Dear girldr,
Do you already know to which schools you want to apply? Will you be take classes next semester? I was in a similar situation as you (although I had taken my MCATS the summer before I applied).
If you REALLY want to apply this year, and if you have some money in your checkings account, then I would recommend that you apply to the schools that you really like (limit them to 10-15ish because it is very difficult to fill out secondaries during the school year), and complete the secondaries on time. When you get the secondaries, a lot of them will tell you that you need to turn in your recommendations on a specific date, and some schools are pretty nice about it (I know that all the UC's (not sure about Irvine) are pretty lenient with it, so long as you give them what they ask for...they'll even call you to let you know you're missing some letters). So the challenge is to send in your applications (there are two timelines, one is the AMCAS timeline for AMCAS schools, and one is the school's own secondary timeline) in time, and worry about the letters as they come.
When I read your post, I felt like you're kind of in a similar situation I was in last year when I was trying to decide to apply or not. I can tell you that it's not super impossible as most people would say it is to get into medical school even if you turn in your AMCAS application a little later in the process (I turned my AMCAS app in..I think end of August just before the semester started). However, you'll have one heck of a semester ahead of you because you'll need to ask professors for recommendations (some of whom will most certainly turn them in late), concentrate on your classes, and work on your secondaries when you have the free-time. With school and the administrative hassle of my school, my files were not completed until late december/early january of this year! If you school is smaller with more friendly adminstrative services, maybe you can even get in everything by November, and you'll probably interview in dec. and jan., which leaves you lots of time to find out what will happen to you.
Also, there are some schools that get back to you really quickly for an interview after you send in your secondary: Pritzker (U of Chicago actually prides themselves in having a fast turnaround time...so at least you'll know you have some place to go in early spring even if you apply later in the process), the University of California system (I have ucsd and ucsf in mind in particular). You should definitely give these schools a try. You should also watch out for some of the non-AMCAS schools (like Columbia, NYU? . . . and some others...they have their own application process, so start asking for applications now if you are potentially interested in those schools). Good luck with your application process!
