questions about the application process...

[glia25]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Hey,

Any replies would be greatly appreciated. A bit of background--I am a junior in college, planning on applying for entry into medical school in the fall of 2010, I am scheduled to take the MCAT 5/22. My medical studies committee requires that all of my LORs and my PS be finished by the end of Feb, so that is already taken care of.

A few questions about the application process:
If I begin to fill out my application online in the beginning of June, at what point can it be sent out to schools?

How does the AMCAS verification work?

I know that I can send out the app without any MCAT scores attached, but what if my MCAT is too low to apply? Should I hold off on sending out the applications until the scores come in? Would schools not look at my application until I had them in?

How would an MCAT retake a month or two later affect my application if it has already been sent in?

Thanks in advance for the input!

 

[silverhorse84]

Hey,

Any replies would be greatly appreciated. A bit of background--I am a junior in college, planning on applying for entry into medical school in the fall of 2010, I am scheduled to take the MCAT 5/22. My medical studies committee requires that all of my LORs and my PS be finished by the end of Feb, so that is already taken care of.

A few questions about the application process:
If I begin to fill out my application online in the beginning of June, at what point can it be sent out to schools?

You can actually start filling it out when it opens in May - I'm not sure of the exact date, but you'll find in on the AMCAS website. Then submit in June, AMCAS will verify it and then send it out to schools. Depending on where you are on the list, it takes a few weeks for AMCAS to verify everything.

How does the AMCAS verification work?

They go over your transcript and check it with what you filled out in your AMCAS. Just fill out everything truthfully - if you have questions it's probably best to call AMCAS and ask. When they look it over they may change some things; if they feel you made a lot of mistakes they may give it back to you to change; if it's just a couple they'll change it themselves.

I know that I can send out the app without any MCAT scores attached, but what if my MCAT is too low to apply? Should I hold off on sending out the applications until the scores come in? Would schools not look at my application until I had them in?

What you can do is submit your application w/o MCAT scores, but only have one school selected. Then when you get the scores back you can decide if you want to apply to the rest on your list. So if your scores are good, you go back into AMCAS and add schools (no extra cost, just the $30 per school). Schools that screan before sending secondaries will wait until scores are submitted, but there are several schools who dont, so you can work on their essays while you wait for scores.

How would an MCAT retake a month or two later affect my application if it has already been sent in?

That I can't help you with, sorry.



I hope all this helps! Good luck and have fun! 😛

 

[Mobius1985]

How would an MCAT retake a month or two later affect my application if it has already been sent in?

I agree with the above advice.

In answer to your last question: Let's say you get a low MCAT score, maybe 25. Fortunately, if you followed the advice above, you've only applied to one school. Possibly they would have screened you out based on the low score. So you retake the MCAT a month later (two months after the first exam, the minimum time you should take to re-review the study materials, unless you were sick the first time), getting your scores in August. This time you scored a 30, so you add all the other schools appropriate for the new score. The newly-added schools get both the scores within one business day. You have already pre-written all your essays (from essay prompts found here on SDN) so as you receive Secondaries, you are able to return them within a few days. You are complete at all schools by the end of August. The first school, that only received your original MCAT score, will also get the second MCAT score automatically. You write them an update letter calling attention to the new score so your application might get reconsidered.

If on the other hand, your second MCAT score is no better, or worse, you have not spent thousands of dollars applying to schools you have no hope of getting into.

 

[glia25]

thank you, you guys are absolutely awesome!