Taking a long time with secondaries

[Mistress S]

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How bad does this look to schools? I was verified in late July and started receiving secondaries almost immediately, and had secondary invites for most of the schools I applied to by mid-Aug. I took the Aug MCAT so I didn't really have time to do any until that was over, and since then I haven't had money so I've only sent in 2 so far (I've applied to 20 schools, and received secondary invites for all but one).

I plan to get them all in by the end of the month so my file will be complete by the time my MCAT scores arrive (just going to have to add to my credit card debt 🙁 ), but I am a little concerned that schools will think I'm not as interested because it will be >1 month for some of them from the time I received the invite to completion of the secondary. Do they account for the fact that not all of us have hundreds of extra dollars laying around for secondaries at any given time? I'd like to pay for as many as I can before adding to my credit card, but I have to wait to get paid which won't be until mid-month. Does anyone know if they pay attention to how long you take? 😕

 

[Haybrant]

i guess some do but if you are a good applicant i doubt they will not consider you because you took longer to fill their app out; they have a deadline for that reason. But the process at most schools is rolling so take that into consideration...

 

[Pinkertinkle]

There are many many variables that go into the ammount of time it takes to do a secondary, only one of which is interest in the school. And even at that, the person who completes the secondary in two days isn't necessarily more interested in a particular school than a person who takes one month. No school has the time to analyze the probability that your delay is caused by disinterest versus other circumstances, and thus I doubt adcoms use the ammount of time taken to complete a secondary (unless you miss deadlines or are late for rolling schools) as criteria for admissions.

 

[Senor.Frog]

Some schools I applied to had a deadline of 4-5 weeks. So, check your secondaries to make sure none of your secondaries have deadlines.

 

[Fusion]

IMHO, the quality of your secondary essays demonstrates your interest moreso than the turnaround time, unless of course the secondaries have no essays/short answer questions. Take your time on these things and do them well.