When to submit primary?

[ecoli]

---

Members do not see this ad.

So I'm about done with my essays, and only thing I have left to really do in terms of the application is finish putting in my work/activities.
There are two issues however. I have not yet done any clinical work. I'm supposed to be shadowing a doctor for a week or so (keeps getting pushed back for administrative reasons AKA bull****). So, I want to make sure that makes it onto my application. Can I put it on there before I actually do it? (especially because I'm not sure how many hours its going to be.

The other issue is that I haven't taken my MCATs yet (august 5th). If I do poorly, I don't want to waste money applying to schools I won't get into, and will probably just hold off until next cycle.

My plan is to submit sometime before my MCAT (you can do that, right?) But only apply to one school, and then add more after I find out more score (I'll assume I do well 😛).

Obviously submitting early is better, but is submitting it this week really that much different than the first couple days of August, after my shadowing experience is done?

Especially considering I want to start working on those secondary applications, so I can send them out the day after I get them (assuming the preview is available online).

Sorry for the long-windedness, but I figure descriptive is more useful than vague... even if it means you guys have to read more 😛

 

[ecoli]

unashamed bump...

 

[URHere]

Submitting your primary application before your MCAT scores are received is a little bit of a gamble. On the one hand, if you do well and you wait, you've postponed your application for no reason. On the other hand, if you submit and then you find out later that you did poorly, you've wasted some money. So...my advice to you would be to gauge how well you think you are going to do on the MCAT based on your practice scores and make your decision based on that.

If you are performing consistently well (mid 30s or higher), I would go ahead and submit to all schools now. Some will send you a secondary before your primary is verified, so there is really no reason to pass up the extra time to work on those essays. If you are not doing well on your practice exams (below 30 or very unpredictable performance), you may want to reconsider submitting the primary this cycle at all - you will end up shelling out a decent amount of cash even if you apply to only one school and if your score is not up to par, that will probably be wasted money. If you are performing somewhere in the middle, you need to take a guess as to what would be best for you to do, because it could go either way.

As for the shadowing, if you are 100% certain that it is going to happen, I would say that you can list it now. However, it may be safer to leave it off and send an update letter later on (possibly with your semester grades) if you are really concerned about it.

A couple of other things to keep in mind:
-The later you submit your AMCAS, the longer you may have to wait to be verified - this happened to me.
-Some MD/PhD programs have very early deadlines for the secondaries - by the time my AMCAS was verified, the deadlines had already passed for two of my schools (you would still be applying earlier than I did, but still, just giving you fair warning).

That's just my opinion on what I would do in your case (plus some random info), hope it helps!

 

[ecoli]

If you are performing consistently well (mid 30s or higher), I would go ahead and submit to all schools now. Some will send you a secondary before your primary is verified, so there is really no reason to pass up the extra time to work on those essays. If you are not doing well on your practice exams (below 30 or very unpredictable performance), you may want to reconsider submitting the primary this cycle at all - you will end up shelling out a decent amount of cash even if you apply to only one school and if your score is not up to par, that will probably be wasted money. If you are performing somewhere in the middle, you need to take a guess as to what would be best for you to do, because it could go either way.

I've been scoring ~30, but I've been studying my ass off, and hope to do better.
That's why I wanted to at least get my application in there, because I hope to be competitive, as a realistic estimate (as well as one can gauge these things).
Ultimately, I wouldn't mind losing some money on the gamble, but I would like to try to minimize that loss, should it happen.

As for the shadowing, if you are 100% certain that it is going to happen, I would say that you can list it now. However, it may be safer to leave it off and send an update letter later on (possibly with your semester grades) if you are really concerned about it.

I'm 99% certain it's going to happen, I'm just not sure how many hours its going to wind up being. So, I don't want to wind up being accused as a liar, just because I didn't wind up doing as many hours as I expected. (you do have to put the hours on there, right?)

A couple of other things to keep in mind:
-The later you submit your AMCAS, the longer you may have to wait to be verified - this happened to me.
-Some MD/PhD programs have very early deadlines for the secondaries - by the time my AMCAS was verified, the deadlines had already passed for two of my schools (you would still be applying earlier than I did, but still, just giving you fair warning).

I don't find out my MCAT scores until ~sept 9th, I think. I don't think the secondary deadlines are quite this early. But then, I would also have to wait for my school to send out the committee letter and probably my transcript until after this date, and I have no idea how long that could take (my school is notoriously slow).

