The hardest part of application cycle

[Bulbasaur]

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After almost completing the application cycle, I've been reflecting a lot and I have come to the conclusion that the hardest aspect of the application cycle is the WAITING. Here is why:

1. Wait for MCAT scores
2. Wait for committee interview/LOR
3. Wait for undergrad/SMP/etc to send transcripts to AMCAS
4. Wait for AMCAS to be verified
5. Wait for individual LORs to be completed by professors/advisors/etc
6. Wait for secondaries
7. Wait for interviews
8. Wait for post-interview decisions
9. Wait for parents to do their taxes so you can complete financial aid
10. Wait for financial aid to be processed by individual schools
11. Wait for wait list movement
12. Wait for landlord to process your housing application
13. Wait for school to start

Anybody else share this sentiment?

 

[Amba]

All of this x1000.

 

[dieanotherday]

i disagree
its the money
having to shell out $$$$ when you dont have it is harder than waiting
getting invited to interviews last minute is great and such a joy but trying to come up with the money to even go is extremely difficult
i dont have sympathetic parents who are educated about the app process
my whole family is in engineering (mech,comp sci, electrical) and in those disciplines, companies pay the interviewee to go to interview and cover all expenses and their apps are free

 

[Amba]

i disagree
its the money
having to shell out $$$$ when you dont have it is harder than waiting
getting invited to interviews last minute is great and such a joy but trying to come up with the money to even go is extremely difficult
i dont have sympathetic parents who are educated about the app process
my whole family is in engineering (mech,comp sci, electrical) and in those disciplines, companies pay the interviewee to go to interview and cover all expenses and their apps are free

Fair enough. I guess if you are working a decent gap year job, money is largely a non-issue. I can see how it would be hard for traditional students, though.

 

[dieanotherday]

Fair enough. I guess if you are working a decent gap year job, money is largely a non-issue. I can see how it would be hard for traditional students, though.

i have to pay for rent and all living expenses

 

[Amba]

i have to pay for rent and all living expenses

As do I.

 

[cookiemonsters]

IMO waitlists. I hope there's a special place in hell for schools which waitlist 500 applicants for ~10-20 eventual acceptances.

edit: I also think secondaries are stupid and every school should be required to do a screen before sending secondaries. The July I spent answering all those secondary essays was one of the worst months of my life.

 

[dieanotherday]

As do I.

After taxes, I make $12/hour working at a charter school about 30 hours a week
it cost me 700 to attend my last interview which left me about 150 from my check
i live in california 🙁

 

[Amba]

After taxes, I make $12/hour working at a charter school about 30 hours a week
it cost me 700 to attend my last interview which left me about 150 from my check
i live in california 🙁

I feel your pain; it's pretty tough right now to find short term, well-paying jobs. I was barely scraping by back in September when I was interviewing. Cost of living can vary widely as well (though Madison isn't exactly cheap to live in).

 

[Itisneverlupus]

IMO waitlists. I hope there's a special place in hell for schools which waitlist 500 applicants for ~10-20 eventual acceptances.

edit: I also think secondaries are stupid and every school should be required to do a screen before sending secondaries. The July I spent answering all those secondary essays was one of the worst months of my life.

Any advice on the secondaries/what did you learn?

 

[medickdb]

 

[orangeman25]

Agreed 1000% about secondaries. My life for most of last summer was literally just writing essays about myself and it was horrible.

I'm going to be working almost 60 hour weeks during the summer. Any advice on how to manage writing secondaries? Are they really that time consuming?

 

[DrBirdFriend]

After taxes, I make $12/hour working at a charter school about 30 hours a week
it cost me 700 to attend my last interview which left me about 150 from my check
i live in california 🙁

That's several dollars more than I make before taxes. I am completely financially independent from my parents. I also had last minute interviews ($550 plane ticket+food+transportation to and from airport). And there are people worse off than us. All I'm saying is don't complain.... Cus it's all relative.

 

[dieanotherday]

That's several dollars more than I make before taxes. I am completely financially independent from my parents. I also had last minute interviews ($550 plane ticket+food+transportation to and from airport). And there are people worse off than us. All I'm saying is don't complain.... Cus it's all relative.

the thread asked what was the hardest part of the application cycle
for me it was paying for all of it
the op asked people to participate by replying what was hard for them
im not sure youre understanding the purpose of this thread

 

[orangeman25]

They are quite time consuming, but I'm a very picky and slow writer as well. I've seen people on SDN talk about pumping out 2-3 secondaries per day, where as it takes me about 1-2 days to write one haha (I just can't turn in an essay till i'm 99% satisfied with it). So it really depends on how you write.

Some tips would be to prewrite or figure out topics for common secondaries now. Ex) Diversity essay, challenge essay, future plans/career essay
Secondaries for most schools come out between mid-late july and they usually don't change much. So you can definitely prewrite some now by looking in the school specific threads.

Thank you! I'm a slow writer as well so this advice resonates well with me.

 

[sourdoughllama]

Agreed 1000% about secondaries. My life for most of last summer was literally just writing essays about myself and it was horrible.

Secondaries are the bane of my existence.

"Summarize your life and 30 of the most significant moments" - word limit: 3 characters.

"What was one of your most important volunteer experiences?" Word limit: 80 pages.

Can't complete it? No problem, it's just your career, nbd.

Oh wait, so you want to complete it now? Surprise mother f*cker!! That'll be $100