*~*~*~*Official AMCAS Questions Thread 2018-2019*~*~*~*

Applying to Med School? Get In Or Your Money Back
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Chenpachi said:
3 of my AP credits on my transcript were waivers for 0 credit hours but gave me waivers for classes. I forgot to mark these as Exempt. Is this a big deal or will the verification people just change this for me?
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I had the same question and called the AMCAS help center. They told me that the special course type shouldn't affect verification.
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Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
The AMCAS applicant guide says that if your school does not request your transcript ID and AAMC ID, that they are almost certainly not approved. That said, 5 of my 10 transcripts were e-transcript approved, so the number is growing.

If your school uses Credentials, Inc. or NSCH to send transcripts, those are e-transcript approved.

Edit: for any vets who will be sending a JST, even though it does not request your AAMC ID and Transcript ID, it is still an approved sender. It takes about a day or two to arrive, unlike universities, which should get there within a few hours or a day tops.
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Requested mine on the 12th, says they were read on the 15th but AMCAS still shows JST as not arrived, should I call or is this normal?
 
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Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
Mine took three days. I would order it again.
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Wen you look on the JST website under your official request history, does it show who the party was that opened it? Mine shows it was read by the recipient and their name. I'm wondering if I should call AMCAS as ask them if that person is someone who is in their department?
 
esob said:
Wen you look on the JST website under your official request history, does it show who the party was that opened it? Mine shows it was read by the recipient and their name. I'm wondering if I should call AMCAS as ask them if that person is someone who is in their department?
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You can. Someone may have gotten it and not known what it was.
 
esob said:
My military service is also my paid healthcare experience. Which category would be better to list it under?
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I split mine up. All the things I did in the military that were not directly clinical (leadership, etc), I separated into a military entry. All my actual clinical work (sick call, medical response, medical training team, etc.), I put in a separate "paid clinical" entry.

Edit: I actually had a third entry for the collateral duties I had that involved leadership but were not a part of my actual job (petty officers association, etc). And then I had a section for all my awards, but that wasn't military specific.
 
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Catalystik said:
If you have space, consider spreading out into two entries, both Military and Employment-Medical/Clinical. But I agree that using Military is the most important.
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Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
I split mine up. All the things I did in the military that were not directly clinical (leadership, etc), I separated into a military entry. All my actual clinical work (sick call, medical response, medical training team, etc.), I put in a separate "paid clinical" entry.

Edit: I actually had a third entry for the collateral duties I had that involved leadership but were not a part of my actual job (petty officers association, etc). And then I had a section for all my awards, but that wasn't military specific.
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So would I just split the hours in half or? Everything I did was clinical. Now, for example, I was the supervisor for the overnight shift in my section, and on TMDSAS I listed this as leadership because they don't ask for hours. I listed the actual hours as employment hours for TMDSAS. AMCAS, however, doesn't have a "leadership" without hours attached so I'm not sure how to handle this.

My goal is to not double dip in my hours but at the same time, I want to be sure that my application indicates that I have both military and paid clinical experience.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
You can. Someone may have gotten it and not known what it was.
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I called and they told me that yes, they have received it but it can take up to 10 business days for the status to update. On a related note, did you send your JST to AACOMAS or are you only applying MD? I am unable to find AACOMAS or anything that resembles them as a listed recipient in the JST selections.
 
esob said:
I called and they told me that yes, they have received it but it can take up to 10 business days for the status to update. On a related note, did you send your JST to AACOMAS or are you only applying MD? I am unable to find AACOMAS or anything that resembles them as a listed recipient in the JST selections.
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I’m only applying MD, but I know people who applied to AACOMAS. I can ask them if you want.

Edit: asked a friend. She downloaded the unofficial pdf and uploaded it as continuing education.
 
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esob said:
So would I just split the hours in half or? Everything I did was clinical. Now, for example, I was the supervisor for the overnight shift in my section, and on TMDSAS I listed this as leadership because they don't ask for hours. I listed the actual hours as employment hours for TMDSAS. AMCAS, however, doesn't have a "leadership" without hours attached so I'm not sure how to handle this.

