Anyone submit their AMCAS in August and get an acceptance?

[Ehwic]

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Just curious to see how many people submitted their AMCAS "late" in August, and still received at least one acceptance. Plenty of people say that getting it in early is key, and that submitting it late is a death sentence, but I'm just wondering if it's been done successfully.

Also, was your stats competitive for the schools you've applied to?

 

[Chillbo Baggins]

There's never been a confirmed case. I've heard rumors that someone did in 1983, but no one can seem to verify it. /joke

 

[GoPelicans]

I know somebody that submitted in September and got multiple acceptances, but he was an URM with good stats. If you are ORM, submitting late August is essentially a death sentence unless you have stats that will make your app rise to the top of a pile (IE 4.0/38+).

 

[Deadlifts]

There's never been a confirmed case. I've heard rumors that someone did in 1983, but no one can seem to verify it. /joke

I visited the AAMC offices last summer. There's an intern sitting at a desk in a big empty room dragging all post-July 31st applications to the trash icon on the desktop. It's quite depressing, really.

 

[random1234]

My brother submitted in Aug, secondaries on Halloween. He got 2 interviews and 2 acceptances (interviewed in Feb and Mar). Very bad GPA, good MCAT. Rejections everywhere else, 40+ schools applied to.

 

[SpartanWolverine]

My brother submitted in Aug, secondaries on Halloween. He got 2 interviews and 2 acceptances (interviewed in Feb and Mar). Very bad GPA, good MCAT. Rejections everywhere else, 40+ schools applied to.

I'm curious -- mind sharing where his interviews/acceptances were?

 

[SN12357]

Just curious to see how many people submitted their AMCAS "late" in August, and still received at least one acceptance. Plenty of people say that getting it in early is key, and that submitting it late is a death sentence, but I'm just wondering if it's been done successfully.

Also, was your stats competitive for the schools you've applied to?

I know someone who got screwed over by their school's letter writing committee and therefore their application wasn't complete until Nov. Got 2-3 acceptances. However: 40 MCAT, very strong research.

I'm sure they would have had many, many more options if their file had been complete earlier.

 

[anegron519]

Just curious to see how many people submitted their AMCAS "late" in August, and still received at least one acceptance. Plenty of people say that getting it in early is key, and that submitting it late is a death sentence, but I'm just wondering if it's been done successfully.

Also, was your stats competitive for the schools you've applied to?

SDN definitely adds a bit of paranoia about submitting early. It's important especially with schools that have rolling admissions but you'll be fine. Schools have application deadlines because they're looking at applications for a while.

 

[random1234]

I'm curious -- mind sharing where his interviews/acceptances were?

I PM'd you. A rural state school & Drexel

SDN definitely adds a bit of paranoia about submitting early. It's important especially with schools that have rolling admissions but you'll be fine. Schools have application deadlines because they're looking at applications for a while.

I agree. I think SDN stresses it though bc some people honestly have no clue. A girl in one of my classes told me she was taking the MCAT this January and said she was planning on applying for the 2014 class. I said there's no way; she said but I thought deadlines are in Jan? I mean some people are really clueless. I told her she'd be too late and she should apply for he 2015 entering class.

 

[stinkytofu]

SDN definitely adds a bit of paranoia about submitting early. It's important especially with schools that have rolling admissions but you'll be fine. Schools have application deadlines because they're looking at applications for a while.

This.

Not that I'm saying submitting late is a good thing but it's not an end all. My friend's application was complete in October and she ended up getting multiple acceptances to Top 10 schools. She ended up at Hopkins. Keep in mind, she also had pretty good stats and a compelling story.

 

[ChemEngMD]

It's like this:


If you're an All-Star Applicant (I'm talking the whole nine yards, high GPA, high MCAT, interesting life story, great personality, strong LORs, multiple leadership positions, great service activities, solid research experience, being URM or disadvantaged helps too) then you are going to be picked up by one of the top schools that do non-rolling admissions regardless of when you submit.

For those of us who have some issues with our applications, however small or large, it is imperative that we submit early. The same thing goes for people who are "cookie-cutter" applicants. If you have a good application but it's pretty run of the mill then you need to be in early to beat out the other applicants who have almost identical stats/experiences to you. If there is nothing to separate you from the other applicants than you will simply be passed over because they already have a hundred of you interviewing. Sounds harsh, but it's true.

It's a case by case and school by school basis.

 

[stinkytofu]

It's like this:


If you're an All-Star Applicant (I'm talking the whole nine yards, high GPA, high MCAT, interesting life story, great personality, strong LORs, multiple leadership positions, great service activities, solid research experience, being URM or disadvantaged helps too) then you are going to be picked up by one of the top schools that do non-rolling admissions regardless of when you submit.

For those of us who have some issues with our applications, however small or large, it is imperative that we submit early. The same thing goes for people who are "cookie-cutter" applicants. If you have a good application but it's pretty run of the mill then you need to be in early to beat out the other applicants who have almost identical stats/experiences to you. If there is nothing to separate you from the other applicants than you will simply be passed over because they already have a hundred of you interviewing. Sounds harsh, but it's true.

It's a case by case and school by school basis.

Agreed...this can be quite obvious but some people need this broken down.

Also the nice thing about submitting early, whether you are an all-star applicant or not, is you get to hear back from schools that do rolling admissions. This would significantly make the rest of your interview season less stressful. You can also save money on travel expenses if you choose not to interview at your safety schools.

 

[PanRoasted]

is a july 15 submit date considered decently early enough for average applicants, considering the date that applications were opened was pushed back to june 10th this year?

