2017-2018 Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM)

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Does everyone's LOR show as up to date? One of my letters show as received but my some of the others are not showing up on the summary page. It was sent a little bit later than the letter that is already on-file.

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Does everyone's LOR show as up to date? One of my letters show as received but my some of the others are not showing up on the summary page. It was sent a little bit later than the letter that is already on-file.

As per our website:
  • Your Online Application Summary (portal login sent via email upon receipt of application) will not list each letter received. Rather, those listed will only reflect those that will help satisfy the Letter of Recommendation requirement. The PreHealth letter will remain required until received OR all three faculty letters have been received.
The best place to go to answer most of your questions about our application process is Osteopathic Medicine Application Requirements
 
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As per our website:
  • Your Online Application Summary (portal login sent via email upon receipt of application) will not list each letter received. Rather, those listed will only reflect those that will help satisfy the Letter of Recommendation requirement. The PreHealth letter will remain required until received OR all three faculty letters have been received.
The best place to go to answer most of your questions about our application process is Osteopathic Medicine Application Requirements
But only one of my letters has shown up so far ( I sent all the letters needed to satisfy the requirement.. 3 faculty and an extra from a physician).. It says " Letter of Rec- Sci Faculty 1", but I submitted 3 faculty letters as instructed. Is this something to worry about, or is each letter just reviewed and uploaded separately? @PCOM Admissions
 
Is anyone still waiting on their LORs to be received? Been ~ 10 business days since I submitted my primary, so just wondering if anyone else is in the same boat as me.
 
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Is anyone still waiting on their LORs to be received? Been ~ 10 business days since I submitted my primary, so just wondering if anyone else is in the same boat as me.
They just received mine today and I submitted my secondary on 7/8!
 
Secondary submitted and processed......but my letters are not showing as complete? they were sent with AACOMAS........
 
Just got an email that my secondary was processed as well. All my materials were marked as received so that's nice :), but the wording of the email was confusing to me: do I need to pay another fee of $75 in addition to the first $75 I paid w/ my secondary for a total of $150, or am I reading it wrong and it's just a one time fee of $75?
 
Just got an email that my secondary was processed as well. All my materials were marked as received so that's nice :), but the wording of the email was confusing to me: do I need to pay another fee of $75 in addition to the first $75 I paid w/ my secondary for a total of $150, or am I reading it wrong and it's just a one time fee of $75?
No just once

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Did it show that your supplemental was received right after you submitted it? I submitted two days ago and it is still blank next to the spot for supplemental app? It shows my payment received though. I'm worried it didn't get submitted correctly.
 
Did it show that your supplemental was received right after you submitted it? I submitted two days ago and it is still blank next to the spot for supplemental app? It shows my payment received though. I'm worried it didn't get submitted correctly.
Same thing happened to me...it takes a few days!
 
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Has anyone else still not received a secondary?
 
Did it show that your supplemental was received right after you submitted it? I submitted two days ago and it is still blank next to the spot for supplemental app? It shows my payment received though. I'm worried it didn't get submitted correctly.
yea i submitted mine on the 11th and it's still empty. but everything else is filled in for me. so idk.
 
Heads up for anyone that has a fee waiver, I just submitted my request to have my secondary fee waived and I received a response saying it will take a minimum of 15 business days to process fee waivers and they won't consider your application complete until it is waived. So if you have a fee waiver, submit that request ASAP. Sucks for the delay, but thankfully it's still super early in the cycle.
 
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Heads up for anyone that has a fee waiver, I just submitted my request to have my secondary fee waived and I received a response saying it will take a minimum of 15 business days to process fee waivers and they won't consider your application complete until it is waived. So if you have a fee waiver, submit that request ASAP. Sucks for the delay, but thankfully it's still super early in the cycle.

Yeah they are taking a long time with getting mine waived. I have come to the conclusion that if everything is in before they waive my fee, I will go ahead and submit the app anyways.
 
Yeah they are taking a long time with getting mine waived. I have come to the conclusion that if everything is in before they waive my fee, I will go ahead and submit the app anyways.
I just went ahead and submitted since the payment is on a different link than the actual application, and I had my essay typed and ready to go. I really didn't see any indication that you have to wait for the waiver approval to submit.
 
Secondary submitted and complete, anyone know how long before they start sending out IIs? I'm a PA resident and live in Philly so really hoping to hear back from PCOM
 
Are we supposed to get an email from PCOM saying we are complete or do we just check our status on our portal?
 
