Application strategy regarding timing/travel

[Kahr]

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Hey people, question for all your brilliant minds.

I'll be applying next cycle, planning on about 10-12 schools or so, in these states: CA, WA, OR, AZ, NV, NY, and Nebraska (grandfather is good friends with some faculty and wants me to apply, so I'm humoring him).

I live in Hawaii. What I'm somewhat concerned with is the logistics of getting out to interviews (optimism ho! lets just assume I get more than one, and end up having to deal with this). As you can imagine, the time and money involved in flying from Hawaii to various places across the continental US is a bit daunting compared to residence in various continental US states.

From what I understand, the schools operate all independently regarding when they send out interview invites, so while one school might contact me in August, another might be in September, etc. Is there any way I can apply and manage this situation in some practical way? If I get an invite in July, August, and September, can I somehow arrange my interviews all in September? Or are they pretty inflexible? Also, actual acceptances to attend can be all throughout the application cycle (like one school can accept you one month, then another some other month, etc), correct? Could applying a bit later, like mid July-August, help concentrate potential invites (or is it best to just apply as early as possible regardless)?

I'm starting to think I might be better off taking my first acceptance (again, optimism, just roll with it) and withdrawing application from the rest to save my sanity (time and money included).

Thanks for reading, any advice/input is welcome, good or bad.

 

[lkdeidaho]

As far as making sure you get interviews, apply as early as you can. I would not wait if I were in your shoes.
Depending on the school, they may give you a few dates to choose from for interviews. I had a 2 month window that I could have scheduled my interview in. If they give you the option to schedule it a few weeks out, you might hear from some other schools during that time. It could allow you to schedule a few interviews on one trip over. I am not sure how much schools would be willing to accommodate your circumstance if you ask them though.

 

[gigawatt]

Get into a good frequent flyer program/rewards credit card for sure!

Applying early is to your advantage, and doing so later wouldn't help to "concentrate" invites anyway so there's no point in intentionally trying to do that.

Usually, with an interview invite, you'll get a selection of dates to choose from so you'll have some chance to optimize your traveling in that way. Plus, you can sometimes politely tell schools that you'll be in the area and they will often do their best to accommodate your interview. I don't have experience in this, so hopefully others can chime in on the proper protocol/etiquette.

If you end up with a handful of interviews within a span of a few weeks, you might consider just flying out to the mainland and staying with family or friends for a while. Still costly, but at least you won't be going all the way back to HI between interviews.

 

[Kahr]

As far as making sure you get interviews, apply as early as you can. I would not wait if I were in your shoes.
Depending on the school, they may give you a few dates to choose from for interviews. I had a 2 month window that I could have scheduled my interview in. If they give you the option to schedule it a few weeks out, you might hear from some other schools during that time. It could allow you to schedule a few interviews on one trip over. I am not sure how much schools would be willing to accommodate your circumstance if you ask them though.

Get into a good frequent flyer program/rewards credit card for sure!

Applying early is to your advantage, and doing so later wouldn't help to "concentrate" invites anyway so there's no point in intentionally trying to do that.

Usually, with an interview invite, you'll get a selection of dates to choose from so you'll have some chance to optimize your traveling in that way. Plus, you can sometimes politely tell schools that you'll be in the area and they will often do their best to accommodate your interview. I don't have experience in this, so hopefully others can chime in on the proper protocol/etiquette.

If you end up with a handful of interviews within a span of a few weeks, you might consider just flying out to the mainland and staying with family or friends for a while. Still costly, but at least you won't be going all the way back to HI between interviews.

Good info guys, barring further sound advice, I guess I definitely won't delay applying. I will try to talk to them about my situation though, as tactfully as possible, in the event that is necessary (I"ll be sure to share that experience here 🙂)

Got the frequent flyer/card with flight benefits thing down already, thanks. 😉

 

[Spit]

Have you considered taking a year off? It makes the travelling much easier in terms of schedule conflicts, which may arise with the way some schools due their interview scheduling. UCSF for instance just told me that my appointment was on a certain date, and that was the only day I could have unless I had some medical emergency or a test for a course, though for all I know if you call the admissions people they might be more flexible than they let on. Tufts gave me a list of about 8 days within a 3 week period. UW just called me and asked if I could come in the next week, but if I couldn't it sounded like there were other available dates. With your year off you could always try and find work someplace on the west coast and then just move home once you were happy with an acceptance or had interviewed everyplace you wanted to.