My goal is to not double dip in my hours but at the same time, I want to be sure that my application indicates that I have both military and paid clinical experience.
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Here’s what I did:

I took all the hours I was actually in sick call seeing patients and put that as one entry. All the rest of my work hours that I was doing maintenance on the equipment or paperwork, all the time I spent doing non-clinical stuff, the time I spent on watch, etc, all those hours went into another entry. Now I probably have way more of those hours because I also had a weapons job, but you can still do it like that. You’ll just estimate the hours. Like sick call was 2 hours every morning and 2 hours in the afternoon. So that’s easy to add up. Then I subtracted that out from my estimate of total hours, and that was my hour count for the other entry.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
Here’s what I did:

I took all the hours I was actually in sick call seeing patients and put that as one entry. All the rest of my work hours that I was doing maintenance on the equipment or paperwork, all the time I spent doing non-clinical stuff, the time I spent on watch, etc, all those hours went into another entry. Now I probably have way more of those hours because I also had a weapons job, but you can still do it like that. You’ll just estimate the hours. Like sick call was 2 hours every morning and 2 hours in the afternoon. So that’s easy to add up. Then I subtracted that out from my estimate of total hours, and that was my hour count for the other entry.
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Thanks, that probably won't help me though since I was either serving in the hospital or in a PROFIS unit as a medic. I didn't have any non-clinical duties except for PT.

On the other question about JST, is continuing education just your normal MOS and IET hours? I never took any courses in the military outside of what I did during IET.
 
esob said:
Thanks, that probably won't help me though since I was either serving in the hospital or in a PROFIS unit as a medic. I didn't have any non-clinical duties except for PT.

On the other question about JST, is continuing education just your normal MOS and IET hours? I never took any courses in the military outside of what I did during IET.
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If all you have is military experience on there, you don’t even need to submit it. But I’m pretty sure you have at least a few courses from your A school or whatever it’s called in the Army. I would call AACOMAS and ask. You may not even need to list and submit it if no colleges took any credits from it. AACOMAS is different than amcas wrt JST.
 
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Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
If all you have is military experience on there, you don’t even need to submit it. But I’m pretty sure you have at least a few courses from your A school or whatever it’s called in the Army. I would call AACOMAS and ask. You may not even need to list and submit it if no colleges took any credits from it. AACOMAS is different than amcas wrt JST.
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Yes, I emailed them and explained what was on there, this was their official response:
We do not accept JSTs.
Therefore, you would just proceed with the application and omit the JSTs.
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So that's good news I guess, one less thing to worry about. I never got credit at any school I attended for anything on my military transcripts. My initial entry training school had actual transcripts from GWU so it does not appear on my JST.
 
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esob said:
Yes, I emailed them and explained what was on there, this was their official response:


So that's good news I guess, one less thing to worry about. I never got credit at any school I attended for anything on my military transcripts. My initial entry training school had actual transcripts from GWU so it does not appear on my JST.
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You’re solid for AACOMAS then. If you decide to do amcas you still have to submit it there though.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
You’re solid for AACOMAS then. If you decide to do amcas you still have to submit it there though.
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Yes, I called AMCAS and they said they had gotten my JST and that it can take up to 10 days to post as a status change. So now I'm just waiting on one transcript for AMCAS and AACOMAS. I regret taking that one course at a community college because they are so slow at processing transcripts.
 
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Quick question. Can you change designated LORs to each school after submitting? I'm still waiting to meet with my LOR writer this week to ask for a letter (he's been out of town so I haven't asked yet). I just wanna have fail safe just in case he doesn't end up submitting the letter or says no for some reason.
 
southwestpremed06 said:
Quick question. Can you change designated LORs to each school after submitting? I'm still waiting to meet with my LOR writer this week to ask for a letter (he's been out of town so I haven't asked yet). I just wanna have fail safe just in case he doesn't end up submitting the letter or says no for some reason.
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You can add letters but you cannot take them away after submitting to a school.
 
I have a quick clarification question. In course number, do we have to put the abbreviation too??

For example, for this course: PSY 303 - Psychology, course number would just be 303 right? not PSY 303? and then course name would be Psychology? Does this mean we don't need to input the abbreviations anywhere on AMCAS?
 
Also, I put the section numbers along with the course number (on my transcript it shows up like BIOL 104/07 - course number is only 104, but I put 104/07). Is that okay? I watched the video later on and saw that they actually said section numbers were not needed. Not sure if this would delay processing of my app...
 
I did something ridiculously stupid and submitted for verification to one Early Decision school.

I choose to submit to one school first until i recived my second MCAT score to verify.

