I submitted late June last year and was in the first rounds of interviews at most of the schools that I applied to. I had 5 interviews before November and had 3 acceptances (2 DO and 1 MD) and 2 wait list (1 DO and 1 MD) before December. I was able to withdraw from all my other interviews (save a lot of money). It was nice to know where I will spend my med school life before Christmas.
Most of June, July, and August I felt like I was so "behind" other applicants because a few others were getting secondary applications before I was verified, then they were getting IIs before I received secondaries. But now I realize that I was in the first wave of applications and was just fine.
As long as you can do well on your MCAT (30+ for MD or 28+ for DO) and have decent GPA (3.5+ for MD or 3.3+ for DO) you should be fine submitting even at the end of June. Your goal of BEFORE July starts is a good goal.
Start writing your PS now (if you don't already have it finished), get it perfect!!!
Research the schools you want to apply. Make several lists. If I get an MCAT of XX I will apply to these schools, if it is YY, then these schools, and ZZ to those schools. Plan for low, medium and high scores. That way when your scores come in you can just click some boxes and submit the application.
When May starts, fill in everything on the AMCAS and/or AACOMAS right up to the choosing of schools. This may take some time typing in all those stupid transcript grades. Get your transcripts ordered and sent to AMCAS/AACOMAS in MAY as soon as you open your application. Since it takes time for your schools to send off transcripts, this is a weak link that you can't control. Verification does not start until all transcripts are in.
If you have plenty of money to burn, you may consider entering one school as a "Guinea pig" school and submit on the first day so that you can get verified early. Then when your MCAT scores come in you can submit all the other schools off your low/medium/high list depending on your scores. This does cost extra, and is more expensive. But if you have the money to burn, it might be worth it (It was not worth it to me but others said that it was worth it to them). It gives you the advantage of getting verified early, but also the power to choose schools based on your stats, not just random guessing.
Remember also, that there are certain days that are gates in the application process (AAMC traffic rules, so they don't always apply to DO schools). So even if you have beaten everyone else up to that point, your application will be held until a certain day when everyone that has reached that point is released at the same time. I don't remember what the days are, but there is a first day for primary apps to be released. There is a first day that schools are allowed to send out IIs. There is a first day that schools are allowed to extend acceptance notifications. There is also a day where the school must extend applications to fill all the seats in the class, then there is a day when applicants can hold only one seat, and to accept a different seat means releasing a prior seat (domino effect for wait list movement). All this happens until every seat is filled, and half of the applicants are happy (in a class), and the other half are re-applying for the next year.
Good luck to you. I hope that you are in the accepted half, not the re-applicant half.
dsoz
