anyone else in AMCAS limbo?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

omores

sleep deprived
10+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
20+ Year Member
Joined
Jul 3, 2000
Messages
571
Reaction score
1
Does anyone else's AMCAS experience make them feel as if they're living in a Kafka novel?

My tale of woe is caused by the fact that I spent my junior year at a school in Italy. These credits show up on my primary transcript; according to AMCAS, no additional transcript is required. You check off a "foreign coursework transcript exception" box on the application. But AMCAS apparently neglected to note the exception and held my application back because of the "missing" transcript. The man on the help line provided blithe but unconvincing reassurances. Finally e-mailed them, and was told that the records office had been reminded to grant the exception. It did.

A week later, my application hit the verification office, where it sat for fifteen days. Then it got put back on hold because of another "missing" transcript. My primary transcript mentions that the Italian school I attended has an affiliation with the Cleveland Institute of Art. Somehow the verification office took this to mean that I had attended school in Italy and in Cleveland simultaneously! They wanted a transcript from Cleveland as well. After several desperate phone calls, I was told I could have Cleveland fax a letter stating I'd never been to school there. This was done. Now I've been informed that it will be ANOTHER three to six weeks before my transcripts are verified. Yeeesh.

I'm sure posts like this must be terribly boring for those of you who have already completed the process (especially if you had everything in by June 1st). But if anyone has had, or is having, similar experiences, please let me know.

With all this talk about secondary apps and interview offers, I feel hopelessly behind the game. Looking for any kind of sympathy or reassurance, however feeble.

Thanks.

Members don't see this ad.
 
I'm waiting to hear from AMCAS, too. I sent mine out in Mid-July and it's still being verified. How long (on average) does it take to verify an application, and should I start calling them or just wait a little longer?
 
Hi Hercules.

Happy to have the company.

The time it takes to process your application depends not on when you sent it in, but on when AMCAS gets all your transcripts together and sends them to the verification office. Your online status report will give you the date your file entered verification; it seems to take two or three weeks from that date for them to complete the process.

Keep checking your status report to make sure they don't kick your file back out of the verification office, however (as they did mine). As long as the status report still claims that your application is being verified, you're fine. And the phone people don't do much more than look at your status report themselves; unless there's an obvious problem (which you'd be able to see yourself), they'll just tell you to be patient.

Good luck and godspeed.
 
Top