Date to submit

[Meredith92]

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I've been searching old threads on this but I'm still a little confused, especially given the extended deadline. I finished my personal statement but need a few more days to really work on my activity descriptions (haven't given these much time yet). I can't decide if I should really simplify my descriptions to be more basic and try to submit Monday, or if it is more important to spend a few more days on it as submit around Thursday? I feel anxious after reading on sdn about how many people will be submitting on the first day... But my adviser said a few days or a week won't matter at all.

What are your thoughts? I'd rather spend a few extra days on my activities but I would hate for that to put me in a "later batch."

As a side note, after reading the activities thread, I still can't decide if basic descriptions are better for activities or if I should be connecting them to how they relate to medicine/ why they're meaningful. Id love to hear some more opinions on this as well!

Thanks as always for your help and I apologize if anything here has already been asked!

 

[Ismet]

I've been searching old threads on this but I'm still a little confused, especially given the extended deadline. I finished my personal statement but need a few more days to really work on my activity descriptions (haven't given these much time yet). I can't decide if I should really simplify my descriptions to be more basic and try to submit Monday, or if it is more important to spend a few more days on it as submit around Thursday? I feel anxious after reading on sdn about how many people will be submitting on the first day... But my adviser said a few days or a week won't matter at all.

What are your thoughts? I'd rather spend a few extra days on my activities but I would hate for that to put me in a "later batch."

As a side note, after reading the activities thread, I still can't decide if basic descriptions are better for activities or if I should be connecting them to how they relate to medicine/ why they're meaningful. Id love to hear some more opinions on this as well!

Thanks as always for your help and I apologize if anything here has already been asked!

Submit when you're ready. There is no need to submit on the first day, despite what SDN neuroticism tells you. If you're ready to submit Thurs/Fri, even if you submit next week or the week after, you are still a very early applicant and you are well ahead of the game.

As for the descriptions, you should try to talk about what you gained from the experience. If you just list your responsibilities, it's not very personal and it can be rather boring. Talking about what you learned gives the readers a lot better insight into how the activity was important to you.

 

[mvenus929]

If you submit on Thurs, it will take longer to verify you, but you're not going to be 'late'. Take the extra time and submit when you feel happy with your application, because you won't be able to change it once you submit.

And you should talk about what you learned from the experiences. You don't necessarily have to relate it to medicine (not everything should be about medicine), but how it helped you develop as a person would be a good route.

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

The big difference is that if you submit on the first day (or considering how many people will be submitting then, perhaps only the morning of the first day) you'll get your app verified in a couple days. The major benefit to that is that if something goes wrong with verification, you find out almost immediately and don't lose too much time. It's not like where you wait 3 weeks only to get the application sent back, and then have to wait another month on top of that for re-verification. Also, if you submit early enough then you get the first wave of secondaries and if you submit those early enough (a couple days) you'll be in the very first pool of applicants to be screened. However, there are benefits to being a bit later, namely that people will post this year's secondaries on here so you'll know exactly what to pre-write as you wait to be verified.

As far as chances go, I've heard various things. The general opinion seems to be that anytime in June is equal, and maybe even up to mid-July. Considering that the crush of applicants happens earlier and earlier every year though (and verification times get worse and worse at their peak), you'll probably want to be done by the end of June to be safe.

 

[alerk323]

There is pretty much no difference if you submit monday vs thursday, but if you wait a week or two later it becomes a huge difference and submitting in mid july will be well after the "early" period. submitting in mid july means you won't even start getting secondaries until end of august when people could already be getting interview updates.

 

[Pandaeac]

There is pretty much no difference if you submit monday vs thursday, but if you wait a week or two later it becomes a huge difference and submitting in mid july will be well after the "early" period. submitting in mid july means you won't even start getting secondaries until end of august when people could already be getting interview updates.

Uggh, now I'm getting worried 🙁. One of my schools has yet to mail my transcript, even though I asked for it almost two weeks ago and have been calling every other day to ask what's going on. If this school mails my transcript by tomorrow or Tuesday, is there any chance I can still go out in that earliest batch on June 28th?

 

[NCKSD]

Uggh, now I'm getting worried 🙁. One of my schools has yet to mail my transcript, even though I asked for it almost two weeks ago and have been calling every other day to ask what's going on. If this school mails my transcript by tomorrow or Tuesday, is there any chance I can still go out in that earliest batch on June 28th?

Probably not, AMCAS is 7 days behind on transcripts, meaning they'd probably get it around the 20th or around then accounting for mail time. But it's going to be okay, there will still be plenty of med school spots. A lot of people don't submit till july/august.

 

[Ismet]

Uggh, now I'm getting worried 🙁. One of my schools has yet to mail my transcript, even though I asked for it almost two weeks ago and have been calling every other day to ask what's going on. If this school mails my transcript by tomorrow or Tuesday, is there any chance I can still go out in that earliest batch on June 28th?

Probably not, but you will still be extremely early. There is really no advantage to going out June 28th vs July 5 or whatever.

 

[Pandaeac]

Probably not, but you will still be extremely early. There is really no advantage to going out June 28th vs July 5 or whatever.

Ugh, ok, so frustrating! So they send 'em out to med schools once a week or something like that?

 

[Ismet]

Ugh, ok, so frustrating! So they send 'em out to med schools once a week or something like that?

No. July 5 was an arbitrary date that I chose that is slightly later than June 28 to demonstrate the fact that June 28 is not some magical special day.

 

[Pandaeac]

No. July 5 was an arbitrary date that I chose that is slightly later than June 28 to demonstrate the fact that June 28 is not some magical special day.

Hah, okay, gotcha! Thanks so much for the response 🙂 Guess I just gotta get used to a lot of stuff being out of my control, huh?