How long can you hold onto secondaries before submitting?

[tictac3]

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[tictac3]

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[FutureD.O]

It's usually best to send the secondaries as soon as possible because it not only shows your very interested and serious about the school, it also allows you to be complete for review.

It wouldn't hurt to send in your secondaries and wait for your LORs to be submitted. July is still early for the DO cycle. I think you'd also be fine waiting until your letters are, but I don't see the point in waiting if all you're waiting on is your LORs.

 

[tictac3]

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[mackkdad]

Question is basically the title: I know it's obviously best to submit secondaries asap but do schools have a timeline? for example, x days after receiving...

If there's no deadline (besides the one final deadline for each school), do schools see/care how long you hold onto the secondaries?

Main reason I am asking is that I am shadowing a DO in late July and know I need LORs for my secondary so would it be okay to submit the secondaries after I shadow in late July no matter when I receive the secondaries?

Well it really depends... Unless the school specifically states that you have to submit the secondary within X amount of time, they're generally pretty lenient about it. The common rule of thumb is 2 weeks but I found that impractical toward the end of July because I was burned out and slowed down tremendously as I got more secondaries in the mail. For this past cycle, I had gotten II's from schools whose secondaries I submitted a month after receiving them. With that being said, however, it's always better to submit them ASAP but remember, quality is more important than quantity!

 

[tictac3]

@mackkdad Thanks for the reply! Congrats on your acceptance!

 

[FutureD.O]

oh gotcha! @FutureD.O So I could send in my secondaries before my DO LOR and then the school would just look at my secondary and the rest of my app once the DO LOR is submitted?

If I submit the secondary and already have most of my LORs submitted, how would they know that one more LOR is coming? Would I have to state that somewhere?

Yes, but as @mackkdad said, make sure there isn't an explicit timeframe. You'd more than likely have to call and let the school's know so that they can put a note to wait for the LORs. With that being said, you must make sure that everything is properly sent and received by the schools. They won't review your app until everything is recieved, and in your case they won't start the review until they've recieved every LOR you plan on sending in.