So you are constantly seeing "people" make a big deal of this? Which people? Paranoid Premeds who are just applying and have no experience in the admissions process?
People dont get into medical school because their application is fast and first submitted. They get in because their application is good. Rushing a secondary, which many schools consider as, if not more important, than a primary is counterproductive, And just how long did you work on your primary? This is one reasons why I tell applicants applying to medical school is a full time job from early May until at least Labor Day, if not thru September.
Applicants do not see what is going on underneath. Schools will get 5,000-10,000 or more applications but can only process several hundred a week. Therefore it can take 12 weeks (3 months) or more to fully evaluate and review. The "traditional" cut off for that is Thanksgiving as schools must transition their resources from mostly evaluation to mostly interviewing at that point. So getting your application in by Labor day, gets you in the "door" or rather the pile of applications that will be likely reviewed before Thanksgiving. So there is no impact from "being" late at any school, even the most competitive ones, if you are complete by Labor Day. Mid-to-Late Sept is fine too for most solid candidates as most programs.
********AMCAS 2019 Timeline Summary (post count #019)************
-AMCAS May 2, 2018, Primary application opens up. Can send formal requests for transcripts from your schools and letter requests to your letter writers.
-AMCAS May 31, 2018, Completed primary applications with all ECs, PS, and course information can be submitted. You enter the verification queue only when both completed primary application and all transcripts have been received.
-AMCAS does not, repeat, does not verify LOR or MCAT score. Your primary application will be verified regardless of LOR or MCAT score status
-AMCAS June 29, 2018, begins transmission verified applications (though some schools have secondaries sent to contact info upon submission to AMCAS)
-Verification peak is about August 1st and takes 20 days
-Most Primary Apps are transmitted early July thru early September
-Secondaries timelines can vary widely as to when to they are sent out from almost immediately upon submissions to 3 months, though most are in the range 1-3 weeks after transmission.
-Letters via AMCAS are processed/transmitted separately from primary
-Letters can be added after primary has been submitted and transmitted and are mostly not needed until secondary reviews at the earliest.
-There are usually 3 main phases in processing application
----1) Initial Screening/Evaluation: A hybrid of automatic GPA/MCAT screen plus human for "quick review" of application. Used to for general priority and, in some cases, which team/subcommittee gets application. In some cases preset criteria can lead to II.
----2)Full Evaluation: This is where evaluator/reader/team/subcommittee will fully evaluate all sections of primary, secondary, and LOR and generally summarize in broad categories or point system. This essentially becomes your priority for adcom review and II. This function may be split up among several evaluators and may go to a team or subcommittee for II decision. Application are not typically evaluated until complete with Primary, Secondary, MCAT, and LOR
----3) Full adcom: this is where your fully evaluated application is reviewed and voted on by adcom for II on later on for acceptance/WL/rejection
-Application and candidate evaluations timeline varies widely by school may not done in a linear, chronological order. EDP, High achievers, URM, family of alumni, feeder schools, associated UG programs, linked postbaccs, and other factor may push an app forward in the process.
-Most adcoms dont start meeting for review of evaluated applicants until at least mid-August, more likely September, though some reviews may be done earlier for groups mentioned above. Evaluation may start almost immediately at schools.
-Schools receive 5,000-10,000 application but can only evaluate several hundred applications a week. Therefore, it can take 12 weeks or more to be evaluated, reviewed and invited for interview.
-Schools must reduce several thousand applications to several hundred interviews. Therefore 80% of applicants at any individual school must be rejected pre-interview.
-Submitting Primary Application June is Early, July Medium, August Late
-Having Primary verified and transmitted to school by end of August is normal speed
-Having Secondary and all LORs complete to school by Labor Day is early/ontime. By late or end of September is about middle/normal speed, by end of October is about late.
--After that point you will generally start getting impacted by the number of applications submitted, the finite number of interview slots, and seats given by rolling admissions. These aren’t absolute dates nor is it a fixed timeline. It should be used as a guideline
Getting primary in on time does matter because of all the other items that follow it. But applicants often see the beginning and not understanding how it flows from there. Additionally, how each school then opens a file, reviews them on GPA, MCAT, and other factors, and what order they wind up in a queue has less to do with when the primary arrives then when the secondary is completed and received. Since the majority of schools, I dare say, send out pre-transmission, unscreened, or minimal cut off screened secondaries, this is probably a larger factor in where you wind up in the queue for 1) reading an application and 2) decision on interview invite. As I have said previously, and will undoubtedly say dozens of time during this 2019 application cycle (see count above) review of apps is not simply done in a linear chronological order. High achievers, URM, family of alumni, feeder schools, associated UG programs, linked postbaccs, and other factor may push an app forward in the process.
