Is a super early application ever bad?

[DOCTAfoHIRE]

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Is it ever bad to be one of the first applicants that a medical school sees? Im in a position right now where as long as I pre-write my secondaries I can be one of those people. But when Ive told some of my friends how early ive done everything a general response has been 'Well its good to be early, but not that early!'

I always assumed the first one in would have the chances at the first interviews and it would be an amazing advantage to be first. Is there actually a bigger advantage to be early but not super early?

Im not trying to be neurotic, im actually wondering. Planning on sending all my stuff in as early as possible anyhow

 

[theseeker4]

Is it ever bad to be one of the first applicants that a medical school sees? Im in a position right now where as long as I pre-write my secondaries I can be one of those people. But when Ive told some of my friends how early ive done everything a general response has been 'Well its good to be early, but not that early!'

I always assumed the first one in would have the chances at the first interviews and it would be an amazing advantage to be first. Is there actually a bigger advantage to be early but not super early?

Im not trying to be neurotic, im actually wondering. Planning on sending all my stuff in as early as possible anyhow

The earlier the better, all other things being equal. That doesn't mean you will see a real difference in outcome between getting the secondary in in mid July vs. early August, but in general, the earlier the better. I don't see why there would be a DISADVANTAGE to submitting very early vs. just early. What would the reasoning behind that be?

 

[1289]

The earlier the better, all other things being equal. That doesn't mean you will see a real difference in outcome between getting the secondary in in mid July vs. early August, but in general, the earlier the better. I don't see why there would be a DISADVANTAGE to submitting very early vs. just early. What would the reasoning behind that be?

I kind of understand OP, like you worry that they'll see you app and think "maybe there's better to come?" and either reject or put you on hold for months, but all things considered I think it's still worth it to apply early.

 

[DOCTAfoHIRE]

I think the reasoning (albeit flawed) was that if you are in the very very first pool of applicants the schools will instantly try to snatch up the super best applicants and invite them for interviews. However if you are not one of the very best, the schools will decide to wait because they have not seen the majority of the applicants yet. So your application will kind of be lost in that first wave and as more and more applicants submit the school will be more likely to invite candidates that it is seeing for the first time, rather than someone who they reviewed earlier and forgot about. It seemed silly to me.

However I think it all comes down to how schools evaluate the most current wave of applicants in relation to applications that came in earlier. So if they get my app Aug 1st but I am not one of the people they choose to invite to interview right away, when they get the Aug 15th people, how will I be evaluated alongside these fresh applicants? Will my whole app be reviewed again?

 

[Ismet]

I think the reasoning (albeit flawed) was that if you are in the very very first pool of applicants the schools will instantly try to snatch up the super best applicants and invite them for interviews. However if you are not one of the very best, the schools will decide to wait because they have not seen the majority of the applicants yet. So your application will kind of be lost in that first wave and as more and more applicants submit the school will be more likely to invite candidates that it is seeing for the first time, rather than someone who they reviewed earlier and forgot about. It seemed silly to me.

However I think it all comes down to how schools evaluate the most current wave of applicants in relation to applications that came in earlier. So if they get my app Aug 1st but I am not one of the people they choose to invite to interview right away, when they get the Aug 15th people, how will I be evaluated alongside these fresh applicants? Will my whole app be reviewed again?

You're overanalyzing. While your logic may be valid, there's no way to predict what will happen. Just apply as early as your stuff is ready. Keep in mind that people with lower stats are always advised to apply as early as possible, because a 3.3 in July has a much better chance than a 3.3 in October. With that logic, schools in general are more accepting of applicants early on, when they haven't seen a lot of people yet.