 

[gumdrops]

There's never been a confirmed case. I've heard rumors that someone did in 1983, but no one can seem to verify it. /joke

lulz

 

[GoPelicans]

is a july 15 submit date considered decently early enough for average applicants, considering the date that applications were opened was pushed back to june 10th this year?

That is probably a mid September verification this year given how slowly AMCAS is moving. That is a little late... not so prohibitively late that your app is ****ed, but late enough to hurt your chances at just a few schools, eg NYU

 

[xffan624]

Agreed...this can be quite obvious but some people need this broken down.

Also the nice thing about submitting early, whether you are an all-star applicant or not, is you get to hear back from schools that do rolling admissions. This would significantly make the rest of your interview season less stressful. You can also save money on travel expenses if you choose not to interview at your safety schools.

+1, Will a late application guarantee that you won't get in? No. But why would you handicap yourself over something you can easily control. All it requires is proper planning. It's the same amount of work (not like with GPA or MCAT where more work should equal higher scores) as doing it in June as opposed to doing it in August, it's just doing the work earlier.

I understand school can limit folks in how fast they can complete it, but try working full time and finishing the primary and secondaries in a timely manner (I did it). It means giving up some of your free time and knocking it out quickly.

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

I had a friend who was complete at his schools in late October (or was it that he submitted AMCAS in October and was complete in November...). He was also Asian with 3.7/31, a reapplicant, and nothing terribly amazing about his ECs (most impressive thing was ~2 years of research and an honors thesis); in fact, his clinical and volunteering experience was pretty weak. He applied to a couple low tier in-state schools, and one OOS MD/PhD program. By SDN logic he should have been screwed.

He ended up with interviews from all his schools (although granted he only applied to three schools). 2 got him wait listed, and then he got an acceptance to the third one and is now attending med school. Could he have had a better cycle had he applied earlier (and applied to more than three schools)? Sure. But he still got in.

Applying late doesn't destroy your chances completely, it just handicaps you. That handicap can be very severe though depending on how late you apply, and for a borderline applicant (relative to a particular school) it can definitely be the difference between acceptance and rejection. The way I like to think about it is that if you apply late then you have to settle for a tier of schools lower than what you would have gotten into had you applied early. As a simple, purely hypothetical example to illustrate what I mean (don't read into it):

Apply early:
Top tier = reach
Mid tier = good chance
Low tier = practically guaranteed

Apply late:
Top tier = no chance
Mid tier = reach
low tier = good chance

 

[PanRoasted]

+1, Will a late application guarantee that you won't get in? No. But why would you handicap yourself over something you can easily control. All it requires is proper planning. It's the same amount of work (not like with GPA or MCAT where more work should equal higher scores) as doing it in June as opposed to doing it in August, it's just doing the work earlier.

I understand school can limit folks in how fast they can complete it, but try working full time and finishing the primary and secondaries in a timely manner (I did it). It means giving up some of your free time and knocking it out quickly.

While working full-time while preparing your applications may have worked for you, everyone's experience is different. There are also other factors involved for people like myself who are applying right out of junior year. If I had tried to start any earlier, some important realizations/experiences would have been left out of the picture when I began preparing the application.

Hopefully amcas being slow this year just means that everyone's application is shifted later by the same amount...Does anyone know where I can find the graph showing percentage of applicants that have submitted as a function of time after applications open? I recall seeing it somewhere, but I can't find. Thanks!

 

[Ehwic]

Thanks for all your responses yall, I'm also curious to see what people think about what Pan said, with applications opening up a little later than usual and how that affects everyone else.

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

Thanks for all your responses yall, I'm also curious to see what people think about what Pan said, with applications opening up a little later than usual and how that affects everyone else.

I see two ways that things are going to go down:

1) Schools don't care about the delay and hand out interviews just as quickly as they have in years past, thus giving early submitters a massive advantage and putting everyone else at a very large disadvantage. Anyone submitting after July is screwed.

2) Schools keep the delay in mind and hand out interviews relative to the size of the current applicant pool. As a result, the rate at which interview slots are filled and acceptances are given out is shifted by one month (ie, in terms of "lateness", August is the new July, October is more like September in previous years, and so on).


On a related note, it would be a really interesting if, say, there was an adcom member on here that could comment on how her office is handling this year's cycle...

 

[TwinsFan]

With all the processing delays I believe this year will have the largest advantage in recent history to early submitters. How substantial that truly is remains to be seen.

 

[sugarmouse]

So if you already submitted all of your reference letters and transcripts, but just submitting the primary now, are you prety much screwed (given that you = average applicant GPA and MCAT wise)?

 

[Ehwic]

Wait, I just realized, I don't think it matters because assuming the volume of applicants is relatively the same, even though with the delay, the proportion of average applicants applying "early" is still the same. So in terms of time, I don't think it would affect adcom's decisions in any way.

 

[Snackish]

I see two ways that things are going to go down:

1) Schools don't care about the delay and hand out interviews just as quickly as they have in years past, thus giving early submitters a massive advantage and putting everyone else at a very large disadvantage. Anyone submitting after July is screwed.

2) Schools keep the delay in mind and hand out interviews relative to the size of the current applicant pool. As a result, the rate at which interview slots are filled and acceptances are given out is shifted by one month (ie, in terms of "lateness", August is the new July, October is more like September in previous years, and so on).


On a related note, it would be a really interesting if, say, there was an adcom member on here that could comment on how her office is handling this year's cycle...

In economics, the tragedy of the commons is the depletion of a shared resource by individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, despite their understanding that depleting the common resource is contrary to the group's long-term best interests.