Mr. Larkin,
Hi I have a couple of questions for you about the application
process
(a friend was asking, so I thought I would poise this question to
you).
First off, in regards to the application, what is meant by the message
that says the application has been processed that is given a few days
after you send it in?? I thought processed application takes 4-6 weeks.
Secondly, if someone sends in their app June 1st, and someone sends in
their app June 15th, does this mean the person that sends it in June 1st
would most likely get a secondary a couple weeks before the person that
applied June 15th?? Or would they all get the secondaries at the same time
if their app meets secondary requirements??? --- AMCAS probably has
processed your application, determined it to have all of the critical
material and responded to you that it has been processed. That doesn't
mean that is has been verified. Verification means that transcript data
has been compared with the original transcripts that you submitted and an
AMCAS adjusted GPA has been computed. AMCAS advertised verification to
have been completed from 3-6 weeks from the time they receive all original
transcripts. As for secondaries, AMCAS will not send any applicant data
to schools until after the July 4 holiday. That being true, depending
upon the administrations at each school, it is possible that those who
submit an application to AMCAS on June 1 and June 15 would be offered a
secondary at the same time in July.
Well ok, that's a bit more then 2 questions. But I have just a few more
questions for you. If someone sends in their app now, and gets
secondaries, how long would they be able to wait before filling it out??
This is a concern of some August MCATers who don't want to process it for
fear of being rushed to do secondaries right before the MCAT. Thanks for
all your help. --- Each school has their own specific rules for their
secondary. Most will set an absolute deadline of some date after they the
AMCAS deadline that each program chooses. As for us we close AMCAS on
December 1 and have a secondary deadline of January 15. Of course since
most programs interview from the end of September through sometime in
March, an applicant may be at a disadvantage to wait on completing their
application. For example those taking the August MCAT will have to wait
8-9 weeks for a score. That score will complete their
application and schedule them for review at about 1 November. In most
cases it takes up to two business weeks to finally evaluate a file for
interview decision. Now we are at Nov 15ish. Now if we decide to
absolutely interview a candidate on Nov 15, the earliest we can offer them
an interview would be about 3 weeks later. Counting the holiday, that
would mean a candidate who took the August MCAT could, at best be offered
an interview for the week prior to Christmas if there was such a date
scheduled. Short answer, August MCAT probably means no interview until
January or later if all goes well. Now with all applications probably
completed by Christmas - a huge percentage of applicants are looking for
interviews in the last 10 weeks of the interview season. Of course if you
wait until you receive your August MCAT scores before you begin to turn in
the secondaries and associated documents, this timeline gets much later.
I hope this helps.
The bolded portions is REL's response to my questions about secondaries and application timeline.