I've been working on assembling all of the details to submit into AMCAS for several months already. My undergrad's premed committee letter service required at minimum a draft of everything that would go into AMCAS. I am eternally grateful for this, because the deadline on that was April 30th which put me ahead of the game. Now I'm just doing minor reviewing and editing of how I'm presenting things.
To estimate total time logged so far:
Work/Activities: About 8-10 hours of assembling details, writing, rewriting, etc. to consider how well I'm presenting and describing myself in these activities.
Coursework: About 5-6 hours to submit, check, and double-check everything. Bear in mind I have 5 transcripts spanning 15 years, though.
Transcript Requests: About 1 hour spent so far to add all schools, print out and mail requests. Will likely spend at least another 1 hour babysitting schools to ensure all 5 arrive in good time.
Personal Statement: About 20-25 hours into it so far, and I'm far from happy with it. I anticipate at least another 10+ hours of work on it as I receive more feedback and try to incorporate it reasonably.
Letters: About 10-12 hours total time, preparing envelope packets with copies of my CV and draft PS and committee paperwork. Then tracking everybody down in person, multiple times, and performing followup calls and emails to ensure all letters have been received. Lastly, thank you notes for all writers.
All other sections of AMCAS: Maybe 1 hour max to just fill in all the biographical and details fields.
Bottom line, it's adding up to 60+ hours spread across several months.
Many other premeds I've talked to seem to think I'm spending way more time on this than necessary. They might be right! OTOH, as a non-traditional, I have a lot more material to incorporate (good, bad, and ugly) and need to figure out how to wrap all of that up into a tidy package.
I think it's really a matter of professionalism to ensure that the entire application reflects a careful, thorough, well-crafted, and polished portfolio. I can't even imagine how someone could sit down in a day or two and just crank something out. 😱