*~*~*~* Official AMCAS Questions Thread 2020-2021 *~*~*~*

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On the part of the AMCAS app about "Childhood Information", am I correct in interpreting the yes/no question about "Family Assistance Programs" as pertaining to the childhood period of the applicant, not to that of his/her parents?
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Hi! On secondaries, would you recommend that abbreviations be redefined in each individual essay for a particular school, or is okay to write out something like "emergency department (ED)" in the first essay and then use only "ED" if/when I include it in another essay from the same school? Thanks!
 
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Hi! So at the time of my primary application, I didn't put projected hours on my work and activities for a research position I began in February because I ended up being furloughed in June because of COVID 19 (date to be brought back was TBD at the time & didn't want to lie..). I was recently told that I'd be brought back and I'll be working full time again...how should I describe this / the expected hours I plan on completing in my secondaries? And will this hurt me because I didn't put the projected hours? Thanks!
 
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Hi all, I'm writing with a deep sense of panic and would love any and all advice. I took two english courses at a community college in 2011-2012 when I was a sophomore in high school. That was the year a parent had some severe health problems and there was a lot going on and I honestly can't remember a lot from that year.

A week ago, I was talking to my mom and she mentioned she heard the CC I took these classes at had closed. I was beyond horrified because I completely forgot I ever took classes there, and submitted my AMCAS without it. We weren't sure if I was ever formally enrolled (or just sitting in), so I asked the registrar of the nearby CC that took over their files. She said it was unlikely that I had a transcript. So, my verified AMCAS went out to schools on the first date of transmission.

Today, I unexpectedly received a transcript from the registrar. I apparently got two A+s on the english classes. I would have of course sent in this transcript, I just completely forgot this ever happened, and now I'm just really horrified at what it will mean for my AMCAS. What do I do? Since my AMCAS has already been verified and sent out, does this mean AMCAS will withdraw my app? I can't put into words how horrified I am, and I can't believe that I would make this mistake after all the work I put into this application. Any and all advice would be really welcome, thank you so much in advance. @gonnif @LizzyM @gyngyn
 
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Hello
I’m in the process of submitting my transcripts. AMCAS has received one from my main institution but im confused about my CC transcripts. They have eTranscript option and so I used that. I also attached a Transcript Request form. AMCAS directions concerning eTranscripts really confuse me, I am not sure I did this correctly?
also, I’m enrolled in an smp right now, taking upper level science and math courses. Will my app still be verifiEd without sending a transcript from this school? Because obviously I can’t right now because we are still in the middle of the 1st semester.
 
gonnif said:
1) The eTranscript option at your school may not follow the "standard" way of AMCAS accepting these transcripts. If the school did not have approval for etranscripts prior to this cycle, then the registrar needs to email AMCAS for instructions
Registrars Only: If you would like the transcript email or fax instructions, contact [email protected] with the subject line “Instructions.”

2) SMP does not need transcript for current class
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Thank you so much for clarification. I was able to get everything sorted! All my transcripts have been received now, except from my SMP but they have sent me an email and said they are currently reviewing it to see if it will be waived because obviously it has to be. I don’t know why mine didn’t pop up as “not required” like other people I know. Thank you so much!
 
I was verified yesterday. The address I put on my AMCAS was an address that I was supposed to be living in now but I found out last week that I will actually be living at my current address for longer instead (until January).How do I/can I change the address on my verified application?
 
Hi @gonnif I'm a non-trad and have a question about the GPAs sent to schools. Long story short my first round of undergrad (2006-2011) was rough. 2.8 cumulative rough. However my master's GPA was a 3.87 and my doctoral GPA was a 3.97 (left after 2.5 years to pursue medicine) and post-bacc classes I've been taking these past couple of years are all 4.0. Looking at a lot of schools they say minimum for everything is a 3.0. Is this only undergrad or is minimum for cumulative every class I've ever taken? If it's the latter and they include grad classes then I'm clear, if it isn't what would you suggest I do? I know grad classes don't really hold a lot of weight but do they at least get calculated into my overalls? I have a 520 MCAT and am an entire decade wiser than when I was in undergrad, but I fear I will be screened out automatically or ineligible to even be considered. Thanks in advance for the help!
 
