Why is it so important to start picking schools to send primaries to so far before the application cycle?
Also, I thought the MSAR came out in April.
Applying is extremely time consuming and stressful because you have this additional thing in your life on top of everything else (school, work, EC's, life). I told myself I would get it all done over the summer, and although my primary was complete, the first secondaries I finished wasn't til September and had to wait til October for letters (Aside: as you think about schools, think about letter writers, the summer is usually more relaxed for most profs so hit them up then). Also, read the fine print. A few schools flat out will not accept out of state applicants, so if you apply, they will cash you fee on the way to the post office to mail your rejection letter. One school even had minimum MCAT #s. Lastly, some schools have requirements. UIC requires 2 courses of psych and 1 of anthro. Georgetown requires a year of English. It is useful to know what these schools require when doing class schedules.
AMCAS takes a while ~2-3 weeks to process you apps. Some schools wont send secondaries until your primary is complete. There is another thread on SDN about essays prompts. I doubt they change drastically from one year to the next, so if you're really on the ball, you can start brainstorming ideas for responses.
