Soooo confused on the application process

[mishaS]

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I met with my premed adviser a month ago to make sure I was on track towards applying this summer for the 2011 year. She told me to get onto the application asap but won't I only be able to start filling out the AMCAS application in May? Also is there anything I need to send in prior to beginning this application like a resume or transcript?

I'm just really lost on what I should be doing, I asked the MD/PHD student I'm doing research for if she could help me out but she said she honestly couldn't remember much about the process except it sucking. I'll try to schedule another appt with a premed adviser soon but what exactly should I be doing now?

 

[Livestrong51085]

Ask your professors, etc for their letters of recommendation by the very latest in January '11, and give them to your pre-health committee so they can compile your letter of rec. It couldn't hurt though to ask them now, if you have already had them and know they are ready to write you one.

Start your personal statement in January '11, and have as many people read it/edit it/provide suggestions as possible.

Get your official transcripts from any college/university attended and have them sent into AMCAS, who will verify your transcripts, and make sure they match what you have entered into the AMCAS application online (which opens in early May, I think). I'm not sure how early you can send in your transcripts to them.

Make sure you take your MCAT at the latest in April of '11

Submit your AMCAS app June 1st

I'm probably leaving stuff out.

 

[naijaboi]

Ask your professors, etc for their letters of recommendation by the very latest in January '11, and give them to your pre-health committee so they can compile your letter of rec. It couldn't hurt though to ask them now, if you have already had them and know they are ready to write you one.

Start your personal statement in January '11, and have as many people read it/edit it/provide suggestions as possible.

Get your official transcripts from any college/university attended and have them sent into AMCAS, who will verify your transcripts, and make sure they match what you have entered into the AMCAS application online (which opens in early May, I think). I'm not sure how early you can send in your transcripts to them.

Make sure you take your MCAT at the latest in April of '11

Submit your AMCAS app June 1st

I'm probably leaving stuff out.

What he/she said. The AMCAS has five pertinent sections; the most important being your P/S. Give yourself at least two months to write and complete. Also, have plenty people review it. You can even start working on a draft now and polish it in the spring of '11. For MCAT, give yourself about 2 - 3 months (that is the average study time). Look for QofQuimica's guide on studying for the MCAT and give yourself appropriate time to prepare (and to retake if necessary). I did mine a year before I applied. Check with your pre-health advisor about your school's letter of recommendation requirements. Some schools would want you to draft a letter outlining your interest in medicine, and for others your completed AMCAS would suffice. Ask your professors for letters at least 2 months before the deadline (your own deadline, not the school's). You could ask them to prepare it now if they already know you. Your deadline should be about a month before June 1st to allow for you pre-health committee interview and packet completion. Other aspects of your application include transcripts; make sure all bills are paid and compile all schools you have attended and prepare to have the transcripts sent immediately once AMCAS opens. When all this is done, start work on your activities section (which is basically a resume). Finally, make a list of your schools and start working on the secondary essays. Look through last year threads for the prompts - they rarely change.

And finally good-luck.

 

[mwalker394]

*** Except that you said you want to apply for 2011 entering, which means do everything above THIS year, not next. 🙂

 

[Catalystik]

So start getting LORs now. Start writing the PS now. Sign up for your April or May MCAT date now. You can access the old AMCAS form to look it over now, but any data you enter will need to be put in again in May. Submit transcripts in mid-May so they'll be available as soon as you submit your application to AMCAS for verification the first week of June.

 

[mvenus929]

Work on your PS, study for the MCAT, and get your LORs in line before you touch the AMCAS application. Also, you might want to work on your ECs... which ones you want to put on your application, and the dates, avg. hours per week, contact info, and descriptions for them. After putting in all your grades, you won't want to do it, so it's best to get it out of the way now. Send off your transcripts as soon as your Spring grades come out (for your current school), or early-mid May (for past schools). The application will open up at the beginning of May, and you can worry about tackling that when the time comes.

 

[mishaS]

Thanks for the posts everyone. I already have my MCAT done, I have at least 4 letters of rec I can get at any time but only 2 of them will probably be good(one from a non science professor, one from the hospital I've been volunteering at). I know it looks better if you opt not to see them but, in that case, I'd rather shadow with the doctor who already offered me a letter so he can write a better one. I'm also starting to volunteer at an ER and will be doing so hard core so I wanted to try to get a letter from them, as well as the doctor I'm doing research for, and I'm working particularly hard on getting one of my chem professors to like me this semester to get a good letter of rec out of him.

