OPTOMCAS Submission

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sbabu1

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Hi guys,

So I've been really confused about this- do you have to have all your additional essay and supplemental forms completed before you decide to officially submit your OPTOMCAS? It seems that several schools require additional essays and the process of providing them could take awhile, although they have measures to submit the OPTOMCAS without having to have the recommendation letters and such ready at the time.

And are the official transcripts only to be sent to OPTOMCAS AFTER the submission of the application?

Thanks everyone!
 
Hi,

Send your official transcripts to OptomCAS anytime. The sooner, the better!

Have all of your personal statements done for the schools you are applying to done on OptomCAS and designated to each school.

Your supplemental forms are irrelevant to OptomCAS. They only care about the information they are asking for online as well as references and transcripts. You can submit today on OptomCAS and send your supplementals next week. It takes up to four weeks for OptomCAS to calculate your GPA and mail your application to the school AFTER hey have received your transcripts.

Your letters of recommendation must be entered in OptomCAS before you submit. Fill it out with your references. They do not need to send in their letters before you submit.

Hope that helped.
 
Thank you so much, Loptometriste!

In retrospect, I'm not exactly sure that it's the "supplemental" part because it's in the "School Designations" part of the OPTOMCAS application. It lists all your schools and then there's a form to be submitted for "Additional Questions" and "Add an Essay."
 
I was confused about that too! I was wondering whether the additional questions were the supplemental apps for some of the schools. For example, SCCO. This is what I found on their site,

"SCCO requires a supplemental application in addition to the centralized application. This supplemental application is included in your OptomCAS application and will be submitted as part of your centralized application; therefore, when you have completed the OptomCAS application you have also completed the supplemental application."

So I assume these additional questions ARE the supplemental applications.
 
I think so too, I think these 'additional questions' are the supplemental questions. So i guess we have to have them done too before we submit our optomCAS application?

Just to be clear, there's no separate supplemental app questions anymore since they're now included in the optomcas?
 
I'm still searching for the answer to this question, but I do know there could be other supplemental forms involved. For example, the additional questions for Berkeley involves a whole slew of questions on the OPTOMCAS form, but they actually have another supplemental form on their website to have completed, too.
 
Hey guys,

So I spoke to OPTOMCAS and they said that the "School Designation" tab is separate from the schools' supplemental forms and it is required to complete these additional questions before submitting your application.

Missbrightside, this information suggests there could still in fact be supplemental forms to the schools that you're applying to. Most schools indicate that on their websites and they are most likely to send it to you after you submit your OPTOMCAS application.
 
Alright good to know! Luckily, MOST schools i'm applying to don't have supplementals... but i am currently working on the UC Berkeley 'supplemental' essays on optomcas. Why do they want our essays to be 3000 characters each?!
 
Missbrightside, have you submitted
 
*submitted your application to UCBerkeley?
 
I am confused to whether you tailor your personal statement to each school you are applying, or if you send out a general PS to all schools? I have heard both ways.
 
No i ended up not applying to Berkeley. I didn't want to do those essays and I don't think i'll get in..
good luck!

Arkansashog: i did not tailor them i just sent one essay out and it was fine = )
 
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