*~*~* Official Class of 2024 Thread *~*~*

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Ok, am I having a brain fart? Is this for people applying this summer, or people who have already been accepted and are matriculating this fall?
 
Lucca said:
Applying this summer
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Thank you for clarifying.
Now the rest of the applicants can be encouraged that there is at least one applicant they can outsmart in math. LOL
 
The time is now
 
samualjhatfield said:
Is this the time of the pre-cycle when most sane people are starting their personal statements and gathering LORs?
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The sooner the start, the less stressful it is. I would for sure start gathering LORs now but only brainstorming PS ideas.
 
Who's taking CA$PER early? Like around May?
 
samualjhatfield said:
Is this the time of the pre-cycle when most sane people are starting their personal statements and gathering LORs?
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Yes do this if u want to be ready for day 1 submission, which is by no means necessary at all but can help you get ahead on other things if you can manage it.
 
puahate said:
Who's taking CA$PER early? Like around May?
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This is definitely a thing I would advise y’all to do early. It’s easy, requires no prep, and it can hold up your application for a month if you wait. Plus it feels like you’ve done something productive to help your app along at a time when you can’t do much else. Get it out of the way before primaries open, your score is good for a year anyway.
 
Moocille said:
This is definitely a thing I would advise y’all to do early. It’s easy, requires no prep, and it can hold up your application for a month if you wait. Plus it feels like you’ve done something productive to help your app along at a time when you can’t do much else. Get it out of the way before primaries open, your score is good for a year anyway.
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Do we just send it to every school starting in May or June? When can we take it...?
 
samualjhatfield said:
Do we just send it to every school starting in May or June? When can we take it...?
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https://takecasper.com/

Dates for taking it for the upcoming cycle will vary by school, but it looks like the earliest date last cycle was May 15. It’s up to you if you send it to every school that requires it right away, or wait until they request it. Personally, I sent primaries, took CASPer (because I didn’t know it existed until August of last year), and sent it to all my schools before I got any secondaries. Many schools will not issue IIs without CASPer, so if you have it done and on file early, it’s one less thing.
 
Casper takes about a month to send to school. I'm planning to take it mid-May to early June after my finals are over. I am currently gathering letters, drafting a personal statement, and going through my schools committee process so I can submit the first day. In between, I will prewrite secondaries so I can be ready to be complete at most schools by early to mid July.
 
Moocille said:
https://takecasper.com/

Dates for taking it for the upcoming cycle will vary by school, but it looks like the earliest date last cycle was May 15. It’s up to you if you send it to every school that requires it right away, or wait until they request it. Personally, I sent primaries, took CASPer (because I didn’t know it existed until August of last year), and sent it to all my schools before I got any secondaries. Many schools will not issue IIs without CASPer, so if you have it done and on file early, it’s one less thing.
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But you have the option of selecting schools as you go after you take it? Like you don't have to select schools right away?
 
DivisionByZero said:
Casper takes about a month to send to school. I'm planning to take it mid-May to early June after my finals are over. I am currently gathering letters, drafting a personal statement, and going through my schools committee process so I can submit the first day. In between, I will prewrite secondaries so I can be ready to be complete at most schools by early to mid July.
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The committee process at my school made us write a 3 page autobio, as well as, a personal statement. As much of a pain as it was, doing so was really beneficial when it came time to write secondaries because I had events fresh in my mind that I could draw from. General advice I found on here is pre-write very general essays topics: adversity, diversity, unique challenges, what have you been doing since graduating or plan on doing for gap year, etc. That way, after a while essays just become a bit more copy, paste, adjust for character/word limits, done.
 
holdthemayo said:
Definitely for the LoR. Even the best-intentioned letter writers sometimes take forever to get around to writing them.
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Thankfully with Interfolio I got one letter back in December, another in January, another last week and have two more requests already sent out. It has been a life saver.
 
PSA to any last minute test schedulers: If you take the March 29th MCAT, your score will come back on May 1st when the application opens. You can still have enough time to retake it after that!
 
Sunbodi said:
The MCAT alone and PS and filling out primary makes me want to wake up and have it be January of next year.
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I started on my PS last July and MCAT back in October for that reason - I hate burnout lol my big stressor over the last few days has been a tailored school list
 
TempuraOreos said:
You ain't seen nothing yet. Lol

Wait until all those secondaries start coming in all at once after being verified.

But honestly, pace yourself. It's a marathon.
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As far as the application in general goes, secondaries have A LOT faster turn-around time than the primary does. So, is it general for the primary to be where students stand out and secondaries to be kind of generic (or just blah) so long as they are coherent and match the school mission? While I do plan on visiting my university writer's center almost every day this summer for the secondaries, they are not going to be as well refined as the primary - is that a fairly accurate judgement or am I way off and should start pumping those first drafts out now?
 
