How to get my Application out as soon as possible.

[Kingfish]

I want to make sure my application goes out as early as possible. My MCAT has been taken, personal statement is written, EC are all summaraized. Now, what should I be doing to make sure my application is verified and sent out as soon as possible? Do I need to send in my MCAT scores or do the AMCAS automatically get those? Should I have my school send my transcript out now? I've been trying to see my pre-med advisor all week but I keep missing him. Any help would be appreciated.

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[NN11]

I want to make sure my application goes out as early as possible. My MCAT has been taken, personal statement is written, EC are all summaraized. Now, what should I be doing to make sure my application is verified and sent out as soon as possible? Do I need to send in my MCAT scores or do the AMCAS automatically get those? Should I have my school send my transcript out now? I've been trying to see my pre-med advisor all week but I keep missing him. Any help would be appreciated.

You could do a couple of things:
First, the earliest you could fill out an AMCAS primary application is around May 1st. In the mean time you could:
1) Order official transcripts for yourself so that you know the exact listing of courses for your primary
2) Towards the end of April have the official transcripts of all schools you've attended sent to AMCAS
3) Come May 1st, you could start filling out your primary but you won't be able to submit it until the beginning of June (around June 1st)
4) make sure your letters of recommendation are in order (generally, you want at least 3 academic letters: 2 science and 1 non-science, probably a good idea to get at least one non-academic letter-->research or volunteer or work)
5) your MCAT scores will be automatically sent to AMCAS, you won't need to do anything
6) you could search for the secondary essay prompts from the previous application cycle and start writing secondary essays for schools you're interested in: (these may change from year to year but it would probably help to write at least 10 different essays in advance) http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=293395&highlight=Secondary+essays

 

[SuperMatt]

I'm currently in my third year and my marks for this semester will not be released until the beginning of June. Can I still send my transcript in early without the winter semester marks or do i need to wait?

 

[OncDoc19]

I'm currently in my third year and my marks for this semester will not be released until the beginning of June. Can I still send my transcript in early without the winter semester marks or do i need to wait?

I beleive that you can request now for the registrar at your school send your transcript immediately after the grades are issued. I would guess that AMCAS will want your spring semester grades.

 

[DocOB]

I beleive that you can request now for the registrar at your school send your transcript immediately after the grades are issued. I would guess that AMCAS will want your spring semester grades.

Onc's right. You're going to want to wait until your grades are on the transcript. If not, you won't be able to put in grades for this spring's classes on your application because if you put grades on your application that aren't verifiable, you're going to run into problems. You seem to be well on the ball, waiting for spring grades to be send out won't hurt unless you bombed all of your classes.

 

[munnabhai]

Im gonna submit my application on May 1st, 2007 at 12:00:00.000342am ... i have been practicing where the submit button is going to show up and am getting ready to switch to a T3 in my apt. for least latency.

jk

Chill out.. as far as I know you can't submit till June 1 (but I might be wrong)
Just submit it before mid July and you will be good to go.

 

[SuperMatt]

Onc's right. You're going to want to wait until your grades are on the transcript. If not, you won't be able to put in grades for this spring's classes on your application because if you put grades on your application that aren't verifiable, you're going to run into problems. You seem to be well on the ball, waiting for spring grades to be send out won't hurt unless you bombed all of your classes.

thanks!

ya everyone just seems for keen, I thought I should be on the ball. My stats are not phenomenal so I wanted to be on the ball with AMCAS submission. I also think it is kind of ridiculous that my school releases the final grades over a month after final exams are complete.

 

[Robizzle]

Just submit it before mid July and you will be good to go.

This is true. Only big benefit I can see of submitting before July is to get a headstart on secondaries, which will start piling in between July and August.

 

[chandelantern]

The #1 thing you should do is make sure you have all your LOR's!!! This slows a lot of people down in the application process...although you do not need them until the secondary step. If your school has a committee letter, make sure you have opened your file and have met their requirements (if any) so you're all set. If they don't, look into using one of those commercial LOR consolidation/sending services.

As far as spring grades, I did not have my on my transcript yet b/c on the quarter system we did not get done until mid-June and transcripts could not be sent out until a couple weeks later even with a rush (plus then add the time it takes for AMCAS to get them and process them.) I ended up getting a 4.0 that quarter but it still wouldn't have made a significant impact in my overall GPA so I decided to get my app in early rather than waiting. Plus then I had positive updates to provide to medical schools. If you have your final grades for your classes but cannot get the official transcript for a few weeks, you can still put them on your application and AMCAS will include them in your GPA even if they are not on the transcript you send them (someone above said this will get you in trouble...it won't. you will need to send schools your updated transcript later on and if you lied, well you can kiss any acceptance good-bye.)