Ok, here's my experience from applying this past year. I think its relevant because I heard from most schools in early fall, ie sept. and nov. and was interviewed and accepted at three schools by the earliest possible date, Dec. 1.
1. Send in your application in June sometime. Don't kill yourself to get it in June 1 if you are not ready because your application will get to the schools by late august/september if submitted roughly by mid july. Schools don't really start looking at app's before than anyways. Their primary concern is with the new incoming class.
2. aadsas takes a while, call them often and make sure they have your stuff together. they will send things out as they receive them, so if your letters of rec. aren't sent out with your app, thats ok, they'll be sent most likely in the next batch.
3.Take the DAT's when you feel comfortable. If you have the summer off, take them whenever. It only takes two weeks for the DAT scores to be sent to the schools. I submitted my application on July 1 and took my DAT's in mid August, they both arrived at around the same time. This allowed me most of the summer to leisurely study for the DAT's-do what makes you feel comfortable.
4. Once you have confirmed your stuff is sent out by aadsas, look for postcards etc. from the schools saying they have received your info. often they will request money, or that you fill otu a secondary application. keep on top of the schools, don't bug them to death, but make sure you've done everything they want you to do in a timely manner. If all is going well, you should be able to schedule a few interviews in october and november and hear by dec 1 hopefully.
5.This is what I did, it worked very well for so hopefully it will help whoever is reading this.
6.ps: One thing that I found helpful was to space my interviews out. I was fortunate to interview at my top couple of choices early on. I got in on Dec 1 to my top choice (Tufts by the way) and then cancelled interviews i had arranged in december and january. I'm not saying this strategy is smart, or whatever, but i wanted to hear from my top choices first and not be forced to have to put a deposit down at one school while waiting to hear from another school.