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Since em dashes are considered special characters and I can't insert them in my PS, would using 2 dashes as an em dash look unprofessional? Are there other good substitutions for this?
 
What time is too late to take CASper? I am taking mine on July 30th but I was thinking of moving it to this weekend. I read you don’t study for it but at the same time I don’t want to rush it
 
k_med said:
Good point...do you think it would be detrimental do just use '-' if I had to with my sentence structure as is?
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I think it is more detrimental to delay finishing your essay over a favorite punctuation mark. I'm not trying to be sassy here, but reminding you to let trivial things go and address the big picture.
 
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Wondering if schools will wait for new updated MCAT scores this cycle or will they go ahead and evaluate your application if it is technically "complete"? Retaking on August 29th and wondering if I should go ahead and send in secondaries so I'm not late or wait until I have a new score to submit them and complete my application in Mid-Sept. Any advice would be appreciated, thanks.
 
gonnif said:
1. Applicants get way, way, way too focused on a single metric like GPA. While UG sGPA (BCPM) is the primary metric as it has at least a very rough standard across all applicants, schools will take into account grade trends. post-bacc, SMP, and, to a much lesser and widely varying extent, other graduate GPA. However, this is specific by individual school and all schools will at least screen AMCAS Primary beyond a formalistic calculation of metrics
2. With such a low UG GPA and such a highly improved grad, post-bacc, and MCAT metrics, you need to address this VERY BRIEFLY in PS (in less than 1 sentence) and make a statement that your grad/postbacc GPA and MCAT are much more representative of your academic ability. You should have used this "effective" GPA and MCAT when targeting schools
3. I am more concerned with leaving a PhD program. Medical schools look for a pattern of motivation, commitment, and achievement, and you are weak on all three. This is especially true of commitment: if you weren't going to stay and finish a PhD you decided to start, how can they be sure you will stay and complete the lengthy and arguably more difficult training of medical school and residency.
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Thank you so much for your reply! Just to clarify when you speak of the "effective GPA" you suggest I target schools with, are you suggesting I use my true combined with the improvement, or think of it more as my improved GPA (last 127 hours of coursework since undergrad is a 3.94, with 37 of those hours being science and a 4.0)?
 
gonnif said:
1) in your PS I suggest a VERY BRIEF phrase that "my latest nearly 130 hours of coursework at a 3.9 GPA and a 520 MCAT is representative of my academic ability" or something along those lines preferably more concise than above
2) your improvement is more of a guide. You should think of your effective GPA as a 3.75-3.85
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This is wonderful news. While my PS (already submitted) did not explicitly say such things I did comment briefly on how improved of a candidate I have become over the last decade. The vast majority of it was also spent explaining how I've remained close to medicine even in another field and culminated in why I left my doctoral program to pursue medicine, so I feel that also addresses your other concerns. I know many secondaries allow for further clarification of things and I will be sure to address my improvement more explicitly in those.

Thank you so much for your help with this, my situation has made it very difficult in targeting schools but your and Goro's advice has been truly invaluable. The work you do for all of us on here is greatly appreciated.
 
I’ve already been verified and am submitting secondaries. I moved to an apartment that I was not originally planning to and my address on AMCAS is not a place that I will be living. I need to update this address to my current one. If I update this on my AMCAS now will I be unverified? Will it cause any issues? It is the same state of legal residence as I declared
 
Are IB classes/tests entered the same way as AP classes?
 
I have 8 hours of exemption credit in a foreign language that AMCAS changed from "exemption" to "advanced placement," I think because my school gave me actual credit hours (P/F) for the courses. The exemption was awarded after a foreign language placement test before starting my freshman year. I just used it to get into 3rd semester french instead of starting with 1st. Is this worth an academic change request?
 
