A few questions/concerns

[kate12345]

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Hi everyone, I have a few questions regarding medical school admissions that I was hoping someone here would be able to help me with.

1. I will probably submit my AMCAS by the end of this week...is this still early enough to be considered in the first rounds of secondary/interview offers by medical schools? (I know there's not much I can do about this now, but I'm just curious/paranoid 🙂 )

2. The personal statement...I'm talking about how initially my interest in medicine was just because of the science/logic of it, but that after working in the hospital, I've learned that medicine is as much about treating people as individuals, communicating, etc, and that this is what is to me the challenge/reward of medicine. I know it's important to be original, but this is really what motivates me...I'm just having trouble making it fun/unique. Has anyone had a similar problem with their personal statement seeming unoriginal or cheesy?

3. About half the schools that I'm applying to are top 20 schools, but I'm not sure if I have a good chance of getting into these places....my gpa is about 3.85 for science and for non-science, I've worked for 3 years in a hospital, have some other activities, like tutoring and music stuff, and am taking a year off to work at the NIH, but my MCAT is only 30S. Am I wasting my money to apply to places like Harvard/Stanford/etc? I expect my recommendations to be good from some people and very strong from others. I don't know about my personal statement (see question above 🙂 )

4. This is the last one.....I know how important it is to get AMCAS in early, but fewer people have talked about getting secondaries in early. I'm assuming the same principle holds for secondaries as for AMCAS, right?

Thank you so much for all your help....I really appreciate you taking time to answer my stupid questions!!! 🙂

 

[bewitched1081]

the personal statement may not be as important as you think it is. at some schools it might be very important but my impression was that if you just stated some cliche reasons for going into medicine then it would be fine. sounds boring, but most med schools just seem to want the same types of students. so dont worry about it too much. just do your best. i think with applying to the top 20 schools you should look into columbia. their mission statement sounds awesome and they say that sometimes they make exceptions for students that may be weak in one part of their applications. if you want to be early, then be early in everything. last year i submitted my amcas and secondaries way early and scheduled my interviews late (ie during breaks) so that i wouldnt have to miss class. taking my interviews late basically defeated the whole point of turning everything else in early.

 

[Xandie]

1. I will probably submit my AMCAS by the end of this week...is this still early enough to be considered in the first rounds of secondary/interview offers by medical schools? (I know there's not much I can do about this now, but I'm just curious/paranoid 🙂 )

4. This is the last one.....I know how important it is to get AMCAS in early, but fewer people have talked about getting secondaries in early. I'm assuming the same principle holds for secondaries as for AMCAS, right?

Yes, you're still early. I submitted my AMCAS at the end of June, and my secondaries as soon as possible, and was done interviewing in early October.
For some secondaries, you can take forever, but for others, they'll have a time limit so you have to get them in anyway.

 

[kate12345]

Thanks a lot for all your replies! I have just two more questions if you don't mind. First, what are considered middle tier schools? Would that be like schools below top 50 or what? Second, for AMCAS, if you've been doing something since like elementary school, like playing a sport/musical instrument or whatever, should you put the date you started or the beginning of college? For example, if I started in the third grade, should I put 1990 or the earliest "post-secondary" date, June 2000? thanks again!

 

[mikedc813]

I would consider middle tier schools schools somewhere in the 25-50 range. Rankings don't mean a whole lot, so the range isn't definite. But I'd say the top 1-20 or 1-25 schools are the top tier.

As for the dates of your activities I don't see why it's a problem to put the earliest date you started them, if AMCAS will let you. It doesn't seem like a major issue. I don't think the committees will care either way.