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I applied this past cycle and I was grateful enough to be accepted to a DO school that I'm really happy about. Here's my .02
The number one piece of advice I was given prior to applying was to focus on your "school list" and this is the most important thing I can tell anyone else. At the time, I thought I had a good school list but looking at it now, there were some silly mistakes I made. I really think school lists are just as, if not more, important than applying on the first day. But both should be focused on religiously!!
I applied to both MD and DO schools, 37 total: (21 MD schools and 16 DO schools). This came out to a little over $1,500 in just primary fees. Lower numerical stats = wider school list.
Out of those 37 schools. I ended up submitting secondaries to 26 of them. This came out to around $2,000+ just in secondary fees. For one of the DO schools, I realized they had a very strong in-state bias and I didn't know that before submitting the primary. Then, three VCOM locations just didn't send me a secondary until mid-Jan, so I'll let those three slide. I was below the secondary cut off for a few MD programs, and then a few others had regional bias that I wasn't really included in.
I was lucky to get a few interviews, one of which turned into an acceptance. But the bulk of the costs for the application come from the primary and secondary apps. If I would have applied to just the 26 schools I submitted secondaries for, I would have saved a few hundred bucks and still would have gotten the same result in the end. A few hundred bucks doesn't seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things. But when you're applying during a gap year, money and costs/savings like this really add up.
So my advice is really simple: focus on your school list. Now. Buy MSAR and use the AACOM CIB pdf to read about specific schools. Submit primaries on the first day if possible. This has been said thousands of times... but you shouldn't apply to a school that you can't see yourself going to if that was your only acceptance. So be as picky as you can. Secondary questions don't change much so sift through the 16/17 secondary school list to see what you'll be seeing in the near future, and try to submit those as quickly as you can (1-2 week turn around)!
Thank you to everyone who offered advice over the past year! And good luck to those applying this upcoming cycle. PM me if you have questions, I like to help if I can!
The number one piece of advice I was given prior to applying was to focus on your "school list" and this is the most important thing I can tell anyone else. At the time, I thought I had a good school list but looking at it now, there were some silly mistakes I made. I really think school lists are just as, if not more, important than applying on the first day. But both should be focused on religiously!!
I applied to both MD and DO schools, 37 total: (21 MD schools and 16 DO schools). This came out to a little over $1,500 in just primary fees. Lower numerical stats = wider school list.
Out of those 37 schools. I ended up submitting secondaries to 26 of them. This came out to around $2,000+ just in secondary fees. For one of the DO schools, I realized they had a very strong in-state bias and I didn't know that before submitting the primary. Then, three VCOM locations just didn't send me a secondary until mid-Jan, so I'll let those three slide. I was below the secondary cut off for a few MD programs, and then a few others had regional bias that I wasn't really included in.
I was lucky to get a few interviews, one of which turned into an acceptance. But the bulk of the costs for the application come from the primary and secondary apps. If I would have applied to just the 26 schools I submitted secondaries for, I would have saved a few hundred bucks and still would have gotten the same result in the end. A few hundred bucks doesn't seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things. But when you're applying during a gap year, money and costs/savings like this really add up.
So my advice is really simple: focus on your school list. Now. Buy MSAR and use the AACOM CIB pdf to read about specific schools. Submit primaries on the first day if possible. This has been said thousands of times... but you shouldn't apply to a school that you can't see yourself going to if that was your only acceptance. So be as picky as you can. Secondary questions don't change much so sift through the 16/17 secondary school list to see what you'll be seeing in the near future, and try to submit those as quickly as you can (1-2 week turn around)!
Thank you to everyone who offered advice over the past year! And good luck to those applying this upcoming cycle. PM me if you have questions, I like to help if I can!
