To expand, on this, I consider submitting an application without knowing your MCAT score one of the top 10 mistakes a premed can make.
1) How can you intelligently select a list of schools without knowing your MCAT scores
2) If your score is significantly higher than expected, you may not have those dream, reach schools on your list.
3) If your score is significantly lower, you may get screened out of all the schools on your list.
4) If you need to take the MCAT, you should be prepping for that and not using valuable time to prepare a full AMCAS
5) How can you speculatively pre-write secondary applications if you are not sure what your school list should be.
6) If you have had to rush for an MCAT retake in the same year, have you adequately understood the reasons for not doing well previously and have more more than adequately addressed them? Remember multiple MCATs can hurt you.
7) Applicants should seriously consider skipping application cycle so they can be better prepared for MCAT retake and thus be a stronger candidate next cycle. Being a reapplicant can also invite more scrutiny from an adcom
The tactic that some students use, and I am not overly fond of, is the "submit with 1 school" method. Here you prepare AMCAS as usual, but instead of all your schools, you list a single school. This allows your application to be processed and verified. When you get your MCAT score back, you can quickly add more schools and AMCAS will transmit a previously verified application in one business day. Which "1" school you should pick is a matter of opinion. You can pick a "throwaway" school, such as an out of state with low OOS rates. Or you could be pick a "high reach" school, one that you might have an outside chance with if you got a super MCAT score. In either case, you do not have to fill out the secondary (and pay the secondary fee) for this school, thus your application will effectively die. You should at some point in the cycle inform the "throwaway" or "high reach" school you are with drawing your application.
I am not fond of this method as you should be spending time prepping for the all important MCAT and not preparing a full AMCAS primary, which takes as much time for 1 school as it does for 25. So if you are in need of a improved MCAT and are taking one later in the cycle (from June on), you should prep for the exam and once you have taken it, but before the score in returned, you then can work on AMCAS and pre-write secondaries.
Lastly, what do you do if get a bad score on the MCAT retake. Applicants seriously need to consider not applying to any additional schools and skipping the cycle. Applying with a poor retake, especially one lower than your original score is likely lead you to being rejected and thus being in a weak position next cycle as a reapplicant next cycle.
Applying without knowing all your MCAT scores is a mistake that all applicants should avoid
