Originally posted by BananaSplit
Could someone please tell me what the significance of Oct. 15 is?
The AAMC makes a number of "recommendations" to its member schools with regards to decisions, so that everyone stays on a relatively timeline ("recommendation" = listen to us or you're out of the club). Oct. 15th is the date that they ask the schools to wait until before they start handing out acceptances for the next year.
Here is the whole list of recommendations:
1. Each school of medicine should prepare and distribute to applicants and college advisers a detailed schedule of its application and acceptance procedures and should adhere to this schedule unless it is publicly amended.
2. Each school of medicine should agree not to notify its applicants (except for those applying via EDP) of acceptance prior to October 15th of each admissions cycle.
3. By March 15th of the year of matriculation, each school of medicine should have issued a number of acceptances at least equal to the size of its first-year entering class.
4. Only after May 15th are schools free to apply appropriate rules for dealing with accepted applicants who, without adequate explanation, hold one or more places in other schools. These rules should recognize the problems of the applicant who has multiple offers and also of those applicants who have not yet been accepted. Only schools whose first official day of classes begins prior to August 1st may start to request decision from accepted applicants prior to May 15th but not earlier than April 15th.
5. By May 15th of the year of matriculation, a applicant who has received offers of admission from more than one school should choose the one school that he or she prefers and withdraw from all other schools to which he or she has been accepted.
6. (*)Prior to May 15th of the year of matriculation, an applicant should be given at least two weeks to reply to an offer of admission. After May 15, schools may require applicants to respond to acceptance offers in less than two weeks. An applicant may be required to file a statement of intent, or a deposit, or both. This statement of intent should provide freedom to withdraw if the applicant is later accepted by a school that he or she prefers.
7. It is recommended that the acceptance deposit not exceed $100 and be refundable until May 15th. After that date, a school may retain the deposit as a late withdrawal fee. If the applicant matriculates at that school, the school is encouraged to credit the deposit toward tuition.
8. Subsequent to June 1st, a school of medicine seeking to admit an applicant already known to be accepted by another school for that entering class should advise that school of its intent. Because of the administrative problems involved in filling a place accepted just prior to the commencement of the academic year, schools should communicate fully with each other with respect to anticipated late roster changes in order to keep misunderstandings at a minimum.
9. After an applicant has enrolled in a US school of medicine or begun a brief orientation program contiguous to enrollment, no further acceptances should be offered to that individual. Once enrolled in a school, students have an obligation to withdraw their applications promptly from all other schools. Enrollment is defined as being officially registered as a member of the first-year entering class at a school.