What to do, What to do?

[tomorrowgirl99]

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For those of you who took the august MCAT, when did you submit your AMCAS application. Are you supposed to submit before you have your scores or are you supposed to wait until after you receive the scores? I know if I take the august mcat, I will already be late in the process, so I think timing would be key.

 

[gdbaby]

For those of you who took the august MCAT, when did you submit your AMCAS application. Are you supposed to submit before you have your scores or are you supposed to wait until after you receive the scores? I know if I take the august mcat, I will already be late in the process, so I think timing would be key.

You should submit your AMCAS app as soon as possible. There is a check box on the app to state that you took the August MCAT (as I did). Schools will still send you secondaries which you should also complete and return ASAP. That way, when your MCAT scores come in in mid-Oct, your files will all be complete.

Hope that helps! Good luck!

 

[jebus]

Submit your AMCAS application before you take the MCAT. You will also get 2ºs, I don't know when to submit those, but be complete (except for the MCAT) before the middle of October. Why? Because it's all about symmetry. If that last part makes no sense it's because you aren't trying hard enough.
Timeline:
June/July: Submit AMCAS
July-October: Fill out and submit secondaries
August: Take MCAT
August-October: Cry self to sleep at night
October: Get MCAT scores
Somewhere in there you should also bathe. You smell.

 

[tomorrowgirl99]

Thank you very, very much.

 

[ahumdinger]

For those of you who took the august MCAT, when did you submit your AMCAS application. Are you supposed to submit before you have your scores or are you supposed to wait until after you receive the scores? I know if I take the august mcat, I will already be late in the process, so I think timing would be key.

I took the april MCAT, but in retrospect, the August MCAT people really weren't at a disadvantage. What you need to do is make sure EVERYTHING is in order and you're ONLY waiting on the MCAT scores. I'm pretty sure you can submit AMCAS without your MCAT scores, what will happen is that it won't get processed until the scores have been received. But in the meantime there's lots that you can do.

1. make sure all your LORs are ready to go-- a lot of people waste time because their letter-writers are slow.
2. Find out from people who submitted April MCAT and have already started getting secondaries what the secondary questions are for the schools you are applying to. Most schools do not screen, and have some sort of online access to the secondary, and I think I've seen lots of people posting those links on SDN, so you can get a jumpstart on the secondaries.

When people complain that AUGUST MCAT gives them a disadvantage, it's usually because they didn't start thinking about or writing the secondary essays, and then they all start piling up in october/november, and you don't have as much time to do it. But if you try to find out the questions ahead of time and start writing, it won't be so bad. And you'll find that you can recycle most of your answers at multiple schools. Furthermore, many schools wait to send out the bulk of their interview invites until after the AUGUST scores are out so that they can see more of the applicant pool.

good luck!

 

[gdbaby]

I agree somewhat with humdinger (but more with Jebus--you do smell) except it was a MAJOR buzz kill to see people getting ACCEPTANCES two days before my scores were even released. In the end I received 5 interview invites and 2 acceptances so far, so i am very happy with how things turned out.