MemeLord said:
As far as the application in general goes, secondaries have A LOT faster turn-around time than the primary does. So, is it general for the primary to be where students stand out and secondaries to be kind of generic (or just blah) so long as they are coherent and match the school mission? While I do plan on visiting my university writer's center almost every day this summer for the secondaries, they are not going to be as well refined as the primary - is that a fairly accurate judgement or am I way off and should start pumping those first drafts out now?
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Like I said, pace yourself. One step at a time. Get PS done, and the activities solid. Have some of the generic secondary questions I guess. And, I'd say secondaries are more important. Gives more opportunity to flesh out stories and anecdotes from your activities.
 
MemeLord said:
As far as the application in general goes, secondaries have A LOT faster turn-around time than the primary does. So, is it general for the primary to be where students stand out and secondaries to be kind of generic (or just blah) so long as they are coherent and match the school mission? While I do plan on visiting my university writer's center almost every day this summer for the secondaries, they are not going to be as well refined as the primary - is that a fairly accurate judgement or am I way off and should start pumping those first drafts out now?
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Definitely prioritize the primary until you are 100% done with it. I personally felt that the primary had more weight than secondaries. I had multiple interviewers mention specific experiences or actually quote my personal statement, but I don’t recall the same for a secondary.

And of course, you don’t know what the prompts will be next cycle. I had a few prompts change from past years and negated some of the extra effort I put in.
 
Wahkoon said:
Definitely prioritize the primary until you are 100% done with it. I personally felt that the primary had more weight than secondaries. I had multiple interviewers mention specific experiences or actually quote my personal statement, but I don’t recall the same for a secondary.

And of course, you don’t know what the prompts will be next cycle. I had a few prompts change from past years and negated some of the extra effort I put in.
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On your final note, anyone who is applying to university of Washington or would like just generic secondary essay prompts, the school posts theirs on their website for the current application year. They are super generic diversity adversity type essays that I think it would act as a good template so to speak for any school.
 
Wahkoon said:
And of course, you don’t know what the prompts will be next cycle. I had a few prompts change from past years and negated some of the extra effort I put in.
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This. I prewrote all my secondaries, and only two of my schools had the same essays. The secondaries are definitely important, but they are usually shorter and don't take as long to write. But don't make the mistake of thinking they aren't important. For some schools, they are very important.
 
My advice to everyone is to not read into anything too much and do your best not to stress about every little thing. Turning in a secondary in three weeks instead of two doesn’t matter. Not getting an interview invite in August doesn’t matter. One bad interview doesn’t matter. None of it matters all that much.

Just make sure you’re turning in the best possible application, print it out and go over it with a red pen line by line (twice) before submitting, be as early as possible, and keep yourself as busy as you can until II season. Read your application the night before the interview and be yourself.
 
I know the general advice is to treat every day after you press submit as if you need to reapply.

I was wondering if this includes MCAT studying. Should we continue studying for the MCAT after we submit applications?
 
Sunbodi said:
I know the general advice is to treat every day after you press submit as if you need to reapply.

I was wondering if this includes MCAT studying. Should we continue studying for the MCAT after we submit applications?
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Do you expect to take it again? Is it expiring before the 2021 cycle or is it a borderline score?
 
stayathomemom said:
Do you expect to take it again? Is it expiring before the 2021 cycle or is it a borderline score?
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Naw lol.
TempuraOreos said:
Why subjugate yourself to that type of torture again?
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Idk. Lol. When ECs are fine and GPA isn't in post-bacc/SMP territory there isn't much an applicant can do besides MCAT I suppose.

I plan on continuing ECs and getting a job since I'm graduating but not sure what else I need to do.

I suppose now I understand why past applicants say this is a waiting game. It's so tormenting not knowing how much you need to improve if at all
 
Sunbodi said:
I know the general advice is to treat every day after you press submit as if you need to reapply.

I was wondering if this includes MCAT studying. Should we continue studying for the MCAT after we submit applications?
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Depends on the MCAT. If someone with >514 doesn’t get in then the issue wasn’t their MCAT. Even then, I don’t think I would retake an MCAT >510 if all sub sections were >126.
 
Sunbodi said:
I know the general advice is to treat every day after you press submit as if you need to reapply.

I was wondering if this includes MCAT studying. Should we continue studying for the MCAT after we submit applications?
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I am mostly dropping all ECs Save for tutoring, research and working.
 
Sunbodi said:
Naw lol.

Idk. Lol. When ECs are fine and GPA isn't in post-bacc/SMP territory there isn't much an applicant can do besides MCAT I suppose.

I plan on continuing ECs and getting a job since I'm graduating but not sure what else I need to do.

I suppose now I understand why past applicants say this is a waiting game. It's so tormenting not knowing how much you need to improve if at all
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ECs can always be improved, but interview prep is a better use of your time than MCAT studying right now. If/when you get an II, you need to make sure you can crush it from the first one.
 
MemeLord said:
Everyone ready for Thursday?
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Nope. Lol.

I might push it back a week. I'm mostly done getting things together but I want to keep looking over my application since I'm paranoid that I might have something wrong
 
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