My MCAT date is on the 21st. Is it worth the time away from studying to work on the primary app before the test date? If I don't receive my scores back until a month from my test date are there any advantages to being verified before then? If I were to submit around the 23rd or 24th I believe the AMCAS verification and MCAT score release would happen about the same time.
Submit primary or focus on MCAT?
- Thread starter cwrig14
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I'm doing the MCAT on June 21 as well and I'm planning to give myself the rest of June to get my primary app in order. Verification probably takes a bit more than a month at that time so I think that everything should line up give or take a few days. I wouldn't devote too much study time to the primary app.
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Your focus should be the MCAT. You're currently on step 3 of the admissions process - working on your primary is step 6. Don't get ahead of yourself. Working casually on your app wouldn't be a bad thing, but be sure that your focus is on your MCAT. A bad score will sink you no matter how quickly you finish your primary.
That was my original plan but then I got to thinking... If school X gets 8,000 applications, maybe around 4,000 of those or more come in the month of June. Do they really get through all those as fast as they come in or does a chronologically ordered list begin to pile up? If the latter, then wouldn't it be ideal to get your name somewhere in the middle of the list as opposed to the end?
Probably thinking way too hard about this... But then again this is SDN and we are all a little neurotic
Probably thinking way too hard about this... But then again this is SDN and we are all a little neurotic
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You have no knowledge about how those applications are even sorted. They could split the whole stack into piles and hand them out to adcoms for review at random. They could be sorted by MCAT/GPA before being split into piles for Adcom review. Each adcom could grab the oldest application in the stack one at a time for review. Trying to predict the method used in order to time your application to take advantage of that is pointless, and yes, neurotic. Focus on the MCAT and get as good of a score as you can, and submit a well-done and well-reviewed primary application as soon after that as you can.
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As seeker mentioned, you have no way to predict how applications are sorted, so it's not something you should even worry about. Again, if you focus on your MCAT and do well, it won't even matter.
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I'm taking my MCAT on the 21st as well and I'm getting somewhat nervous.. I haven't been scoring too well on the practice AMCAS tests (26's) and I'm studying all day every day until the test date. Obviously I'm going to try to get the best score I can but considering I have a 4.0 GPA with Honors, and solid volunteer/internship experiences with research, would having a less than 30 MCAT score keep me from getting through secondaries? Any help would be appreciated!