Are we supposed to get an email from PCOM saying we are complete or do we just check our status on our portal?
You should get an email when you are up to date. Mine took a few days to come in
 
Mine says everything is received a week ago but I have not received any complete email yet. Is it normal? How long does it take for you guys to receive the complete email?
 
Mine says everything is received a week ago but I have not received any complete email yet. Is it normal? How long does it take for you guys to receive the complete email?
There is no complete email, that's why they give you access to the portal. Once all your items in the portal are marked as received, then you are considered complete.
 
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I am little confused. Few posters above said that I should get a complete email when everything is received. So we do not get any email?
 
I am little confused. Few posters above said that I should get a complete email when everything is received. So we do not get any email?
Correct there is no email. The PCOM Admissions office has posted on this thread and previous year threads and said that many times.
 
This school is ice cold. I'm a few years removed from undergrad and I emailed them asking if a LOR from a DO I extensively shadowed could be substituted for that 3rd non-science LOR. They wrote me back a one sentence email, unsigned, stating they would ignore my application if I didn't have the exact LORs required. Bummer, I really wanted to apply here. Every other school I wrote to sent me a nice email back acknowledging my circumstances and most of them were flexible, and all of them gave me a number to call if I had more questions.
 
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This school is ice cold. I'm a few years removed from undergrad and I emailed them asking if a LOR from a DO I extensively shadowed could be substituted for that 3rd non-science LOR. They wrote me back a one sentence email, unsigned, stating they would ignore my application if I didn't have the exact LORs required. Bummer, I really wanted to apply here. Every other school I wrote to sent me a nice email back acknowledging my circumstances and most of them were flexible, and all of them gave me a number to call if I had more questions.
I think this is a more of a "how interested are you in us" thing. If you really want to attend a school, you should research their requirements before applying, not send in a hasty email post-application saying "oops, I don't meet your requirements. please change them for me because I'm special".

Not to be harsh, but that's just not how the real world works. It's not like the letter requirements are obscure, they're posted on their website. Do research before, get your LORs together, and apply. They could've been nicer in their email to you, but I don't really blame them for not changing their requirements. If they change them for you, they have to change them for everyone else.
 
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I think this is a more of a "how interested are you in us" thing. If you really want to attend a school, you should research their requirements before applying, not send in a hasty email post-application saying "oops, I don't meet your requirements. please change them for me because I'm special".

Not to be harsh, but that's just not how the real world works. It's not like the letter requirements are obscure, they're posted on their website. Do research before, get your LORs together, and apply. They could've been nicer in their email to you, but I don't really blame them for not changing their requirements. If they change them for you, they have to change them for everyone else.

I did research before applying, hence why I emailed them. This wasn't a post-application "please change your requirements for me" email. I think you missed the point of my post, which was not a serious jab, more of a "dang, wish I could have applied here." I just found it kind of strange/curt to send a one-sentence email, no signature, telling me to buzz off. Literally every other school response was along the lines of "Hey, thanks so much for your interest, we understand your predicament..." sort of thing. I'm 5 years removed from college, so going back and getting another faculty letter is more or less impossible at this point unless I want to enroll back in undergrad. Considering only 2 of the 25 schools I applied to weren't flexible on this, I'll just stay the course.
 
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I did research before applying, hence why I emailed them. I think you missed the point of my post, which was not a serious jab, more of a "dang, wish I could have applied here." I just found it kind of strange/curt to send a one-sentence email, no signature, telling me to buzz off. Literally every other school response was along the lines of "Hey, thanks so much for your interest, we understand your predicament..." sort of thing. I'm 5 years removed from college, so going back and getting another faculty letter is more or less impossible at this point unless I want to enroll back in undergrad. Considering only 2 of the 25 schools I applied to weren't flexible on this, I'll just stay the course.

My motto in life is "it's not that hard to be a decent person." And I made that clear in most of the secondaries that I had submitted. It doesn't take much effort to write a courteous email no matter the situation. It says a lot about how the admissions committee sees their applicants.
 
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I did research before applying, hence why I emailed them. This wasn't a post-application "please change your requirements for me" email. I think you missed the point of my post, which was not a serious jab, more of a "dang, wish I could have applied here." I just found it kind of strange/curt to send a one-sentence email, no signature, telling me to buzz off. Literally every other school response was along the lines of "Hey, thanks so much for your interest, we understand your predicament..." sort of thing. I'm 5 years removed from college, so going back and getting another faculty letter is more or less impossible at this point unless I want to enroll back in undergrad. Considering only 2 of the 25 schools I applied to weren't flexible on this, I'll just stay the course.
I agree they should have been nicer in their response. Again, I didn't mean to come off as harsh, I just always see these posts like "oh I sent in my secondary and I just realized their LOR requirement, do you think they'll change it for me?" and it just doesn't make sense to me. Sorry if I misunderstood your post-- I thought you had emailed after applying.

