Pre-Secondary Screening based on Institutional Action

[aspiring20]

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Hey folks

I have a minor institutional action (warning) not related to alcohol, drugs, or cheating, and I am wondering how this will affect the screening process. I understand many schools screen using a formula combining GPAs and MCAT, and I am wondering if they'll screen out everyone who marked the institutional action box on the AMCAS application and instantly reject these individuals.

The reason I am asking is that a friend of a friend got flat out rejected (no secondary) from many medical schools because he had a minor record of alcohol infraction. I believe his stats were very good (3.7-3.8 GPA and 35 MCAT) and he had solid/good ECs. Of course, that person did get in somewhere, but the fact that he didn't even receive secondaries from many places with those stats concern me greatly. I understand that most places probably dont do something like this, but if anyone knows of schools that automatically screen out applicants with IAs or criminal records, please let me know so I can avoid those schools.

If anyone can provide some insight, I would greatly appreciate it.

 

[aspiring20]

Ts

 

[diamethuel]

I think LizzyM said that at some schools, applications that have checked "yes" for institutional action are set aside and are not evaluated until later in the cycle. This probably varies from school to school.

 

[aspiring20]

I asked LizzyM a while ago about this, and she told me that her school used to set these aside and then evaluate them at a later time. However, her school recently changed its policy and that applications marked with IAs are evaluated when they get submitted. So that's a promising sign.

I know that applying early is critically important, and my concern is that even if I submit my application on June 1st, some schools are going to treat it as if it were submitted on October 1st, as in evaluating it at the very last moment, taking away any advantage of an early submission. I've asked my pre-med adviser about this, and he told me that he never heard of the policy of putting aside these applications and evaluating them at the end.

So the plan is to apply broadly and early. I can't do much else.