I didn't realize I choose Early Decision for that school and AMCAS doesn't have an option to reverse it besides hearing from the school.

But since none of the apps have gone out, has anyone else been in this situation?
 
gonnif said:
The only thing you can do is to send email to the school explaining the simple mistake and ask to be immediately rejected
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AMCAS says you can be released into the regular decision pool. Can I ask them to do that?

I should have read more closely what early decision meant.
 
gonnif said:
You can ask for regular pool
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ah okay thank you for both posts. I feel like such an idiot. I wont forget to read the fine print again. I just focused on the deadlines when choosing thinking “oh ill hear back early as long as i get it in by august. ill be that early”.

cheers! onto secondaries
 
Hi, I have a questions about "year in school" in coursework section.
I'm a nontraditional applicant with a break in my undergraduate education so I need to use the credit guidelines to designate status for each semester.
For example, SO is 36-65 semester hours. Let's say by the end of summer 2016 I had 57 credits, and I designated it SO. At the beginning fall 2016, I only have 57 credits but I earn 15 credits that fall and end up with 71 credits by the end. Should that fall 2016 semester designated as a Sophomore or Junior semester?
I hope it makes sense what I am asking! Thank you in advance.
 

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I am concerned on the order of my ECs appearing on the AMCAS preview.

I separated my posters presentations in two separate activities. My most recent poster would appear on the first activity (it reads "poster #3...), while my other poster (reads "poster #1...)would appeared in the middle of all my ECs (entry #5) due to the far apart in dates. Is this something I should fix, or do adcoms understands the default order is not due to our control. This also happens with my honors too. I would have one award that I recently received on the top of the EC list (Award #3...), while the first award goes to the bottom of the list, with other ECs in between.
 
I'm planning on submitting 5 letters of recommendation to the schools that I apply to. 2 science, 1 non-science (psychology professor), 1 from the hospice that I shadowed at, and 1 from a professor who I was a research assistant for. Now if the first 4 letters are very strong letters, but the research one as not AS STRONG, but still good, should I still submit that as my 5th? Or would it be better to just submit 4? I know for the research-heavy schools they'll want a letter of rec most likely from someone you did research with which is why I'm planning on submitting it but wanted to get some feedback/opinions on that. Thanks
 
DameJulie said:
I am concerned on the order of my ECs appearing on the AMCAS preview.

I separated my posters presentations in two separate activities. My most recent poster would appear on the first activity (it reads "poster #3...), while my other poster (reads "poster #1...)would appeared in the middle of all my ECs (entry #5) due to the far apart in dates. Is this something I should fix, or do adcoms understands the default order is not due to our control. This also happens with my honors too. I would have one award that I recently received on the top of the EC list (Award #3...), while the first award goes to the bottom of the list, with other ECs in between.
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I doubt it matters. My ECs changed order every time I edited something.
 
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Question on Cleveland Clinic:
Hi just wanted to know if Cleveland clinic and Case have the same program or you have to apply to Cleveland Clinic separately? I do not see it as an option in the list of Medical schools
 
I had a semester-long senior design project where I was the team lead. It was basically a competition in our class and our group placed second. We got our poster put on display and won money. What should I put this under in my application? I wasn't sure between presentation/poster, leadership and awards/honors. I'd appreciate any help, thanks :D
 
gonnif said:
Its a poster, it was in display in what setting? departmental "symposium?
Could be leadership as well.

I would think leadership would be best and mentioning the poster and the award in that entry
@Catalystik thoughts
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It's on display with the other award-winning posters in one of the buildings on campus. I was thinking the same thing, putting it under leadership and then mentioning the award and poster.
 
Transcript got sent on June 8th and they still havent recieved it is this normal? Also this means i wont be verifeid until like freaking July right?
 
I'm planning on submitting 5 letters of recommendation to the schools that I apply to. 2 science, 1 non-science (psychology professor), 1 from the hospice that I shadowed at, and 1 from a professor who I was a research assistant for. Now if the first 4 letters are very strong letters, but the research one as not AS STRONG, but still good, should I still submit that as my 5th? Or would it be better to just submit 4? I know for the research-heavy schools they'll want a letter of rec most likely from someone you did research with which is why I'm planning on submitting it but wanted to get some feedback/opinions on that. Thanks
 
When adding a school and it asks if you have applied to the program already, does that only include sending a primary to them or does it mean having a complete application?
 