ThatSerb said:
for some who has not submitted their primary yet it is pretty comforting that he said yes
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I'm right there with you. Take my MCAT August 8th. Will finish my primary in the following week. Mid August submission. Verification is going to be rough.
 
ClutchDropout said:
I'm right there with you. Take my MCAT August 8th. Will finish my primary in the following week. Mid August submission. Verification is going to be rough.
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We got this. Another adcom and "verified expert" on here told me that normally you are fine if you get your app in by Labor Day, and that it is a common "pre-med delusion" that you are late if you haven't submitted by June 2nd. Best of luck with your exam!!
 
ThatSerb said:
We got this. Another adcom and "verified expert" on here told me that normally you are fine if you get your app in by Labor Day, and that it is a common "pre-med delusion" that you are late if you haven't submitted by June 2nd. Best of luck with your exam!!
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Thank you! Good luck to you as well for this cycle.
 
gonnif said:
Lets me even make it official

Admissions | UC San Diego School of Medicine
We are aware that the perception of many applicants is that if you don't apply very early in the cycle, you are hurting your chances for admission. This is not true and in fact has never been true for UCSD.
We do have "rolling" admissions. But, what rolling admissions means from our perspective is that we plan to make a small number of offers spread throughout the year...but it does NOT mean that we make all of our offers in October and November and reject any applicants that happen to be reviewed later.
It is very much in our interest to try to form the best possible incoming class, and thus we do not make any decisions based on how early or how late we receive or review an application. We leave plenty of room for strong applicants that apply later in the cycle.
The situation is fluid, as the need for social-distancing and other impacts of COVID-19 may extend and force additional MCAT cancellations. We are not yet able to determine how this will impact our process overall, so we ask for your patience as we don't have all the answers yet and may need to adapt our policy to fit the situation to ensure an equitable review process for all applicants.
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As a California applicant, this is a great relief
 
Hey guys, has anyone ever submitted an Academic Change Request? I had hit submit and my page refreshed but I never got a confirmation page/email. Am I supposed to get a confirmation somehow?

Unsure if I should try again or if duplicate entries would mess up the system more.
 
So on my actual transcript, there is a section called: “test credits applied towards program”

it then lists the courses that i got credit for from my IB tests (but the transcript doesn't say IB itself). however, the course titles for these credits are the university course equivalents. all the grades are “T” for transfer. so, the transcript says nothing about "IB" testing

2 questions:

  1. what do i enter on the amcas courses for these? do i use the “IB Course: Biology” or do i enter the university course number and name equivalent as written on the transcript?
  2. do i put "T" for the grade?
 
So for under my activities section I listed my study abroad experience. For listing the house would it be better to but 0 since its hard to quantify the experience or is it valid to put something around 3000 which how long I studied abroad in hours?
 
SOS every time I try to login to AMCAS it says "Login Error: You do not have access to this system." Anyone else having this happen?? super confused... my app has already been submitted/verified, and I was able to login yesterday....
 
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ctctgirl said:
SOS every time I try to login to AMCAS it says "Login Error: You do not have access to this system." Anyone else having this happen?? super confused... my app has already been submitted/verified, and I was able to login yesterday....
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Oh thank goodness! I was having the exact same issue, so I thought I was the only one. I went on a Google-spree and came across nothing.
I keep getting these messages:

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1596995494931.png


I'm still unverified, so this has left me a little worried.
 
If I took an EMT course at a community college after graduating from my 4 year institution, what year should I list for course work?
 
Will AMCAS automatically send my committee letter packet to schools I add, or do I need to notify my university committee that I added schools?
 
