Too late to apply?

[goddamnyouryan]

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Hello. I was a microbiology major in college (class of 2007) and i took the MCAT just before graduating. I got a 29 on it. I had a 3.6 GPA in school, and a 3.8 in science classes.

I just within the past few months decided to apply to med school, and seeing as this is the last year my MCAT scores are valid I wanted to do it.

What never occurred to me is that there is some turnaround time when submitting the application.

I have all the necessary elements to apply, letters of rec, transcripts, etc attached to my AMCAS account, all that's left to do is click submit on my application. Is it too late to apply for schools that have an Oct 15th deadline? Will AMCAS not get my application to them by then, even if I apply now?

Basically I am asking because I don't want to turn in the application (And pay the fee) if its not even going to get considered. What about Nov 1st?

 

[Geekchick921]

I'm not sure what the answer to your question is, but some (maybe most) schools are accepting January 2008 scores are the oldest ones they will take. Even if you can submit, as you know, it really is awfully late in the app cycle. Your chances at most schools aren't nearly as good as they would have been a few months ago, especially with your very average (but by no means bad!) stats.

Truthfully, I would not apply this year. I would start studying now for a first-quarter 2011 MCAT retale and be ready to apply as early as possible. If you need to, you can also take the time to strengthen your extracurriculars.

 

[StephBee]

Technically speaking, you must hit submit before Oct 15th. It'll take time to get verified but as long as you submitted before the deadline, you're fine.
The thing you want to be careful about are secondary deadlines. The first ones are coming up on Nov 1st (harvard for example) so if you are going to apply, don't apply to schools with early secondary deadlines.

My advice: pick a handful of schools with later deadlines. Apply to those if you're deadset on applying this cycle but just keep a backup plan in mind just in case.

 

[bmcd]

I just want to say that it's really good to hear there is someone else in a similar situation. I fully know now that I am submitting my application late--I never would have thought that a deadline of October 15 really means September 15 just from the turn around time.

From what I've seen when looking into schools I want to apply to, there are not too many with Nov 1st secondary deadlines, so there should be plenty to pick from.

If you choose to apply to any school with Nov 15th secondaries, just visit the secondaries thread to be prepared to submit it the day you hear back from the schools after being verified.

Overall, I don't know how much I buy into the hype of needing to apply as soon as you're allowed to, so stay hopefully 🙂

 

[StephBee]

Overall, I don't know how much I buy into the hype of needing to apply as soon as you're allowed to, so stay hopefully 🙂

The important thing is to take into consideration the pool of people who come to SDN. By and large, its going to be more of the hyper-anal people who hit submit the second june 1st rolls around.

The truth is that this is PEAK processing time. Meaning this is when MOST people apply. Are a lot of interview spots given out already? Yes. Is that because they applied early? Maybe. Is it also possible that this is because more qualified applicants apply early? Maybe.


Everything with a grain of salt.

 

[Geekchick921]

Everything with a grain of salt.

Except for the fact that some schools will not accept MCAT scores from 2007, so the OP better check with the schools they're applying to before blowing the money on the primary app.

 

[StephBee]

Except for the fact that some schools will not accept MCAT scores from 2007, so the OP better check with the schools they're applying to before blowing the money on the primary app.

Very true! I hadn't noticed the year part (only saw '07 as the graduating year). 🙄

 

[Geekchick921]

I checked the FAQ for some of the schools I applied to. Two required MCATs no less recent than January 2008, one said 2007 was okay (I think that was Temple, can't remember), so it's definitely something to pay attention to.