 

[Kahr]

Have you considered taking a year off? It makes the travelling much easier in terms of schedule conflicts, which may arise with the way some schools due their interview scheduling. UCSF for instance just told me that my appointment was on a certain date, and that was the only day I could have unless I had some medical emergency or a test for a course, though for all I know if you call the admissions people they might be more flexible than they let on. Tufts gave me a list of about 8 days within a 3 week period. UW just called me and asked if I could come in the next week, but if I couldn't it sounded like there were other available dates. With your year off you could always try and find work someplace on the west coast and then just move home once you were happy with an acceptance or had interviewed everyplace you wanted to.

I'm not entirely sure I understand what you mean. Taking a year off? I'm not in school, and I do work professionally already. My problem isn't one of schedule conflicts, but of travel expenses and large amounts of time spent traveling (both become more of an issue when you live on an island in the pacific). There's no way I'd wait any longer to apply anyway, even if I did have some kind of schedule conflict going on, I'm almost 28!😱

As for moving to the west coast temporarily, that is a possibility, but one I probably can't do as I have some family and pre-dental related obligations in Hawaii (father recently became disabled and is in somewhat of a transition state; in the middle of shadowing some dentists I've known for a long time; involved in a volunteer environmental clean-up project). But thanks for the suggestion, it was a good one.

 

[Spit]

I'm not entirely sure I understand what you mean. Taking a year off? I'm not in school, and I do work professionally already. My problem isn't one of schedule conflicts, but of travel expenses and large amounts of time spent traveling (both become more of an issue when you live on an island in the pacific). There's no way I'd wait any longer to apply anyway, even if I did have some kind of schedule conflict going on, I'm almost 28!😱

As for moving to the west coast temporarily, that is a possibility, but one I probably can't do as I have some family and pre-dental related obligations in Hawaii (father recently became disabled and is in somewhat of a transition state; in the middle of shadowing some dentists I've known for a long time; involved in a volunteer environmental clean-up project). But thanks for the suggestion, it was a good one.

Ahh ok, guess I didn't understand your circumstances. I just assumed like most pre-dents that you were a junior that was going to be interviewing during your senior year. My bad!

 

[doc toothache]

Nothing wrong with playing the what if game.

 

[peanutb123]

Just an advice for applying. I am a little older than you. But listen up.

Grand papi stuff might not work. You need to apply smartly. The way that you present you self by just stating those states is not good enough. You need to buy the adea book, analyze all the schools and apply to as many as you can and do it early. i would recommend around 15+ it will get expensive, but you will get it in one shot.
BTW the book is out now for purchase if i were you i would buy it right away so i can see what schools actually look at.
Dont make your decision based on predents.com

 

[poki]

I had 10 interviews and attended 7... I came into the interview cycle last year thinking I could schedule multiple interviews for the same weekend but soon realized that the whole interview process is really unpredictable...

Each school sends invites at different times, has different days available to interview (some only interview on Friday, some only interview on Mondays)...

Because of this I was only able to hit two interviews in a weekend max... and ended up taking 5 total flights to the east coast and 1 to San Francisco (Yes I ended up spending way more than I anticipated)

However, knowing what I know now, I would have done things a bit differently... if you are the risk taking type, you should apply early and once you start getting interviews in August/September, if you have several interviews you can consider moving interviews from some of the schools you are least excited about to post - December... That way, if you get into one of your top choice schools on Dec 1st, you can simply cancel the remaining interviews and not make the extra trips out to the mainland...

However, this is a bit risky if you dont have really solid stats... anyway good luck with your application