Is there an official AMCAS guideline on how long it takes them to verify? As long as they can verify it before my MCAT scores come out, would that be ok?

That's just my opinion on what I would do in your case (plus some random info), hope it helps!

yes, you've been incredibly helpful. Thank you 😍

 

[StIGMA]

The adviser (well respected, in business a long time, MD himself) at my institution would highly suggest you submit before you receive your score. This is especially true if you are applying to the most heavily applied to programs.

 

[ecoli]

The adviser (well respected, in business a long time, MD himself) at my institution would highly suggest you submit before you receive your score. This is especially true if you are applying to the most heavily applied to programs.

So that means include all the schools I want to apply to when I initially submit the application?

If I decide to be in it, I should be in it the whole way?

Is there a disadvantage to adding schools later? (secondaries get processed later?)

 

[ecoli]

*sigh* I'm back to square one.

 

[URHere]

*sigh* I'm back to square one.

Don't sweat it so much ecoli. If your MCAT score is good, it won't matter too much which choice you make now. If your MCAT is borderline, it's all going to be a little bit more up in the air, and stressing over it really won't help you out either way.

I can't make your decision for you, but my personal advice would be this:
If you are ready to apply and the MCAT score is the only thing up in the air (and you are scoring consistently above a 30 within the next week), then go for it. If you are applying this cycle, do EVERYTHING you can to make this round a success. Spin out the essays as early as you can (without sacrificing quality), and apply to any school that you like and think you may have a chance at. True, you might waste some money by applying to some schools that you realize you don't have much of a chance at later on, but I know as well as anyone that you CAN get into an MD/PhD program with less than a 35 MCAT (32 represent!). Just do your research and find schools that really fit you, work your tail off on your secondaries, perfect your interview skills, and you DO have a chance. At this point, realism is a good thing, but excessive worry and doubt are only going to drive you crazy.

To answer your other question, it probably won't hurt you to add schools later on, but you can never be 100% sure of that. In some cases, the extra week or two you spend working on that secondary may mean the difference between an interview and a rejection (especially for applicants with lower stats). I don't think anyone could tell you for sure whether it would hurt you or not.

It's not an easy choice, but personally, I would rather try and fail, than postpone something unnecessarily or not try at all.

Whatever you chose to do, good luck. It's not as impossible as it may seem right now.

 

[ecoli]

Don't sweat it so much ecoli. If your MCAT score is good, it won't matter too much which choice you make now. If your MCAT is borderline, it's all going to be a little bit more up in the air, and stressing over it really won't help you out either way.

heh... point taken. Thanks

I can't make your decision for you, but my personal advice would be this:
If you are ready to apply and the MCAT score is the only thing up in the air (and you are scoring consistently above a 30 within the next week), then go for it.

Ok... I guess this will be my deciding factor. I guess one more week isn't going to make that much a difference at this point.

The only other thing that's the delaying factor, is that I don't know how many hours I'm going to be shadowing for yet. (I start on monday).
I assume they don't like applicants being vague when it comes to how many actual hours they've done.

If you are applying this cycle, do EVERYTHING you can to make this round a success. Spin out the essays as early as you can (without sacrificing quality), and apply to any school that you like and think you may have a chance at. True, you might waste some money by applying to some schools that you realize you don't have much of a chance at later on, but I know as well as anyone that you CAN get into an MD/PhD program with less than a 35 MCAT (32 represent!). Just do your research and find schools that really fit you, work your tail off on your secondaries, perfect your interview skills, and you DO have a chance. At this point, realism is a good thing, but excessive worry and doubt are only going to drive you crazy.

On that note, is there a resource that compiling the schools that have secondary apps available on their websites? (the FAQ didn't seem to list one, and I was under the impression that not all the schools make their secondaries available).

To answer your other question, it probably won't hurt you to add schools later on, but you can never be 100% sure of that. In some cases, the extra week or two you spend working on that secondary may mean the difference between an interview and a rejection (especially for applicants with lower stats). I don't think anyone could tell you for sure whether it would hurt you or not.

Meaning spending the extra time on the secondaries will help you, because of the extra effort? In that respect, I take this to mean, try to list all the schools you want in the beginning, so that you maximize the time you have to work on the secondaries.

