Important info to keep track of during the cycle?

[frickonastick]

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I'm hoping that some of you who have been through the application process before can give me a heads up about what information is helpful to keep track of for each school. It has been recommended to me that I keep a document with all of the contact info for each school, and the secondary deadlines, but is there anything else that is also useful that I should include? Thanks! 🙂

 

[Law2Doc]

I'm hoping that some of you who have been through the application process before can give me a heads up about what information is helpful to keep track of for each school. It has been recommended to me that I keep a document with all of the contact info for each school, and the secondary deadlines, but is there anything else that is also useful that I should include? Thanks! 🙂

Keep track of all dates, copies of what you already sent where (especially if you get into updates, LOIs etc), and keep the address and phone number/website info handy.

 

[Tropicana100]

Using certified mail can be useful b/c you can track stuff you mail at usps.com. It's only $2.50 and $2 extra bucks if you want proof of mailing (which is probably unnecessary).

 

[braluk]

For me, an Excel spreadsheet helped keep my stuff in order. That is, it should include school name, if it requires a picture and if so, if you have one attached to the application already, if a secondary essay is required and if so, have you finished? cost of the application, the check number and $$ you wrote out to them, date mailed, etc... etc.. When schools start responding, fill in the status info for each school, including interview, waitlisted, rejected, etc..etc.. Good luck!

 

[SIREN]

For me, an Excel spreadsheet helped keep my stuff in order. That is, it should include school name, if it requires a picture and if so, if you have one attached to the application already, if a secondary essay is required and if so, have you finished? cost of the application, the check number and $$ you wrote out to them, date mailed, etc... etc.. When schools start responding, fill in the status info for each school, including interview, waitlisted, rejected, etc..etc.. Good luck!

Thanks, that's an excellent idea. Plus, I definitely intend to mail everything by certified mail, just for my sanity, lol. If I'm fortunate, I will never have to "overnight" anything, I had to overnight something today by usps, they raised the fee to $16.25 {ouch}.🙂

 

[frickonastick]

For me, an Excel spreadsheet helped keep my stuff in order. That is, it should include school name, if it requires a picture and if so, if you have one attached to the application already, if a secondary essay is required and if so, have you finished? cost of the application, the check number and $$ you wrote out to them, date mailed, etc... etc.. When schools start responding, fill in the status info for each school, including interview, waitlisted, rejected, etc..etc.. Good luck!

Thanks! Having a list this early in the game of everything I should keep track of (or would regret not keeping track of later) is wonderful! 👍

 

[braluk]

Mdapps is also pretty helpful to keep stuff in order as well 🙂 Excel is just probably the best since you have control over your own spreadsheet- the more fields you have, the more oversight you have over all your applications

 

[sendwich]

Yeah, I used Excel as well, with name of school, date secondaries were received/submitted, LOR submitted, interviews, username/passwords, blah blah. it's a really quick way to make sure you're on top of your stuff (ie not let deadlines pass, especially if you're applying to more than 20 schools, which kind of blurs together after a while)

 

[cookiesncream07]

For the first few months, I kept track of EVVVVVVVERYTHING in a log form - what secondaries i received, which i submitted, which apps i received - if by mail, email, etc, which i submitted, which schools i called to check up on status, if i noticed whether any status pages for schools had changed, how much i paid out to whom, who invited me where, literally everything. - in log form and then also in an excel document... And then i got really lazy and kept track of nothing =P But by then, all the interviews had kinda sorta come and gone and there was not much to keep track of =P anywho - definitely keep track of as much as possible! the process gets so hectic, it's hard to keep everything in your head!

 

[kateycat]

something else which is definitely helpful to keep track of is your login and password for each school that has an online secondary or status update system. sometimes you get to create them which is easier to remember, but i remember having schools assign random numbers and passwords to login to the site. i had these for every school saved on a word file which i saved to my flashdrive, which i keep on my keychain, so i could check it on campus whenever i wanted to.

also, if you have different LORs i kept a separate excel file for keeping track of which schools i was sending which letters to. i used interfolio (which i totally recommend by the way), so it wasn't like i gave my letter writer envelopes already addressed. i found this helpful because i had 5 letters and some schools wanted 2, others all 5, some had requirements for science and nonscience and all that business.

 

[braluk]

something else which is definitely helpful to keep track of is your login and password for each school that has an online secondary or status update system. s

I circumvented this by have firefox save my login and password in memory so it will automatically be filled in when I log onto the status webpage. It also might be a good idea to bookmark all the schools' status pages as well. Might not be a good idea to save that info if you live with gunners for roommates, but for me I didnt have to worry about that 🙂

 

[Mobius1985]

I used Appstracked, a tracking program made for premeds. It was listed on SDN as a sponsored site at one time. It's free and can be found at: http://www.appstracked.com/

It is password protected.

 

[Sandlot1892]

I used Appstracked, a tracking program made for premeds. It was listed on SDN as a sponsored site at one time. It's free and can be found at: http://www.appstracked.com/

It is password protected.

i never knew about this appstracked program until now. it seems pretty sweet and i think it's what im going to use, since i have different computers at work/home/parents house this will come in handy as an online hub to keep track of everything (i guess one could use a Google Doc/Spreadsheet for this convenience as well)