Question about application timeline. Please help

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willthatsall

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I told my pre-med advisor that I wanted to get my committee LOR done this spring before summer break because I wanted to finish my applications before school would start in the fall. Usually only EDP applicants have their committee meetings in the spring and other applicants wait until the fall. I play basketball and hoped that I could get most interviews out of the way before the season started, but my advisor said that most interviews aren't until December and that I should think about applying EDP. I don't have one school that I am really dead set on attending, so I would rather not apply EDP. Can you guys just give me a rough timeline of what dates I can expect best case scenario? If I finish my AMCAS as early as possible and send my secondaries back right away, what kind of dates can I be looking at if I get interviews? I was under the impression that people were getting interviews as early as September, but my advisor didn't seem to agree.
 
yeah def you could get interviews in sept if you submit everything as early as possible. i had one in sept, anyway
 
If you turn things in as early as possible (amcas early/mid june, secondaries done in july), you should be able to get a good number of interviews well before December, provided you have decent stats. I think I had something like 7 before Dec, and I wasn't complete till September at a lot of schools.
 
The most important thing for your situation, though, besides getting everything in on your end, is to make sure the committee letter gets in as soon as possible. If they write it in September, you're probably ok, but if they wait, your interviews will be pushed back because committees won't review your file until those letters come in. Good luck.
 
Yeah, the committee letter is really the only thing I need from them I think. That's why I want to have it done before this summer so I don't have to wait for it in the fall. Ideally I would like to have interviews before November because that is really when the season starts. I am just wondering how long it takes to for most schools to send out secondaries and then when they get the secondaries do they start interviewing right away or do they wait until later in the fall to start? Isn't the first day for AMCAS in June?
 
willthatsall said:
Yeah, the committee letter is really the only thing I need from them I think. That's why I want to have it done before this summer so I don't have to wait for it in the fall. Ideally I would like to have interviews before November because that is really when the season starts. I am just wondering how long it takes to for most schools to send out secondaries and then when they get the secondaries do they start interviewing right away or do they wait until later in the fall to start? Isn't the first day for AMCAS in June?

The first day for AMCAS is in early June. You can work on your application before that date and save any progress you make, but you can't actually send it out to your schools until June. Schools vary in how long it takes them to send out their secondaries--I had my earliest 6 weeks after sending in my AMCAS, and I recieved my first interview invite about a month after I sent in my secondary.

That's the fast end of the spectrum, though. I've been complete at all schools since mid-August, and there are a few I still haven't heard from about interviewing. Hope this helps!
 
I had one interview in August and had the interviews for the remainder of the schools I applied to done in September. So yes, you can interview early. I had everything submited by June. You're definately at an advantage applying and interviewing early at schools that have rolling admissions.
 
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