It's not an easy choice, but personally, I would rather try and fail, than postpone something unnecessarily or not try at all.

Thanks.. this is how I'm feeling. And on the bright side, if I have to re-apply next year, at least I'll have a lot of the application stuff done already!

Whatever you chose to do, good luck. It's not as impossible as it may seem right now.

Thanks... it looks like I'll probably take your advice. Defeatist attitudes tend to be self-fulfilling, so I'm going to try and stay more positive from now on.

So I guess the only problem now is that I still don't know what to put down for those volunteer hours (which is going to be at 2 different hospitals).

 

[ecoli]

here's my list so far, though, I honestly need to do more research on it. As you can probably tell, I'm leaning towards northeast / new york schools. Any recommendations on schools I should add, schools I shouldn't bother with?

Anyone know of any schools with particularly strong work in infectious disease/ microbiology?

Albert Einstein
Columbia
Mt. Sinai
NYU
Penn State
SUNY Downstate
SUNY Stony Brook
U Mass
UMDNJ-RWJ
U Rochester
Cornell

 

[Ariodant]

A week total of clinical may be too little...

Vanderbilt, if you don't mind its location, is pretty good in microbiology/pathology. Know a couple of awesome professors in path., and hospitals are beautiful too. Too bad their research is too traditional for me.

 

[ecoli]

A week total of clinical may be too little...

No, I'll have over a month (at least) by the time interviews roll around, I just wasn't sure if it mattered for the primary application.

Vanderbilt, if you don't mind its location, is pretty good in microbiology/pathology. Know a couple of awesome professors in path., and hospitals are beautiful too. Too bad their research is too traditional for me.

I'll look into it, thanks.

 

[Ariodant]

It may, it may not. Most MSTP programs probably won't mind your lack of clinical experience, but some MD committees might, especially if your stats are borderline.

 

[Picklesali]

If you are really sweating the hours thing, you can write something in the description like "hours are an estimate" since they will see that the start date is after submission. Personally I think that putting something like that on your app before having ever done anything like that its kind of lame - because you don't know how significant the experience will be and if you will get what you want out of it. I definitely think it will look like you are scrambling to pad your resume. I agree with someone above who suggested including this in an update letter or at your interviews.

 

[ecoli]

If you are really sweating the hours thing, you can write something in the description like "hours are an estimate" since they will see that the start date is after submission. Personally I think that putting something like that on your app before having ever done anything like that its kind of lame - because you don't know how significant the experience will be and if you will get what you want out of it. I definitely think it will look like you are scrambling to pad your resume. I agree with someone above who suggested including this in an update letter or at your interviews.

How would the update letter work? I would have to send one to each school I was applying to, right? (and not AMCAS itself)

 

[Ariodant]

I haven't done this before, so this is purely speculative. When you accumulate enough hours to warrant an update letter, say in a month, your primary should have been verified and you are likely to have received most of your secondaries. Therefore you only need to send the update letter to schools that have granted you a secondary or an interview.

 

[Jathin]

I would definitely submit the AMCAS application asap. If you're going to wait until you get your scores, you're going to be a relatively late applicant (you won't be done until mid/late October). I got my scores on August 24th last year, submitted AMCAS and was verified by Sept 19th. Secondaries were completed by Sept 25th. From my experience, I entered the game too late for certain schools -- UMich comes to mind as one school that handed out all interview slots quickly.

The issue with AMCAS is that they take forever to verify. So even if you're submitting your application to just 1 school, at least get the transcript verification out of the way. Though you won't be technically complete until your MCAT comes in, you'll save yourself the wait time for transcripts (I think). Then, when you're officially complete and have your MCAT, tack on the other schools according to your score.

imo, there's really no reason to apply to more than 1 school if you don't have your MCAT yet. I say this because you won't save any time on the application process, adcoms don't even look at your application until your scores are in. Most secondaries are automated -- Vandy and URoch come to mind as ones that aren't, but it still won't matter for your situation because the adcom won't look at you until MCAT score is in anyway.

If I were in your shoes I would:

Submit AMCAS now, selecting a safety school as my first school
While waiting for MCAT scores, look up secondary questions and start writing them
When MCAT scores come in, add schools accordingly
Submit secondaries, since you already have them typed out

 

[ecoli]

this is what I'm going to do, thanks