early app, summer away, manageable?

[DrMidlife]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

Hey, people who have been doing secondaries and interviews, I could use some insight.

I'm expecting to AMCAS-apply to 20+ schools by mid-June this year. I'm a middle-of-the-road paper candidate, probably not an obvious star. I'm hoping to be working in Mexico this summer, July through September. I'll have internet and phone access. I'll have a responsible friend in charge of my mailbox at home. I'll be able to travel for interviews, if any. My school has an LOR service. I'm expecting app maintenance to be like a part time job. So far so good?

I expect the answers to all of the following to be "it depends" but any specifics would be appreciated.

How much postal paperwork should I expect for secondaries? Is it 90% internet? 75%? On average, how fast do I need to turn secondaries around? Can secondary app fees be paid over the internet by credit card?

With summer interviews, how fast do schools expect you to show up after an invite? Days? Weeks?

All insights appreciated. Can you tell I used to be a project manager? (I'm always a good person to ask if you don't know where the 2 nearest exits are.)

 

[DrMidlife]

In case anybody finds my questions interesting, I'm finding some answers on mdapplicants from browsing profiles. In particular, this guy has terrific details: http://www.mdapplicants.com/viewprofile.php?id=5999. Plus he's a fine specimen of nontraditionalness.

Looks like it takes about a month for AMCAS to verify, once transcripts are in. So for me, if I submit by 6/15 then I'm hopefully verified by 7/15. It looks like some schools send secondaries immediately, others take a month or so. I'm seeing some secondary requests prior to AMCAS verification. I'll guess that maybe half of these requests come snail mail.

Looks like some schools give a deadline to submit secondaries, into late fall. Looks like others give a couple weeks or a month to turn it around. OK, good, I can batch them. Gotta make sure my LORs are tidy before I leave.

If I get any love during the summer, it looks like interviews don't rev up until late September, with some exceptions like Pitt. I'd LOVE to have the problem of needing to scramble home to interview.

 

[Beau Geste]

I'd say that if you are this organized, you should have no trouble with turnaround if you have your LORs done and ready to be submitted (ie via Interfolio).

From what I've seen, it's coming up with meaningful essays that take time on the secondaries. Some are really good at churning them out, others need a lot of time.