If AMCAS were so Great it would...

[SaltySqueegee]

For me, it seems like AMCAS is the highly unnecessary 'middle-man' that businesses are trying to do away with. If AMCAS were smarter they would provide additional features such as:

1. Once a school accepts you, you can use AMCAS to accept or deny that particular school's acceptance.
2. On a similar note, you should be able to withdraw your application by clicking on the school, instead of having to contact each school individually, and losing track of which school has or hasn't received your remittance.
3. Schools should be able to provide their secondaries through AMCAS. i.e. once a school okays you for a secondary, a link will open on AMCAS that will allow you to fill out the additional essays, and pay with a credit card through AMCAS if you wish for that secondary to be processed at that school.
4. The redundancy in sending out transcripts to AMCAS and each of the individual schools at their request seems slow and clunky. We should be able to send our transcript updates to AMCAS for the schools to look at.
5. AMCAS should allow a section for electronic updates for student progress. i.e. a section where/when the school can be notified via electronic format of any new things that is/are going on with the student (new publication, honors... etc.)

Just a small list,

Comments?

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[SaltySqueegee]

Let's create a voice here on this thread. I would like to send a link to this page, once we have a small list going, to some of the administrators at the AAMC that head up the AMCAS.

 

[Amy B]

Sorry, but I think AMCAS has enough trouble keeping up with all they do now. I think extra work would blow their minds

 

[Ragzpie]

Those are some awesome suggestions. Being able to withdraw, pay for secondaries, and send only one transcript would really saves students time and money. It would also help paper-based schools automate their application process.

My huge concern is that AMCAS does not do much now, yet seems to be highly ineffiecient at the few tasks it does do. AMCAS really screwed me this year, but I managed to get a few allopathic acceptances. If I had to rely on AMCAS to a greater extent, I would not have gotten in anywhere.

In order for AMCAS to be more valued by admissions offices and students alike, it will have to greatly improve its efficiency and customer service.

 

[SaltySqueegee]

Thank you for your replies, concerns and experiences. I too had trouble with AMCAS, and believe there already existing operation to still have some major fundamental hickups so to speak. Is there anything else that people can mention as problems, and possibly suggest remedies to those problems?

-Tom

Thanks again for your replies.

 

[Ragzpie]

I was thinking about writing them a letter too...Thanks for doin this. Here are a few suggestions:

Make it easier to track documents online - like when AMCAS receives a transcript, it should be immediately scanned in as received. Then, they can go about the 2 week transcript processing procedure.

Contact students if there is a problem - in my case, AMCAS did not tell me that there was a problem with my application. After waiting six weeks, I had to call and find out.

Identify potential problems as soon as they arise - If a transcript will not suffice, the student should be IMMEDIATELY contacted. Ideally, contacting the student would be included in the transcript processing procedure.

I understand that all of my suggestions involve hiring more staff. There were 35,000 applicants this year. Considering, AMCAS received about 500 dollars/applicant, they pulled in about 20 million dollars. Considering they are non-profit, I don't know how they spend all that money and remain inefficient.

I know a lot of their proceeds go to ridicously overpriced research. I got paid 150 dollars just to take a practice test. I know there were at least 200 other students participating in their study.

I don't know if my suggestions are all that novel, but I hope AMCAS takes some initiative to improve their business practice.

 

[MG Md 2B]

Great ideas! They should also accept/distribute letters of rec. along with the application. It is ridiculous sending them to every school.

 

[midlifecrisis]

AMCAS has to have an alternative paper application. Web access is not universal, especially in rural areas. And the web based ap should be a downloadable interactive pdf that could then be uploaded. It was a total waste of my time to watch pages refresh every time I entered a bit of info.

 

[JayMiranti]

I think the above two posters are right on... AMCAS needs to handle LORS and have a better user interface.

ALso, I dont know why they dont have an automated transcript verification arrangement with many of the top schools to speed things up, and it would be good to have the option to request application materials and send scores to non-amcas schools without looking up the wierd id number and going through AAMC.

 

[no-see-um]

You should be able to submit updated transcripts at any time.