Why would they leave the deadlines around november if you had to submit by the end of august to get in? I have to believe that makes sense, it is becoming obvious to me that submitting mid september is not good but i cant believe it screws you
I think it's required by AMCAS. There's also the receipt of money, the fact some people apply around that time with 40+ on the MCAT and get into the express lane, and all the schools with nonrolling admissions.
Great attitude! I'm going to think like that and hope my prayers are answered 🙂
👍
Were applying for entry into a profession which strives to help the downtrodden...hopefully adcoms follow their own selection process for motivations, i may be wrong but i felt paying x dollars was worth it if i had a fair shot, seems wrong if its pay x dollars by y date or just pay for nothing
They don't, not really. Schools want the most competitive applicants they can (even those that pride themselves on student bodies with a wide range of experiences/scores - though UCSF seems to adhere very well to that mission), and it seems they're increasingly going to do whatever it takes to get them. Cornell (a non-rolling school)'s sending a "You'll hear good news next spring! *wink wink" e-mail kindof makes this obvious.
Medical schools owe you nothing. This is a competition, not a charity case. Some schools are more receptive to later applications, but most are first come, first serve. If you're not informed enough to get your materials in at a competitive date, they'll have no problem taking your money and rejecting you if their seats are already filled with competitive applicants.
Cold, hard, reality.
And this is fine, for the schools that say they do this. It's rather disingenuous at the schools who've given out more than half their acceptances already that say everyone has an equal shot at admission, though.
Also, the idea that people who submit later are "uninformed" is poor. Outside of SDN, there's little reason to expect that applying early is not advantageous but, for the most part, necessary, and assuming all applicants get on SDN is problematic.
Hell, people who study abroad - something adcoms encourage and nontrads may do - may be in a country where the MCAT isn't offered until late June.
AMCAS has a monopoly on the service, but for some reason in medicine monopolies and the like are A-OK. You talk of capitalism, but if it was capitalist there would be real competition. Nonetheless, it is what it is, and whining won't change it.
You're allowed to spend money as you see fit, that's the wonderful thing about the United States capitalist ideal. Use your money wisely, know what you're getting yourself into and what is the best cost:benefit for you.
This whole process is about filling in check boxes. If you want to get in, follow the boxes. Not doing so is only going to hinder your chances.
This is my biggest problem with the process. People complain about the results of the system (burnt out physicians, less-than-hoped compassion in graduating physicians) and the organization adds more checkboxes. People may defend to the grave adding more social sciences to the MCAT, but to me it smacks of rebooting all the study materials and driving a fair bit of industry. I would argue that turning medical school applications into a huge checklist, and over-relying on the MCAT to determine your class because reasons (I have trouble believing there's a radical ability difference between someone with a 38 and 42, but they'll have different seasons), does more harm than good.
I don't think how early or late you are as an applicant should play as large a factor it seems to, and I agree that its disingenuous to leave the applicant window open until September if you're aware an applicant who may have been competitive in June won't have a snowball's chance in hell then. But, as was said, it's about economics, not about what makes everyone feel good.
Buuuuut that's how it is. Play the game and naively hope the next step in the process might be different.
Edit: This is, of course, missing the part where how early to apply is quite unapparent due to the variable "when it's done, it's done" AMCAS review process. A difference of submitting 5 days later can turn into nearly a month of lag time down the road. For an organization that spends so much time focused on standardizing things, it's interesting to me that the timeframe of applications isn't standardized. (ie. open the window in May, say all applications will be approved/made available in 6 weeks from submission date, adhere to that).
