Why must we input our "academic record" into AMCAS?

[JLeBling]

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I have completed the AMCAS application and I am working on my AACOMAS (DO schools) application now.

The thought has probably struck many of you as well:

Why do we need to fill out our academic record when we are sending transcripts with the exact same information?

I'm sure there is a valid reason, and it's not just a bureaucratic vestige to burden premed students with more paperwork... Right?

 

[PreciousHamburgers]

So that it is in a standardized format.

 

[hoihaie]

so it's less work for them. same reason why you have to do it in some secondaries with prereqs too

 

[ndafife]

Its easier/faster to just check to make sure your inputs are correct than to manually go through and enter them themselves (and then someone else will have to check through them). It takes them weeks to verify now, could you imagine how long it would take if they were manually entering your academic record?

 

[JLeBling]

Yeah makes sense

 

[BrCo]

Imagine the time it would take for AMCAS to process your application during the height of their season if they had to individually fill in transcript grades for tens of thousands of applicants. It would be horrendous.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

I misunderstood the question. Why doesn't AMCAS create a standardized data file for transcript input? Then each school could easily generate a data file for each student, and you could easily import it.

 

[ndafife]

I misunderstood the question. Why doesn't AMCAS create a standardized data file for transcript input? Then each school could easily generate a data file for each student, and you could easily import it.

1. Not every school automatically uploads its transcripts to AMCAS. Some schools use snail mail to get it there.

2. Every school formats its transcripts differently. Way more work than its worth to write something to automatically upload 1000+ different transcripts, and no school is going to change its transcript format just to please a small minority of the student body.

3. The course type designation for AMCAS makes everything difficult. Itd be too big of a headache to figure out how to move that in automatically.

The entire point of entering the courses in manually is to generate a standardized file

 

[Ismet]

You can knock out entering your courses in an afternoon. Yeah it's a pain in the butt, but it's really not that time consuming.

 

[minor.groove]

1. Not every school automatically uploads its transcripts to AMCAS. Some schools use snail mail to get it there.

2. Every school formats its transcripts differently. Way more work than its worth to write something to automatically upload 1000+ different transcripts, and no school is going to change its transcript format just to please a small minority of the student body.

3. The course type designation for AMCAS makes everything difficult. Itd be too big of a headache to figure out how to move that in automatically.

The entire point of entering the courses in manually is to generate a standardized file

You don't actually need a standardized format. Just a computer algorithm that does a pretty good job of parsing the data in a transcript. Then AAMC could scan hardcopy transcripts (digital ones are clearly already digital) and have a computer generate the data. Applicant verifies and confirms what the AAMC program generated and makes corrections. Then AAMC actually even has less work, as they only need to verify the changes made by the applicant, and not the entire transcript.

It's 2014, there is no practical reason this couldn't be automated... It might even cost AAMC less money, but the upfront costs might be deterring them from implementing a something similar to this (or maybe they are currently working on it and it will be rolling out in an application cycle soon).

 

[Ismet]

You don't actually need a standardized format. Just a computer algorithm that does a pretty good job of parsing the data in a transcript. Then AAMC could scan hardcopy transcripts (digital ones are clearly already digital) and have a computer generate the data. Applicant verifies and confirms what the AAMC program generated and makes corrections. Then AAMC actually even has less work, as they only need to verify the changes made by the applicant, and not the entire transcript.

It's 2014, there is no practical reason this couldn't be automated... It might even cost AAMC less money, but the upfront costs might be deterring them from implementing a something similar to this (or maybe they are currently working on it and it will be rolling out in an application cycle soon).

Except that someone at AMCAS would have to verify that the computer-generated course list is correct. You can't just leave that up to the applicant. What if the computer program made an error in the student's favor and the student, knowing that AMCAS only verifies the changes made by the applicant, doesn't change it?

It's really not that big of a deal to enter your course data.

 

[minor.groove]

Except that someone at AMCAS would have to verify that the computer-generated course list is correct. You can't just leave that up to the applicant. What if the computer program made an error in the student's favor and the student, knowing that AMCAS only verifies the changes made by the applicant, doesn't change it?

It's really not that big of a deal to enter your course data.

sure, computers have error rates, just like people. I suspect a well designed computer program would make fewer errors than the people currently hired to verify what the applicant entered. There also also easy ways to cross verify this computationally (total credits on a students transcript vs sum of parsed credits, as one simplistic example). I'm not saying its that hard to do it by hand, I'm just saying in 2014, when the NSA can spy on your every communication of flag instances that have key words/phrase said, and google can write programs that automatically blur faces and license plates in terabytes of street images, someone can relatively easily write a computer program to make this particular "problem" far less labor intensive (on the applicant for sure, but also for AAMC).

 

[JLeBling]

You don't actually need a standardized format. Just a computer algorithm that does a pretty good job of parsing the data in a transcript. Then AAMC could scan hardcopy transcripts (digital ones are clearly already digital) and have a computer generate the data. Applicant verifies and confirms what the AAMC program generated and makes corrections. Then AAMC actually even has less work, as they only need to verify the changes made by the applicant, and not the entire transcript.

It's 2014, there is no practical reason this couldn't be automated... It might even cost AAMC less money, but the upfront costs might be deterring them from implementing a something similar to this (or maybe they are currently working on it and it will be rolling out in an application cycle soon).

Agreed

 

[kavorca]

You will have a long road of doing others work yourself and then paying them for the privilege. Whether it is AMCAS, NRMP, background checks for aways, submitting stuff for your medical license (FCVS).