I think unfortunately, the admissions process is so competitive that they look for any reason to cut down on the amount of apps they have to review. Particularly for PCOM, which gets so many apps each year. It sucks that they didn't take the time to understand your situation, but I'm sure you'll get in somewhere fantastic! Good luck :)
 
My motto in life is "it's not that hard to be a decent person." And I made that clear in most of the secondaries that I had submitted. It doesn't take much effort to write a courteous email no matter the situation. It says a lot about how the admissions community sees their applicants.

Yeah, I completely agree. After receiving that email, I was fairly turned off to the school. I've been working post-college for ~5 years now in the professional world and I don't think I've ever received an unsigned email like that even once. Seems really unprofessional to me. Just my $0.02. Great school otherwise and I would have liked the chance to apply, but such is life. Good luck to everyone that has the opportunity!
 
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When did they start giving out IIs last year?
 
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This school is ice cold. I'm a few years removed from undergrad and I emailed them asking if a LOR from a DO I extensively shadowed could be substituted for that 3rd non-science LOR. They wrote me back a one sentence email, unsigned, stating they would ignore my application if I didn't have the exact LORs required. Bummer, I really wanted to apply here. Every other school I wrote to sent me a nice email back acknowledging my circumstances and most of them were flexible, and all of them gave me a number to call if I had more questions.

I'm also non-trad, and I've had several bad experiences with speaking with them on the phone as well. They straight up do not want to answer my questions. I am actually foregoing PCOM purely because of the experiences I've had with their staff so far, I cannot imagine 4 more years of it.

It's a shame because I feel like they are weeding off some really amazing people. Yes, PCOM is already a great school, but there lots of great schools out there with staff who are patient and want to see you succeed.

Edit: it would've been different if they actually listened to my question and responded nicely. I would have understood if they had to set their foot down, and I would have made adjustments on my end accordingly.
 
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I agree they should have been nicer in their response. Again, I didn't mean to come off as harsh, I just always see these posts like "oh I sent in my secondary and I just realized their LOR requirement, do you think they'll change it for me?" and it just doesn't make sense to me. Sorry if I misunderstood your post-- I thought you had emailed after applying.

I think unfortunately, the admissions process is so competitive that they look for any reason to cut down on the amount of apps they have to review. Particularly for PCOM, which gets so many apps each year. It sucks that they didn't take the time to understand your situation, but I'm sure you'll get in somewhere fantastic! Good luck :)

Yeah, I am also beginning to wonder if this is a tactic used to weed people out. But what kind of people are they weeding out by being unkind? A lot of wonderful, world-changing people do not tolerate this type of BS.
 
Yeah, I am also beginning to wonder if this is a tactic used to weed people out. But what kind of people are they weeding out by being unkind? A lot of wonderful, world-changing people do not tolerate this type of BS.
One of the MD schools I applied to and submitted a secondary to has a policy to not review any files if all of the pre-reqs are not complete. There is literally no other school that does this-- when I posted about it on these forums, adcoms like gyngyn thought I had to be mistaken.

When I received the secondary, there was a list of points on the top of the screen. Do not apply if not a permanent U.S. resident, etc etc. Nowhere on that page did they mention this strange pre-req rule. Silly me spent a good amount of time on the secondary, submitted, and paid the $85 fee.

When I emailed them after noticing the pre-req requirement on their website, I also got a curt, one sentence response: "Yes, that is correct. We will not review your file if pre-reqs are not complete." There is no logical explanation for this, except to cut down on applicants. It sucks, but like you and @vin5cent0 said, I don't want to attend a school that is rude and tries to weed out otherwise perfectly eligible applicants. I don't know why these schools feel the need to be unkind in their responses to us, especially considering how draining they know this process is. I want to be at a school that supports me and wants to help me succeed. I have not had any personal communication with PCOM, but I will definitely be paying attention now.
 
