AMCAS: Re-taking MCAT option, to check or not to check?

Regardless of the box that you check, many schools will send you their secondaries as soon as your AMCAS app is verified. However if you check that you are retaking the MCAT, then these schools will not review your app or send you interview invites until the second set of scores come in (regardless of the score on the first exam).

There are also schools that screen before they send out their secondary (i.e. Wake Forest). If you check the retaking the MCAT box, then they will not even screen you/ send out their secondary until your second set of scores are in.

I have heard that if you check the not retaking box and then decide to retake the MCAT, you can contact the schools directly and alert them. However once again they will not consider you until the new set of scores are in.

Your obviously have a better chance of getting in if your materials go through the process earlier. Therefore it is probably beneficial for you to not check the retaking box and hope that you do well on your July MCAT. Good luck. Hope this helped.

If you did not check the box and then did poorly on your July MCAT, calling the university directly could stop them from reviewing the application and pre-screening screening you until after your August scores come in, possibly helping you to avoid rejection.

However if you did well on the later MCAT, it is not uncommon for people to send in supplemental letters to the schools in an attempt to pad your resume and receive interviews. The risk in this method is that if you submit your AMCAS without checking the retaking the MCAT box, receive and submit secondaries, and then take another MCAT and do well, the school may have already made its decision about your app. (based on the July MCAT score) and sent out a rejection letter before you got your new/ better schools.

I ran into the same issue in the 2007 cycle (I am a reapplicant - check my mdapplicant profile). Many schools will not official reject you until May, however some will send out the rejection letters very early on in the process. It is definitely a balancing act.

You do not need the LORs to complete, submit, and verify your primary app. However you will need them and your completed secondaries to go any further. Therefore your LORs should be in at around the time that you will be submitting your secondaries.

I will have to defer the number of LOR question to someone else on here because at Hopkins we have a different process. I had 2 science, 2 non-science, and one doctor letter. However then I met with a committee member who interviews me and writes a letter of support for me that includes highlights from the LORs. This letter along with the original LORs is then submitted to the schools.

My committee member could not meet with me until the middle of the summer and then took forever to write the letter. Therefore I had my secondaries finished but my letter did not get mailed out until October.