AMCAS submission: difference between early and mid june?

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polyploidy516

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hey guys,

I would really like to know if there is a significant difference between submitting the AMCAS in early june vs. mid June?

My reason for doing so is that I was just granted a competitive fellowship where I will be placed on June 14th.

However, as I see on the AMCAS website that only stuff done before submission can be listed, I would like to know if there is a disadvantage at submitting in the middle of june as opposed to the early of june with my transcripts going in around the same time? Would my application still be considered super early ( thats my goal)

I would like to know as i have a lower gpa ( 3.4) and a higher mcat ( 40) coupled with very strong extracurriculars and research.

I just want to make my app as competitive as possible for a wide range of tiers including top tiers

Your clarification would be appreciated. Thank you once again.

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Submitting mid june instead of early june will not be the reason u are rejected from top tiers.
 
I mean June 14th is not much later so if you wanted to wait it wouldn't be the end of the world. That being said, I would still recommend that you submit as early as possible in June for a couple of reasons:

  • It may save you a week or more in addition to the ~14 days in processing time
  • You can usually use secondaries for any updates to schools regarding information that may not be on the AMCAS, so you can always bring up your fellowship on secondaries
  • Unless this fellowship is a HUGE deal, I doubt it will make as much of a difference as if you just applied as early as possible


Just my 2 cents
 
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i really appreciate your clarification!

i will definitely try and submit my app as early as possible. I feel that the fellowship would really help my app, thats why i want to include it.

overall, do you think my app would still be considered early enough to get the "Early advantage"? thanks again for your comments!
 
I don't understand why you can't include the fellowship when you apply in early June if you already know about it now?
 
I don't understand why you can't include the fellowship when you apply in early June if you already know about it now?


I am going to include it but wont be starting it until the second week of june; I was told that on amcas, we can only list activities that we are currently doing or have done. Since I will only be starting it on the 14th, I wanted to include the fact that I was currently doing the fellowship.

Do you think my app will still be considered early even if its submitted around then? i anticipate the processing will take a few weeks so I should be verified by early july ( as referred to by last years trend). would this be considered early still or would it just be better to submit on june 1st to erase all hassle? lol
 
I think that's fine since at least when I applied 2 years ago, I didn't even get most secondaries until the first few days of July. As far as memory serves, Chicago was the first in late June and then most came out around July 4. A few stragglers were even after July 31. Most schools will send you the secondary before you're even verified, so this won't even be a problem. The goal is to be complete at each school as early as possible, which includes verified primary app and submitted secondary app. I think conventional SDN wisdom is as long as you're complete ASAP and by the end of July if possible, you're early.

So long story short is, I think you are okay to wait and submit June 14, since you will prob be verified by July 14 at that point (what I consider a reasonable estimate) and as long as you don't hold onto your secondaries too long, you can still be complete at your schools by end of July. If the fellowship will really help your app then I think it's a good thing to add and you won't disadvantage yourself too much by being a few weeks behind. People who really have to worry are those who submit the primary in August/September and have to be verified after that.

Caveat that my experience is 2 cycles old now, and AMCAS may have drastically changed how quickly it verifies. There used to be a table/chart floating around that showed the average time to verification based on date of submission so I wouldt ry to get your hands on that if you can and see exactly when you can expect to be verified with an early June submission date vs June 14.
 
I think that's fine since at least when I applied 2 years ago, I didn't even get most secondaries until the first few days of July. As far as memory serves, Chicago was the first in late June and then most came out around July 4. A few stragglers were even after July 31. Most schools will send you the secondary before you're even verified, so this won't even be a problem. The goal is to be complete at each school as early as possible, which includes verified primary app and submitted secondary app. I think conventional SDN wisdom is as long as you're complete ASAP and by the end of July if possible, you're early.

So long story short is, I think you are okay to wait and submit June 14, since you will prob be verified by July 14 at that point (what I consider a reasonable estimate) and as long as you don't hold onto your secondaries too long, you can still be complete at your schools by end of July. If the fellowship will really help your app then I think it's a good thing to add and you won't disadvantage yourself too much by being a few weeks behind. People who really have to worry are those who submit the primary in August/September and have to be verified after that.

Caveat that my experience is 2 cycles old now, and AMCAS may have drastically changed how quickly it verifies. There used to be a table/chart floating around that showed the average time to verification based on date of submission so I wouldt ry to get your hands on that if you can and see exactly when you can expect to be verified with an early June submission date vs June 14.

OP you should submit ASAP. There was a huge delay this cycle. It took nearly a month to verify the first week of applications. Remember, this is the last cycle the regular MCAT will be provided so there will probably be a larger number of applicants this cycle too.
 
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i really appreciate your clarifications ! I will definitely submit my application as early as possible and will aim to be complete by the end of july to get the early advantage.

So i guess the unofficial rule of thumb is to submit by the first 1-2 weeks in june to get the early advantage followed by quick turnaround of secondaries?
 
i really appreciate your clarifications ! I will definitely submit my application as early as possible and will aim to be complete by the end of july to get the early advantage.

So i guess the unofficial rule of thumb is to submit by the first 1-2 weeks in june to get the early advantage followed by quick turnaround of secondaries?

This is a good plan! Besides, in my personal experience almost all schools had an optional secondary essay with the prompt "Is there anything else that you would like us to consider that you were not able to include on your AMCAS application?" This is a great place to talk about your fellowship.
 
This is a good plan! Besides, in my personal experience almost all schools had an optional secondary essay with the prompt "Is there anything else that you would like us to consider that you were not able to include on your AMCAS application?" This is a great place to talk about your fellowship.

Agree! I'm pretty sure I put my SURP on my AMCAS, which started after I submitted my application. If I recall correctly, it also tells you to list the number of "expected" hours for that activity. I don't think schools will hold it against you, especially if you include in the activity description that this is ongoing.

I also want to echo the sentiment to submit it as early as possible (and pre-write your secondaries)! The first day!

Edit: Just found this on the AMCAS instruction manual, which I guess you already read:

Medical schools want information about experiences you have begun prior to application submission; therefore, your start date must be no later than the current month.

@polyploidy516 , If you are submitting June, and the fellowship starts in June, seems like you have fulfilled that requirement!
 
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