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But only one of my letters has shown up so far ( I sent all the letters needed to satisfy the requirement.. 3 faculty and an extra from a physician).. It says " Letter of Rec- Sci Faculty 1", but I submitted 3 faculty letters as instructed. Is this something to worry about, or is each letter just reviewed and uploaded separately? @PCOM Admissions

It could be that your other LORs were not available at the time of upload from AACOMAS. Double check your AACOMAS portal and make sure all letters are now processed... then send an email to [email protected] to ask to have the others uploaded. We cannot keep checking for your items in the portal due to volume. The acknowledgment email instructs you to email us if new letters become available.
 
Yeah they are taking a long time with getting mine waived. I have come to the conclusion that if everything is in before they waive my fee, I will go ahead and submit the app anyways.

There is no need to wait to complete the supplemental. We will process supplementals as received regardless of fees received. LORs are not processed until after the fee is either paid or waived.
 
Mine says everything is received a week ago but I have not received any complete email yet. Is it normal? How long does it take for you guys to receive the complete email?

Hi - we don't send emails notifying candidates of completion. You can check your PCOM portal and note that if all required items have a received date, you are in the queue to be reviewed by the Committee.
 
It could be that your other LORs were not available at the time of upload from AACOMAS. Double check your AACOMAS portal and make sure all letters are now processed... then send an email to [email protected] to ask to have the others uploaded. We cannot keep checking for your items in the portal due to volume. The acknowledgment email instructs you to email us if new letters become available.
Thank you, I will check. But I was wondering, since it says on your website that you cannot confirm receipt of materials via email or phone, how do I figure out if the reason my letters aren't showing up is due to them not fulfilling the requirements. Since the letters are confidential I have no way of knowing if they were formatted correctly with letterhead, signatures, and class number. If I call admissions will they be able to tell me what the specific issue is? @PCOM Admissions
 
Good afternoon from sunny Philadelphia.

We just wanted to make sure that those of you who received a message notifying that your application is incomplete - but never received an application acknowledgement email should first check their SPAM filter then email [email protected] to let us know that it wasn't received. We had an issue with our email server when we begun sending the acknowledgment messages and then resent them to ensure that everyone received it. For some reason, some candidates did not get the second submission. We want to ensure that you have access to the instructions and the supplemental application for each campus.

Additionally, I am sure that you can understand that the admissions staff is working hard to process all of the documents received from our valued candidates. We do our best to process applications swiftly and accurately and appreciate when candidates give us time to do the work, check their portals regularly and notify us when the timeline we ask for (15 business days) has passed.

We thank you for your interest and your patience and wish you all the best in the application process.
 
Thank you, I will check. But I was wondering, since it says on your website that you cannot confirm receipt of materials via email or phone, how do I figure out if the reason my letters aren't showing up is due to them not fulfilling the requirements. Since the letters are confidential I have no way of knowing if they were formatted correctly with letterhead, signatures, and class number. If I call admissions will they be able to tell me what the specific issue is? @PCOM Admissions

Hi - that's a great question. Thanks for posing it. If we see that a letter required was submitted incorrectly (no letter head, etc.) then you will see the letter listed at the bottom portion of your application checklist with an annotation indicating what the issue is for that specific letter. If a letter is sent that is not required, we do not post those to the portal. We simply get too many letters per candidate to label every one in our portal.
 
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@PCOM Admissions
Thank you for the clarification. I just have a small question. On my transcripts,it does not specifically listed that I had taken lab for General Biology, General Chem etc, however, the credit was high (4 and 5 credits for these 101 class). On my primary application, under academic history, the AACOMAS listed these class as "lecture only". This was incorrect, and they cannot fix it since my app were verified, so they advised me to contact school for this issue. I have sent a update letter to PCOM but the admission got back to me and said "no additional update is being reviewed." Is this something I should concern and call the admission? Or you will look at my credit and know that the lab were taken?

Thank you again
 
@PCOM Admissions
Thank you for the clarification. I just have a small question. On my transcripts,it does not specifically listed that I had taken lab for General Biology, General Chem etc, however, the credit was high (4 and 5 credits for these 101 class). On my primary application, under academic history, the AACOMAS listed these class as "lecture only". This was incorrect, and they cannot fix it since my app were verified, so they advised me to contact school for this issue. I have sent a update letter to PCOM but the admission got back to me and said "no additional update is being reviewed." Is this something I should concern and call the admission? Or you will look at my credit and know that the lab were taken?

Thank you again
Same thing happened to me actually...except AACOMAS said it was my mistake and they would not fix it. And I definitely did not enter 5 classes incorrectly into my transcript. Kinda frustrating that AACOMAS can't fix their own mistake.
 
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