If I am not a reapplicant, and one of my courses are out of order but still in the correct term and year, does this need to be fixed? It was a general chemistry lab that I had withdrew from and has 0 credits, but it is still listed on the transcript. I forgot to put it in there until now, but I can't get it in the exact order as my transcript. :/
 
Also, I took community college credits in high school from 2013-2015. After graduation, I enrolled in an EMT course in 2019 at the same community college. Do I need to break these dates up when filling out the "Schools Attended?" Right now, it is listed as 8/2013 - 12/2019. But I did not go to school there from 2016-2018.
 
gonnif said:
It should be ok though if you are still just filling out your AMCAS, it is rather late
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Considering how late it is now and with verification taking so long, is it still worth applying? I plan on submitting primary tomorrow. cGPA 3.87, sGPA 3.82, MCAT 511, solid ECs. Before I spend any money, I just want to know if my chances are shot before even starting? Any advice is appreciated.
 
gonnif said:
Personally, I think it is too late. I do not know how long verification will take, I do not know how long before secondaries are sent out and you return them, I do not know which schools have Oct 1 or 15 deadline, and, besides wasting money, it makes you a reapplicant next time around.
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All fair points. Thank you for responding. If I submit to a throwaway school just to see if verification picks up will I be a reapplicant to every school next cycle or just the one throwaway?
 
Hey all,

Apologies if this has been asked before:

My primary has been verified and transmitted. I'm trying to add a letter to a school that I had already listed when my app was initially verified. However, after I save the added letter to the school, log out, then log back in, it disappears from the school. I've contacted AMCAS. Anyone else have any experience with this and can help? Thank you.
 
fishberry said:
Hey all,

Apologies if this has been asked before:

My primary has been verified and transmitted. I'm trying to add a letter to a school that I had already listed when my app was initially verified. However, after I save the added letter to the school, log out, then log back in, it disappears from the school. I've contacted AMCAS. Anyone else have any experience with this and can help? Thank you.
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You have to click "resubmit application" right after you add the letters. You have to do that every time you make a change to your application.
 
BothSides said:
You have to click "resubmit application" right after you add the letters. You have to do that every time you make a change to your application.
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Thank you for your response!

So, I go to my list of schools, edit the school, add the letter, hit save, then save that page. But when I go to the main menu, the Resubmit Application button is greyed out.
 
fishberry said:
Thank you for your response!

So, I go to my list of schools, edit the school, add the letter, hit save, then save that page. But when I go to the main menu, the Resubmit Application button is greyed out.
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Right after you add the letter, a box should pop up asking you to "resubmit your application." I don't even think you have to go to the main menu. At least that is how it worked for me when I added letters earlier today.
 
BothSides said:
Right after you add the letter, a box should pop up asking you to "resubmit your application." I don't even think you have to go to the main menu. At least that is how it worked for me when I added letters earlier today.
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So weird. I'm not getting that. I'll try another browser. If that doesn't work, I'll wait for AMCAS to help. Thank you for your help!!
 
fishberry said:
So weird. I'm not getting that. I'll try another browser. If that doesn't work, I'll wait for AMCAS to help. Thank you for your help!!
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Called AMCAS and they helped! It seems like the app is just kinda buggy. They had me go to the biographic section and add something, save it, and then that popped up the option to resubmit.
 
Regarding LORs, if there is an evaluator I did not designate any schools to and indicated that their letter is "no longer being sent", is there a way I could reverse the "no longer being sent" status? His letter has been submitted and I now want to designate schools to receive his letter but I'm worried the "no longer being sent status" will mean that even if I designate schools to receive his submitted letter now, they will not receive it? I tried including his letter for one of the schools, and I then checked the school's supplementary where it lists my LORs, and I do not see his name under that list which worries me. Anyone knows anything about this?
 
gonnif said:
Once a letter is assigned it will be sent. Even if you mark the letter no longer being sent but it gets uploaded to the system, it will be sent. Now if a school sees a no longer being sent, marks your application complete, and it goes off to eval and then the longer being sent letter shows up, it may not make it to eval file. Therefore I would send a VERY SHORT BRIEF note saying

i mistakenly assumed a letter wasnt being sent but has now made it to the system. Please include this letter in my application file. Again I apologize for my confusion in this matter. Than you for your assistance

sincerely

Groveling Applicant
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Ok, thank you! What I've been doing so far is assigning the letter to the school then submitting their secondary...since my application wouldn't be complete without the secondary. I'm just hoping in this way the letter is actually sent to them before my secondary submission. Anyway, I think I might just email the schools too just in case.
 
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