Med School Application Timing

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msoccer

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What is considered applying early in the cycle, is late June still considered early?

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You should ideally have everything ready to submit as soon as they allow submissions.
 
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The only thing that should possibly be holding you back from submitting as soon as it opens at the beginning of June, is your MCAT.
 
Applying early would be submitting the primary AMCAS application within the first two weeks or so after AMCAS opens for submission, but you would still be fine if you submitted by the end of June. The number of submitted primary AMCAS applications increases exponentially as the cycle proceeds from mid/end of June until the end of July/early August or so. That leads to a significantly longer wait time for the verification process the later you submit in the cycle.

Submitting at the end of June would be ok, but I would do your best to submit as early as possible.
 
Comittee letter

I believe you can still submit your app for verification and the letter will automatically upload as soon as it's received. In the meantime, start prewriting your secondaries so can you be ready to submit as soon as you receive them.
 
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If you are referring to the committee letter, AMCAS letter service is a separate process from application verification. One will have no impact on the other in timing.

But this "Early or Die" mentality is way overblown. To refresh the timeline reality

(2017 timeline posting counter #011)
-AMCAS Opens May 3rd, 2016 for entering data and requesting transcripts
-AMCAS primary can be submitted June 7th, 2016 in order to start the verification process
-AMCAS doesnt start transmitting verified applications until June 24th (though some schools have secondaries sent to contact info upon submission to AMCAS)
-Most Primary Apps are transmitted early July thru late August
-Letters via AMCAS are processed/transmitted separately from primary
-Letters can be added after primary has been submitted and transmitted and are mostly not needed until secondary reviews at the earliest
-Most adcoms dont start meeting for review until at least mid-August, more likely September (though adcom staff may be doing early reviews).
-Submitting Primary Application June is Early, July Medium, August Late
-Having Primary verified and transmitted to school by end of August is normal speed
-Having Secondary and all LORs complete to school by end of September is normal speed, by end of October is about late.

Thanks for this! Could you clarify on how this timeline would be different for Texas schools? If you could post something similar for TMDSAS, that would be great!
 
But this "Early or Die" mentality is way overblown. To refresh the timeline reality

We're all a little Type A deep down inside, we embrace it lol
 
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Will adcoms still review your primary application & LORs before you send in your secondaries? Or do they wait until you complete the secondaries to review your whole application?
 
Will adcoms still review your primary application & LORs before you send in your secondaries? Or do they wait until you complete the secondaries to review your whole application?

Most schools will auto-send their secondaries and won't review your application at all until you've submitted your secondary. Conversely, some schools will pre-screen your app before they send a secondary but you're never wholly considered for candidacy just based on the primary.
 
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Will adcoms still review your primary application & LORs before you send in your secondaries? Or do they wait until you complete the secondaries to review your whole application?
Do you mean do schools look at your application before you've submitted everything (secondaries)? If so, I would say yes. Some schools give a quick turnaround with II invites which leads me to believe that they may look at some candidates applications before the candidates submit their secondaries. But, this depends on the school and the candidate in question.
 
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Adcoms may not review in a linear manner. High achieving "superstars," applicants from associated UG institutions, linked programs, EDP, known feeder schools, URMs, children of alumni, and others may be reviewed first. When AMCAS processes your application, each school you choose is "notified" and a "file" is created for you (all automated of course). Then you will have a "preliminary" screen, usually GPAs and MCATs that may take into account grade trends, credit weights, MCAT subscores, weighting of postbacc, etc as well as some of the other factors I noted previously, which may "flag" certain applications for prioritize screening, This is usually followed by an "initial" screen by a human, either adcom staff or adcom reader, which may be looking for some of the factors I have mentioned above. While these will, at times, get applicants on II very early, with the majority of secondaries being sent out either pre-transmission, unscreened, or a simple "cut-off" screen, it is a small minority of applicants.

In sum, just because you get all your stuff in first, doesnt mean you will get reviewed first
That's why I really think that it depends on the school and the candidate. I don't think a quick turnaround is the norm, but it could happen in some instances.
 
Thanks for the info. I'm sitting for the July 9th MCAT so my application surely won't be the first one. I'll be pre-writing secondaries and can hopefully be complete at schools by mid-August.
 
wasnt trying to correct, just trying to be more nuanced on how things work
Oh, I was agreeing with you. Thanks for the insight on the process.
 
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