So here's a thought: why not eliminate AMCAS altogether and just apply to the schools you want to go to and pay their app fee, since you have to anyway? I would gadly have shelled out the money to send my transcripts to individual schools, it would have been far less than the AMCAS fees. Yeah it's a little bit of extra work, but many of the secondary essays and questions were redundant with AMCAS anyway (i.e., "Why do you feel you would be a good physician? What experiences have led you to this field?"--does anyone NOT address those things in their PS? And how about the secondaries that make you fill in your grades and courses for the pre-med reqs?). To me, it only makes sense to have a centralized application, especially one as expensive as AMCAS, if that's the only one you'll have to do; if you're still going to have to fill out another app and pay another fee at each school, why have AMCAS at all? 😕