Nnahor said:
I had a semester-long senior design project where I was the team lead. It was basically a competition in our class and our group placed second. We got our poster put on display and won money. What should I put this under in my application? I wasn't sure between presentation/poster, leadership and awards/honors.
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It would be helpful to know how many hours you put into this project and how many other students you coordinated. And also the complexity of the design and the type (engineering, fashion, landscape, architecture, eg). How much cash did you win? All these factors help determine how to best present the effort.
 
gonnif said:
What is "not AS STRONG?" And how extensive was the research? how long?
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When I say "not AS STRONG" it's because the professor mentioned that it has been 5 years since I did my research with her so it might not be as strong as a letter since it's not as recent. I was an undergraduate research assistant for 8 months (75 hours not including research presentation time----w/presentation time....85 hours total) with her.

2 presentations-1 one Western Psychological Association, and 1 at the Symposium at our university where everybody with posters and projects presented their research.
 
Catalystik said:
It would be helpful to know how many hours you put into this project and how many other students you coordinated. And also the complexity of the design and the type (engineering, fashion, landscape, architecture, eg). How much cash did you win? All these factors help determine how to best present the effort.
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It was my senior design project for computer science. The cash prize was only $75 per person on my team. It was a semester-long thing that we put 8-10 hours per week into.
 
Do the activities you input into the work/activities section have to be in some sort of chronological order?

As I uploaded all my activities over time and edited them constantly, mine are not in order. For instance, the first one listed is My hobbies: 6/2017-1/2018, then comes one of most meaningful experiences which is dated for 12/2016-5/2017 and then jumps to my work experience which varies in dates with the most recent being 11/2016 -04/2017, 07/2017 - 02/2018.

I'm wondering if it has to be listed in a certain order as that would be an insane amount of editing if I have to reinsert every single experience in order. Thank you.
 
Question on : Letting schools know about research manuscript approved for publication post submission of application to AMCAS

Hi
My application has been verified by AMCAS. I was informed today that our manuscript was approved to be published. I had mentioned in one of my activities that the manuscript is in review. How Can I inform the medical schools that it has been approved to be published. Do I send them URL and the proof that I received that Email of acceptance ?
 
I'm planning on submitting my application next week, however my school's Health committee doesn't meet until August to write committee letters. Should I just have them submit a letter packet next week instead? Or is it worth it to wait to get the committee letter and possibly delay my secondaries??
 
My transcript was sent June 14th and has not been "received" yet. I have confirmed this with my school. Should I contact AMCAS or wait it out for a few more days?
 
Question about: "Did you have paid employment prior to age eighteen?"
This might be a stupid question but...does work study job at school count as paid employment?
 
finnhockey19 said:
My transcript was sent June 14th and has not been "received" yet. I have confirmed this with my school. Should I contact AMCAS or wait it out for a few more days?
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I would contact. Did you send the transcript request form? Keep in mind that right now is peak time for AMCAS so everything will take longer than at any other time.
 
bree95 said:
I'm planning on submitting my application next week, however my school's Health committee doesn't meet until August to write committee letters. Should I just have them submit a letter packet next week instead? Or is it worth it to wait to get the committee letter and possibly delay my secondaries??
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Committee letters often don't arrive at med schools until fall. Med schools are aware of this typical timing, so just wait for the committee letter. Many to most Secondary invitations will arrive before that time.
 
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JBruinW said:
I'm hoping that I didn't just screw my primary up. I submitted my primary June 13 but I just remembered that I signed up for summer courses at a sister institution about four years ago. I dropped the courses before the semester started and I called the school to ask about transcripts. They do not have any record of me attempting courses at their institution. Will my primary application be rejected or put on hold for not sending these (blank) transcripts of a school where I never officially attempted any courses?
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On page 32 of the AMCAS Application Guide, an excerpt:

"A course entry should not be made if the course was dropped within the normal drop/add period and does not appear on your transcript.

If you withdrew entirely from a school before completing courses for a specific term, you must still list each course for which you were registered that term, with Withdrawal as the Special Course Type. If the school does not issue transcripts for students who withdraw entirely, you must request that the registrar’s office forward an official letter (with an AMCAS Transcript Request Form attached) indicating that no transcript is available because of institutional policies."
 
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Should I write numbers in words for PS, MM essay and descriptions? i.e. age 10 or age ten
 
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