Well, one of the things I need to consider is how much money I need to shell out in order to apply this year and I need my MCAT to decide that. If my score is good then I only need to apply to a few schools and save myself some money but if my score is not so great then I need to figure out how I can save more money to apply to more schools. I don't want to just apply to the so-called "safe" schools because there really is no safe schools. There is no place where you are guaranteed an admission based on a set number of MCAT score and GPA. Not only that, I want to go to a school that is right for me. I already have my entire application ready and I do not think that an additional week is going to make a difference. What is important to me now is to see my MCAT score.
No one has ever said safety school = sure thing. I'll agree there is no sure thing, but there is definitely a safety school. Based solely on numbers, there are definitely schools where one has a high probability of being accepted.
And everyone wants to go to the school that is right for them, but what does that have to do with when you apply? That is an issue of where you apply. All it takes is
ONE school you'd like to attend to make applying now worthwhile.
No matter what, you will be spending $160 for your first school. (1) you can apply now to one school and add schools once you know your MCAT scores. Let's say you add fifteen, resulting in a total cost of $610 (2) you can wait and possibly not apply to that one school from before. If you only apply to fifteen total schools, you spend $580 and save a whopping $30.
You're telling me it's worth $30 to you to lose a week or two on your submission, knowing that gap magnifies over the course of the application process.
So here are two options:
1) Send in your application to one school, either a school you desire and would apply to no matter what or a safety school where you have a higher chance of getting in that you would attend if you got in nowhere else. This gets your primary submitted and awaiting verification a bit earlier (let's say a week for sake of argument). A week earlier in submission will result in about a ten day gain in terms of verification. This means about a two-week lead in terms of secondaries, which equates to one meeting of the adcoms at the typical school. So if you submit now, then the adcoms will make a decision one full meeting sooner. That means getting a better crack at earlier interviews, which could be about three weeks to a month difference in interview date (late January versus late February for instance). Given the rolling admissions process, the January interviewee goes to committee vote in Febraury, when slots are still available (hopefully). The February interviewee goes to committee vote in March, possibly right on the March 15 deadline when they have to send out enough invites to fill their class. You end up on a waitlist.
Once your MCAT scores come in, you add schools. Your application is still awaiting verification or barely past verification when the schools are added. You time things well and get most your secondaries coming in shortly after getting your MCAT scores. If your scores are great, then the safety school was not needed. But it only cost you $30 in the long run to apply to one extra school. If your MCAT scores aren't great, you are applying to that safety school anyway.
2) You wait a week until scores are in, so that as you say, can choose the schools you want. Quite honestly, I'm not sure if your list will change drastically once you know your scores and I'm quite certain there will be some schools on your list no matter what your score is. Even if there is just one school that stays on your list no matter what your score may be, that could have been the school you applied to as your lone school a week earlier.
Sending your primary one week later, this time of year, does make a difference if you are applying to schools that receive a large number of applications.
Granted, it's your life and it sounds like you just plain don't want to apply now. But in case someone else is reading this, I hope they see the faulty logic in waiting to see MCAT scores before submitting their application. It is easy and fast to add schools to your primary application. It takes time to have your primary verified. Why wait for the fast step when you can start into the slow step?