I will be starting my personal statement soon but I was hoping the ER volunteering and research would give me more to talk about. If I were to be sincere on it right now nothing I have to say would trully set me apart(though I hate that an "ordinary" love of helping people, respect for the profession, and crazy interest in the field isn't enough). My premed advisor actually was hinting that I should bull**** if I need to without actually saying it 🙂. What I meen to say is that right now I'm compiling ideas for it and reading some outstanding and intimidating examples of what I should be going for.

Also, as long as I'm asking, how should I choose the schools my primary app will be sent to? There is a nice thread on schools and their average step1 scores but it seems to mostly cover top tiere schools which, with the exception of Standford, are not schools I'll be applying to. Outside the top schools though my 34mcat, 3.9GPA, and "average" extra curiculars, community service, and research leave a lot of options. At the moment I'm organizing them on the applicant-accepted ratio, location, and what special things they highlight about their programs but other than that I'm, again, a bit lost.

 

[Catalystik]

Since you'll have so little research when you apply, consider whether it would be productive to apply to the big name research giants. In your shoes, I'd avoid the top 30 US News & World Report med schools in the research category.

 

[mvenus929]

Also, as long as I'm asking, how should I choose the schools my primary app will be sent to? There is a nice thread on schools and their average step1 scores but it seems to mostly cover top tiere schools which, with the exception of Standford, are not schools I'll be applying to. Outside the top schools though my 34mcat, 3.9GPA, and "average" extra curiculars, community service, and research leave a lot of options. At the moment I'm organizing them on the applicant-accepted ratio, location, and what special things they highlight about their programs but other than that I'm, again, a bit lost.

Go for the schools in geographic areas that you can see yourself living. In other words, if you don't think you could be in the middle of the country, with no beach within a day's drive of you, don't apply to schools in Iowa. If you can't handle the cold, don't apply to schools in Wisconsin. Similarly, if you can't handle heat, don't apply to schools in Florida. You, of course, have a chance to correct this in 4 years when you go do your residency, but far better to find something that keeps you sane in medical school than to add another that makes you insane.

Then, look at things like curriculum (do you prefer traditional or systems based?), research opportunities (are you interested in research, or more primary care and community service?), strong rural or inner-city programs, etc. Look at the hospitals where students do their clinicals... are they community hospitals or teaching hospitals? Will you be treated like scum, or taught while participating in the team?

Are there any specialties you're interested in? Look for schools that have some focus in that (for instance, Colorado's medical school is right next to the Children's Hospital in Denver, and it's one of the top ten children's hospitals in the nation, so that's definitely a plus if you're looking to go into peds).

 

[mishaS]

Sweet, thanks for the responses guys! The direction really helps. What are the best sources you guys find for school reviews and curriculum descriptions?

 

[mvenus929]

MSAR and the school's website. If you can manage to find some current students to talk to, even better.

 

[Catalystik]

Comparing Programs: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=104541
AAMC Med School Curriculum descriptions: http://services.aamc.org/currdir/section2/courses.cfm

 

[flip26]

Thanks for the posts everyone. I already have my MCAT done, I have at least 4 letters of rec I can get at any time but only 2 of them will probably be good(one from a non science professor, one from the hospital I've been volunteering at). I know it looks better if you opt not to see them but, in that case, I'd rather shadow with the doctor who already offered me a letter so he can write a better one. I'm also starting to volunteer at an ER and will be doing so hard core so I wanted to try to get a letter from them, as well as the doctor I'm doing research for, and I'm working particularly hard on getting one of my chem professors to like me this semester to get a good letter of rec out of him.

I will be starting my personal statement soon but I was hoping the ER volunteering and research would give me more to talk about. If I were to be sincere on it right now nothing I have to say would trully set me apart(though I hate that an "ordinary" love of helping people, respect for the profession, and crazy interest in the field isn't enough). My premed advisor actually was hinting that I should bull**** if I need to without actually saying it 🙂. What I meen to say is that right now I'm compiling ideas for it and reading some outstanding and intimidating examples of what I should be going for.

