AMCAS Verification Times 2014-2015

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jared_the_great

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I posted this in the official verification thread, but with hundreds of lines of text per post in that thread, it's unlikely to be noticed by too many.

Here is the graph of submission date vs verification time for this year (spreadsheet here). I am keeping the data updated as new posts are made in the verification thread. This graph is dynamically linked to the graph in Google Docs, so as data is entered in the spreadsheet, this post should stay current.

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--EDIT July 08, 2014--
Here is the same chart, but only counting business days, and including a linear trend line as well.

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--END EDIT--

For comparison's sake, here is a graph that user Runican made from last year's SDN thread.

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And here are the graphs from AMCAS for verification times for the last four years. I notice that for last year and the year before they made it business days rather than just days. I wonder if that was to minimize the difference from prior years?

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Hope this helps someone. I know I always appreciate having access to solid, well-organized data.

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This is great! I did notice that the official amcas verification times seem way shorter than this years verification time. I was ready for review 13 or 14 days ago and I'm still not verified. Everything else seems great tho
 
Looks great. I'll post the spreadsheet from last year when I get home from work in case anyone is interested in comparing directly between the years. It looks like they're going faster this year!
 
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This is great! I did notice that the official amcas verification times seem way shorter than this years verification time. I was ready for review 13 or 14 days ago and I'm still not verified. Everything else seems great tho

At least this year's times aren't nearly as bad as last year's. I wonder if AMCAS will ever publish an official graph including 2013 verification times, or if they're too ashamed to officially own up to it.
 
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See below for excel file.
 
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At least this year's times aren't nearly as bad as last year's. I wonder if AMCAS will ever publish an official graph including 2013 verification times, or if they're too ashamed to officially own up to it.

Probably not. They TOTALLY dropped the ball last year. I submitted on 7/23 because I knew my MCAT score wouldn't be released until 8/13. I had seen the charts in your first post for 2011 and 2012, so I thought I'd have no problem getting verified by 8/13. It ended up taking almost 2 months and I wasn't verified until SEPTEMBER 12!

In the end it worked out for me, but it made the process so much most stressful than it should have been. :(
 
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Here is the 2013-2014 file in excel format.
 

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  • AMCAS.xlsx
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Wow... SO much faster this year. It seems in that case like submitting early isn't nearly as big an advantage this year as last year, perhaps? I wonder why it's faster. More staff?
 
I just updated the OP with official graphs for the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 application years, as well as a more complete version of Runican's graph.

In these FAQ's, they specifically talk about preventing last year's backlog:

AAMC said:
Are you taking any steps to prevent the verification back-up we experienced last cycle?

We have hired additional staff and aim to keep application turnaround within six weeks for the 2015 cycle. However, verification times depend heavily on the number of applications we receive and when they come in, so we cannot preclude any or all verification delays for the upcoming cycle.

They're trying to keep it to within six weeks. That's still a really long time to wait. Sheesh.
 
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I just updated the OP with official graphs for the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 application years, as well as a more complete version of Runican's graph.

In these FAQ's, they specifically talk about preventing last year's backlog:



They're trying to keep it to within six weeks. That's still a really long time to wait. Sheesh.
I'm sorry for the bother, but based on the trends that are present in your data, how long do you think it would take for an application submitted on July 15 would take? Perhaps 30-40 days?
 
I'm sorry for the bother, but based on the trends that are present in your data, how long do you think it would take for an application submitted on July 15 would take? Perhaps 30-40 days?
Based on the current data, and trends from previous years, it looks like the time for verification generally increases almost linearly until at least the beginning of August. That being the case, if we plot business days till verification for the current cycle so far, exclude submissions on June 3, and extrapolate out linearly, you're looking at about 27 business days or 5 weeks for verification if you submit July 15.
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I've added a new graph in the OP, as well as a few columns to the spreadsheet, including a forecast verification date for everyone who has added their submission date to the verification thread.
 
Looks like it might be leveling off already. Have we hit the top at about three weeks for verification?

If a greater percentage are applying so much earlier, and if they have so much more staff than previous years in order to handle that, then it makes sense that we would hit the maximum verification time much earlier than previous years.
 
Looks like it might be leveling off already. Have we hit the top at about three weeks for verification?

If a greater percentage are applying so much earlier, and if they have so much more staff than previous years in order to handle that, then it makes sense that we would hit the maximum verification time much earlier than previous years.
Maybe, could it be that also means the number of applicants is decreasing? After all the changes and stress, time, and expense inherent in the medical health field today, some are choosing another vocation. I haven't looked at your raw numbers, but have you predicted that's leveling off too?
 
Maybe, could it be that also means the number of applicants is decreasing? After all the changes and stress, time, and expense inherent in the medical health field today, some are choosing another vocation. I haven't looked at your raw numbers, but have you predicted that's leveling off too?
I believe that the number of applicants may now begin decreasing, but not because people are choosing a different path. It's simply demographics. The post-WWII baby boom in the US produced a "baby echo" when they reached child-bearing age. That baby echo reached its peak when 4,179,000 babies were born in the US in 1990, and the number has been on a downhill slope ever since. The babies of 1990 graduated high school around 2008, college around 2012-2013, and we may indeed experience a gradual downward trend in applications to grad schools now as a result.
 
It definitely looks like they hit the max and it's slowly coming back down now. I divided the linearly trend at July 28 where verification time maxed out at 18 business days.
 
Due to several reasons, I didn't submit until August 5. Do you guys think I'm way behind now in the application cycle based on how long it will probably take to get verified???? I'm worried!
 
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