Question about application process

[armywife529]

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I know that technically this may not be the correct forum for this question, but my husband is a non-trad student and you ladies and gentlemen really seem to know your stuff! Sorry he can't contact you himself, but his internet connection in Iraq doesn't load this site.

My husband is deployed until sometime in October. He intends to work on his application while he is deployed (when it becomes available in May). We're wondering what the earliest submission date is for applications. For instance, if the application were to become available on May 1, can you submit May 1 or is there a first submission date?

With his being deployed until late October, he will probably miss the first one, two, or even three (!) rounds of interviews. He applied to Dental school this past year (unaware that he would end up deploying a month later!) and although the schools offered to work with him on the interview (do it by webcam/phone) when the invitations for interviews started pouring in, they all rescinded their offer to interview by alternate means🙁 (Needless to say, we're PISSED!) Do you think there's any chance he'll have better luck with Medical schools? This will ALWAYS be a problem for us. We can't just 'wait til next year', because some part of the process will always interfere with a year long deployment. His #1 choice for school is USUHS (the military med school) so we hope of ALL schools they'll be accomodating. Anyone have any experience with this? I imagine it won't be good to put off an invitation for interview until he returns, but he may have no choice.

Finally, because he will be deployed and will have limited methods of (and time for!) communication would it be worthwhile for him to mail each school a specific POA that gives the school permission to discuss his application/status/interview invitations with me? Do you think this would reflect poorly on his application (the wifey's the go-to)? Other than email, he has no method of receiving communication from the schools which would severely delay the process.

Your advice is greatly appreciated!

 

[lainey234]

I'm confused. He applied for Dental school last year, and now intends to apply to Medical school this year instead? That seems a little odd to me. If he wants to be a dentist, he should pursue that. Med school isn't exactly a great back up plan. I know it can be hard with deployments and all, but imo he should go with his first choice.

Anyway, if he is set on med school. Apps opened up last year for MD and DO in June, 4th and 14th if I remember correctly. You can find out for sure here:

http://www.aamc.org/students/amcas/

http://www.aacom.org/Pages/default.aspx

I would suggest filling out the applications and then contacting admissions offices once he gets interview offers regarding his availablity. He may be at a disadvantage if he has to schedule interviews for late in the cycle, but you won't know till you try.

Good luck.

 

[nontrdgsbuiucmd]

The "dental to med school" would have been difficult for me, insofar as it took a year or so to prep for, and earn a good score on, the MCAT. I presume this is complete already, or will be done well before he returns in October? And that he's got a good amount (100+ hrs) of clinical/medical type volunteer work done? (or that this will be done prior to turning in the primary application)

The start date for Amcas primaries is around 1st week of June, this is an online process that can be done in stages if he does not have several hours to complete it. It may be a thought to create a user id and password now (for last year's cycle) to get a feel for how the system is set up, so that there's less time wasted come early June when the 2009 application is available. Nothing really tough to it, but be prepared for the section requiring one to type in each grade earned from every college, trade school, etc. along with the name of the class, the timeframe of the class, etc. That took me some time!

I don't foresee his return in October causing much problem with interviewing, as typical interview schedules for schools run from around September through around February. For my interview offers, the school would contact me by e-mail to advise that an interview was being offered, and then I'd set up a date to go in for the interview around 2-4 weeks after the initial e-mail came in. In a perfect world, these e-mails would come in around September and you (or he via e-mail) would set up the interviews for October/November.

I don't foresee that the med schools would need to communicate with you at all; I'd think that everything can be done via e-mail. Maybe if there's no response to his e-mails for a week or so you may want to call the school(s), but in that case the call could be more of a "please check for an e-mail from my husband" rather than them speaking specifics of his app with you. Sounds doable, presuming he's completed the steps required to be a qualified applicant. (MCAT/clinical volunteer work/gpa)

 

[armywife529]

The clinical hours are already complete (although he is doing more on his free time in Iraq so that he'll have combat medical clinicals considering that he wants to apply to a military medical school). He has already looked over this past years application and it is almost identical to the Dental application website (we printed a copy of the completed Dental application to help speed the process of filling out the medical one). He has been studying hard for the MCAT and will be taking it on R&R, unless he feels that he isn't ready, in which case we'll put everything off for a year (no big deal). His reasons for switching are more than just "Dental didn't work, so let me try medical" but I didn't think it was necessary to get into all of that. If he tried Dental again, he'd probably get in (he was darn close this last time!).

Thanks for answering my question about the application submission time.

 

[glamqueen]

Why don't you also just act as him via email with the schools? As in, have him give you his email passwords etc., so you can monitor his email for invitations to interview and respond accordingly as if you were him, thus, saving his seat for an interview wtihout worrying about having to ask the school to correspond with you (his wife). Maybe this is sketchy - I don't know. I hope not, becuase it sounds like a viable plan to me.

 

[armywife529]

Why don't you also just act as him via email with the schools? As in, have him give you his email passwords etc., so you can monitor his email for invitations to interview and respond accordingly as if you were him, thus, saving his seat for an interview wtihout worrying about having to ask the school to correspond with you (his wife). Maybe this is sketchy - I don't know. I hope not, becuase it sounds like a viable plan to me.

This was our plan with Dental school, but all the invitations for interview were by phone (and my understanding is that it's the same with Med school). He called the schools (and sent written notice) to explain that he was deploying and could only be reached by email, but they STILL only contacted him by phone.

 

[glamqueen]

I do understand that. I am holding an acceptance now, and 99 percent of the correspondence was via phone. I wish I had something better to add that was helpful. Good luck!