Also, as long as I'm asking, how should I choose the schools my primary app will be sent to? There is a nice thread on schools and their average step1 scores but it seems to mostly cover top tiere schools which, with the exception of Standford, are not schools I'll be applying to. Outside the top schools though my 34mcat, 3.9GPA, and "average" extra curiculars, community service, and research leave a lot of options. At the moment I'm organizing them on the applicant-accepted ratio, location, and what special things they highlight about their programs but other than that I'm, again, a bit lost.

RE the underlined: you have a huge problem - do you realize it? You need at a minimum letters from 2 science and 1 non-science prof in classes you took. The hospital volunteer letter is not a substitute for the above, and it is frankly a pretty worthless letter anyway.

Someone with a 3.9 GPA should have no problems obtaining excellent letters from professors. If you can't, that speaks volumes to an adcom about your app.

 

[LizzyM]

Most faculty keep grade books from one year to the next. And in even the biggest classes at the biggest universities, faculty seem to be able to write letters about students they haven't seen in years. If nothing else they will say: Applicant was a student in my ___ class. The class covers ___. Applicant scored __ on the mid-term placing him/her in the top x% of the class. Performance in the final was better/worse and the final grade of X placed the student in the top x% of a very competitive class. In my x years of teaching at __ University and previously at X college and X university, I would place the applicant among the top x% of students (or of pre-med studnets) I have taught. If there were quizes and lab reports or written assignments, then information about them from the grade book might be added to the letter.

If you send your AMCAS essay or some other information about your interest in medicine, or have a sit-down appointment with the faculty member, they might add something about your interest in medicine, how personable you are and how much they would like to have you as their own doctor. Sometimes they will say that you were so talented that you should have gone on to a doctorate in their subject but that medicine seems to be your true calling.

It is no big deal for facuty to write letters about students they saw years ago

 

[4X4MD]

Most faculty keep grade books from one year to the next. And in even the biggest classes at the biggest universities, faculty seem to be able to write letters about students they haven't seen in years. If nothing else they will say: Applicant was a student in my ___ class. The class covers ___. Applicant scored __ on the mid-term placing him/her in the top x% of the class. Performance in the final was better/worse and the final grade of X placed the student in the top x% of a very competitive class. In my x years of teaching at __ University and previously at X college and X university, I would place the applicant among the top x% of students (or of pre-med studnets) I have taught. If there were quizes and lab reports or written assignments, then information about them from the grade book might be added to the letter.

If you send your AMCAS essay or some other information about your interest in medicine, or have a sit-down appointment with the faculty member, they might add something about your interest in medicine, how personable you are and how much they would like to have you as their own doctor. Sometimes they will say that you were so talented that you should have gone on to a doctorate in their subject but that medicine seems to be your true calling.

It is no big deal for facuty to write letters about students they saw years ago

would it behoove an applicant to request an LoR from a professor whose class they ranked 1/700 in (intro bio) as opposed to a more recent, difficult class where they are ranked in the top 10% and are a little better known by the said professor?

 

[eNVyKillaBeez]

would it behoove an applicant to request an LoR from a professor whose class they ranked 1/700 in (intro bio) as opposed to a more recent, difficult class where they are ranked in the top 10% and are a little better known by the said professor?

I would request both so that you have them available in the future if you need them.

 

[4X4MD]

I would request both so that you have them available in the future if you need them.

we have a pre-professional committee that the professors directly submit letters to, so we dont really have a way to filter out the best ones and they only accept like 3 or 4 with specific outlines and who/where/what...yada yada yada

 

[LizzyM]

would it behoove an applicant to request an LoR from a professor whose class they ranked 1/700 in (intro bio) as opposed to a more recent, difficult class where they are ranked in the top 10% and are a little better known by the said professor?

Only the professors that really don't know you seem to go with the "top student in a class of 700" thing. If somone knows you better and likes you, you'll get better letter with more flattering information even if your performance wasn't tip top of the heap.

 

[4X4MD]

Only the professors that really don't know you seem to go with the "top student in a class of 700" thing. If somone knows you better and likes you, you'll get better letter with more flattering information even if your performance wasn't tip top of the heap.

duly noted

 

[eNVyKillaBeez]

we have a pre-professional committee that the professors directly submit letters to, so we dont really have a way to filter out the best ones and they only accept like 3 or 4 with specific outlines and who/where/what...yada yada yada

Ahhhh I see your predicament now. I would get the letter from the professor that you had class more recently with and who knows you better then.