First week of July Primary AMCAS submission/late committee letters hypothetical scenario

[BowlOfAppleJacks]

I am a student with high stats and very strong EC and research. I genuinely think I can get into a T5. How much at all will submitting in early July affect me for top schools, mid-tier schools, etc. (any specific school examples)? I've seen previous posts, but have heard conflicting advice and not sure if there's official Adcom opinions on this, as some people still give anecdotes that they believe it hurt their cycle which scares me. I was wondering if someone could tell me objectively if there is an even a slight effect (assuming I prewrite secondaries and get them done by August 4-15) for top students, or if top schools generally are really non-rolling admissions? Kinda worried I messed up an optimal application.

Another concern I have is being delayed by committee letter timing. Is there any general word on what happens if committee letters delay an app being complete. If a student instead just submits individual letters, with explanation of a delay, is that a negative thing for top schools?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[VaultArmitage]

Schools won't review your application until it's complete. Obviously, being complete earlier is usually better because your application will get reviewed earlier when there's more open interview spots.

Being complete by August 4 - 15 (including letters of rec) probably won't hurt a ton if you have high stats. The bulk of interviews are sent in sept/October (at least in past years) and generally schools stratify applications and review them based on in-house criteria (i.e. a high stat later app might be reviewed before an earlier low stat app) to maximize their chances of snagging top applicants. I will say that one of my interviews was early August and the rest were sept/oct.

I always support shooting for the top school you can land in but it's important to keep in mind that top schools may only admit 20-30 students to fill the small MD/PhD cohort. @Fencer has some wonderful advice about how to craft a good school list

 

[Fencer]

Agree with above. One more piece of advice... If you had submitted in June, I will say apply to 5 MD/PhD programs, once verified the automatic trigger for secondary applications appears into your Inbox, every week add 5 more schools (which appears in our portal within an hour) triggering more secondary applications. In this manner, you are able to spread out the Secondary applications are you are more thoughtful in your replies as you have more time (i.e.: including names of potential PhD mentors, checking their training, publication and funding track-records, etc.). Given an application in July, you could still do this but in a slightly compressed manner (twice a week - M/Th). We are not going to start review until after our National MD/PhD meeting & NIH GP Fair.

 

[BowlOfAppleJacks]

Agree with above. One more piece of advice... If you had submitted in June, I will say apply to 5 MD/PhD programs, once verified the automatic trigger for secondary applications appears into your Inbox, every week add 5 more schools (which appears in our portal within an hour) triggering more secondary applications. In this manner, you are able to spread out the Secondary applications are you are more thoughtful in your replies as you have more time (i.e.: including names of potential PhD mentors, checking their training, publication and funding track-records, etc.). Given an application in July, you could still do this but in a slightly compressed manner (twice a week - M/Th). We are not going to start review until after our National MD/PhD meeting & NIH GP Fair.

Dear Fencer, thank you! Would this apply to June submissions such as June 30?

 

[Fencer]

The bottleneck is the verification time which tends to be around 4-6 weeks and has been as high on average as almost 8 weeks in prior cycles. AMCAS was very responsive in our prior cycle with rapid verification times. You can examine their twitter account which shows them. Perhaps, it would be a nice data project for one of you.... Most programs begin reviewing application process typically around July 15 but some until early August. You could add that question as you meet PDs (in-person/virtually) at the NIH GP Fair.
In my program, we keep all applications in the pool and we select about a dozen for an interview every month. So that if your application is reviewed in Sept., you only missed one (or possibly two) out of eight possibilities.