What is considered “late”?

[soon2bemd2026]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Applied late July/Early August with complete silence. With acceptances coming out now, wondering if I missed my chance by being “late”?
I thought after Labor Day was considered late. Seems like it’s creeping sooner every year.

 

[CDaFutureDocMan]

I think most people would agree that it is early/normal timing if anything.

 

[polymerization]

I don't know how much monitoring you do, but I generally applied around the same time and struggled with watching people who submitted in late June to early July get interviews in August. To be fair, I acknowledge I haven't personally experienced radio silence, but given I sent secondaries to 51 schools, that's still ~45 I haven't heard back from.

It felt almost like things were roughly chronological by submission date to a point, and then things became a lot more random and sporadic. I think the frustration comes from not knowing if you've been reviewed yet or not at this point.

It's hard not to look back and think that the "first batch" heuristic applies to secondaries too.

Hope the 2026 people are reading.

 

[LizzyM]

I'll say it again. This is a long slog for those who are reading and evaluating applications. We start around the time college football starts (late August) and we keep reading and evaluating right through early December (Army-Navy Game). There is sometimes a bit more to read right through the bowl games, particularly at schools that have interview schedules that run into February or later.

We are only half way through October. There are at least 6 more weekends of college football so cool your jets. You can't cry about no interviews until Black Friday (why it is called Black Friday, right?). This is an exhausting wait but there is no way around it. The readers are reading as quickly as they can without being overwhelmed and having everything blend together resulting in mistakes that can cost YOU an interview. The way the work is assigned, you might be the first of 60 that a reviewer looks at in a two week period and sends on for an interview or you might be the last and that could be 2 or 3 weeks later (if we have a 2 week deadline sometimes it is 3 weeks before we finish). And they aren't being assigned to readers FIFO (first in /first out) but might be sorted and ranked in some way (preference for in-state zip codes, or feeder schools, or MCAT/GPA, etc).

 

[polymerization]

I'll say it again. This is a long slog for those who are reading and evaluating applications. We start around the time college football starts (late August) and we keep reading and evaluating right through early December (Army-Navy Game). There is sometimes a bit more to read right through the bowl games, particularly at schools that have interview schedules that run into February or later.

We are only half way through October. There are at least 6 more weekends of college football so cool your jets. You can't cry about no interviews until Black Friday (why it is called Black Friday, right?). This is an exhausting wait but there is no way around it. The readers are reading as quickly as they can without being overwhelmed and having everything blend together resulting in mistakes that can cost YOU an interview. The way the work is assigned, you might be the first of 60 that a reviewer looks at in a two week period and sends on for an interview or you might be the last and that could be 2 or 3 weeks later (if we have a 2 week deadline sometimes it is 3 weeks before we finish). And they aren't being assigned to readers FIFO (first in /first out) but might be sorted and ranked in some way (preference for in-state zip codes, or feeder schools, or MCAT/GPA, etc).

Hey, it's just the rest of our lives. No pressure!

At this point you all have enough of my personal information to dox me many times over. If you let me in to your school, I promise, I will be involved in admissions from my first day on campus. I would be very pleased to contribute my SDN hot takes to your committee.

 

[LizzyM]

Students at my school have no role that requires looking at applications so while your offer is generous, it wouldn't help the process get any faster.