nintendo 64.
 
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Corova said:
The day of score release was the absolute worst. I think mine was damn near 4 pm EST that it was finally released. I sat and refreshed twitter every 3o seconds or so for like 6 hours at work... Then I jumped up and down like a child opening a Nintendo 64.
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^ that really cracked me up.

hang in there everyone. good luck. show 'em how it's done!
 
Been on SDN for a while now, mostly following school specific threads to the schools I applied to. But then I came across this thread and I definitely fit in better here! 28 year old husband and father of 3 and have been working full time for the last 7 years as a restaurant equipment technician/electrician. Lots of young rockstars on SDN but after scrolling through some of the non-trad threads, I am feeling more confident about my non-trad status and what my life experience, maturity and ability to balance full time work, full time school and a family can bring to the table. Good luck to all of you.
 
^ You'll find we are much nicer then the allo forum, must be all this "maturity" we are supposed to have! Not a lot of gunners/a$$holes/etc in here, I've found it's one of the only places I can stand to be on this site

Corova said:
The day of score release was the absolute worst. I think mine was damn near 4 pm EST that it was finally released. I sat and refreshed twitter every 3o seconds or so for like 6 hours at work... Then I jumped up and down like a child opening a Nintendo 64.
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And same for me, then I couldn't get myself to look for at least a couples hours. Waited until after my classes and lab that day
 
The scores were released in like the 15 minutes I was away from the computer for that day. I had to go and help a coworker interpret some data and I checked twitter on my phone. Nothing like holding something very easily thrown and broken when you're checking your MCAT score!
 
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Ah... July.... (pre-med soul) killing season!

Secondaries... almost half way! I am so incredibly sick of talking about myself. Interestingly, I've fallen in love with 3 school and lost my motivation to apply to another 4, just writing secondaries.

Current progress:
13 secondaries submitted
2 almost ready
2 waiting to be written
7 that I am having second thoughts on, 4 of which are ready to submit.
13 secondaries not yet received
 
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Getting all the automatic secondaries. Mcat releasing on tuesday. Aghhhh.
 
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I'm still waiting for primary verification, still very angry with a) being on the quarter system and having to wait to the 15th for transcripts, and b) my teacher "accidentally" messing up and putting in an incomplete, taking a week to fix it and put my 4.0 in, then not telling me when it was done.:boom:

I'm going to have to turn my 15 secondaries around the same day that I get them apparently - I hate being behind! At least I have 3 done that sent out secondaries to everyone, minus NYMC with the whole clusterf that was CASPer the other day
 
Hey all,

I've applied this year and all that, but I have no clinical experience. While I wait/fill out secondaries/prepare for next years re-application, I've been shopping around for volunteer spots.

Now I could use advice! There is an opening doing routine stuff at a hospital: pushing papers/handing out coffee...OR there is a local hospice with volunteer openings.

Is there any reason to choose the hospital position?
 
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