will a June 16th MCAT date put me behind ?

[futuredoc0307]

I am taking the MCAT June 16th (score release July 17th). One of my biggest goals was that I wanted to apply as early as possible to be in the first wave, but due to unfortunate circumstances my mcat was pushed back to June 16th. Now I don't plan on selecting schools before my MCAT is released because I don't want to be considered a re-applicant incase the score that comes out isn't what I wanted. However I do plan to submit June 2nd with a random school to get my transcript verified. So comes July 17th when my score is out, my primary will be verified, and assuming my score is solid, I will add all the schools to my application. so essentially schools WILL receive my application July 17th.

my question: I am trying to get an idea or a sense of how late this will make me. I plan to apply to 15 schools and I understand secondaries take a lot of time to write. Assuming I write them in a time efficient manner, approx around when do schools might actually get to review my application? when would I expect an interview letter ASSUMING my application is competitive enough?

Will I be considered In the first wave still? second wave? middle of the pile? If someone can clarify please thanks

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[Catalystik]

I am taking the MCAT June 16th (score release July 17th). One of my biggest goals was that I wanted to apply as early as possible to be in the first wave, but due to unfortunate circumstances my mcat was pushed back to June 16th. Now I don't plan on selecting schools before my MCAT is released because I don't want to be considered a re-applicant incase the score that comes out isn't what I wanted. However I do plan to submit June 2nd with a random school to get my transcript verified. So comes July 17th when my score is out, my primary will be verified, and assuming my score is solid, I will add all the schools to my application. so essentially schools WILL receive my application July 17th.

my question: I am trying to get an idea or a sense of how late this will make me. I plan to apply to 15 schools and I understand secondaries take a lot of time to write. Assuming I write them in a time efficient manner, approx around when do schools might actually get to review my application? when would I expect an interview letter ASSUMING my application is competitive enough?

Will I be considered In the first wave still? second wave? middle of the pile? If someone can clarify please thanks

Assuming you follow this plan and pre-write Secondary prompts for the most-efficient turn-around time (2 days instead of 2 weeks), you will not be disadvantaged time-wise in the process. Though you don't know which schools you'll apply to, many prompts are very similar. You can access last year's in the School-specific section of this forum.

 

[futuredoc0307]

Assuming you follow this plan and pre-write Secondary prompts for the most-efficient turn-around time (2 days instead of 2 weeks), you will not be disadvantaged time-wise in the process. Though you don't know which schools you'll apply to, many prompts are very similar. You can access last year's in the School-specific section of this forum.

I do know which schools I want to apply to. But I always wanted to ask, how do students pre-write these if we don't receive secondaries? are they just leaked by students and are used by others, assuming they are the same prompts every year?

Can you link me to that forum please

 

[Catalystik]

I do know which schools I want to apply to. But I always wanted to ask, how do students pre-write these if we don't receive secondaries? are they just leaked by students and are used by others, assuming they are the same prompts every year?

Can you link me to that forum please

Here is the link: 2017-2018 Allopathic School Specific Discussions

Each year, as Secondaries are received, SDNers report the Secondary prompts and mods usually add them to the first post for each school. At worst, they might be further down on the first page.

Alternatively, you might try this site: Medical School Secondary Essay Prompts Database - Prospective Doctor
(though I can't vouch for it, an SDNer posted it recently).

 

[wysdoc]

I am taking the MCAT June 16th (score release July 17th). One of my biggest goals was that I wanted to apply as early as possible to be in the first wave, but due to unfortunate circumstances my mcat was pushed back to June 16th. Now I don't plan on selecting schools before my MCAT is released because I don't want to be considered a re-applicant incase the score that comes out isn't what I wanted. However I do plan to submit June 2nd with a random school to get my transcript verified. So comes July 17th when my score is out, my primary will be verified, and assuming my score is solid, I will add all the schools to my application. so essentially schools WILL receive my application July 17th.

my question: I am trying to get an idea or a sense of how late this will make me. I plan to apply to 15 schools and I understand secondaries take a lot of time to write. Assuming I write them in a time efficient manner, approx around when do schools might actually get to review my application? when would I expect an interview letter ASSUMING my application is competitive enough?

Will I be considered In the first wave still? second wave? middle of the pile? If someone can clarify please thanks

I would comment that right now you should be spending all your time studying for the MCAT and then after test day you can do the work on submitting your primary app. Compared to MCAT studying it will be achieved quickly.

 

[pewpew95]

I wasn’t verified until July 29th, received pretty much all my secondaries July 30-31, submitted secondaries mid-August, and I did just fine. I think this anxiety about wanting to be the very first application to get in is way overhyped and almost exclusive to the SDN hive mindset. With your timeline, you can definitely have all your secondaries submitted by the end of July. Just breathe and focus on studying for your MCAT. Good luck!

 

[Dr. Snow]

I would comment that right now you should be spending all your time studying for the MCAT and then after test day you can do the work on submitting your primary app. Compared to MCAT studying it will be achieved quickly.

Lets be real. Studying more than 10-12 hours a day would be overkill.
My advice = Wake up early, study as much as you can throughout the day. Then leave a couple hours every night to work on your application. It is unrealistic to study from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed unless you want to burn out.

I am taking the MCAT June 16 as well. My finals end next week, then I am dedicating the following 5 weeks to studying all day every day. I will likely wake up around 7-8am, study for a couple hours, work out, study until dinner, then work on my application during the night.

On the other hand, it kind of depends where you are at in your MCAT studying. I have already taken 10 practice exams and have been scoring pretty well. If you haven't started studying at all then maybe more than 12 hours per day is needed.

After I take the MCAT I will take a couple of days to relax, then start pre-writing secondaries in the order of the schools I am most interested in. I plan to apply to about 15-20 schools at first (right away in June). Then depending on what I score on my MCAT, I will add 5-10 more.

 

[futuredoc0307]

Lets be real. Studying more than 10-12 hours a day would be overkill.
My advice = Wake up early, study as much as you can throughout the day. Then leave a couple hours every night to work on your application. It is unrealistic to study from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed unless you want to burn out.

I am taking the MCAT June 16 as well. My finals end next week, then I am dedicating the following 5 weeks to studying all day every day. I will likely wake up around 7-8am, study for a couple hours, work out, study until dinner, then work on my application during the night.

On the other hand, it kind of depends where you are at in your MCAT studying. I have already taken 10 practice exams and have been scoring pretty well. If you haven't started studying at all then maybe more than 12 hours per day is needed.

After I take the MCAT I will take a couple of days to relax, then start pre-writing secondaries in the order of the schools I am most interested in. I plan to apply to about 15-20 schools at first (right away in June). Then depending on what I score on my MCAT, I will add 5-10 more.

good for you man glad you're doing well. Unfortunately I start my summer research project tomorrow (may 7th) and it requires 35-40 hours a week. lol it's an L but it's a very elite research program I'm guaranteed a publication and possibly a presentation by the end of it in august so i can't turn it down. so i will have maximum 5 hours a day for MCAT until my exam comes besides the weekend. my studying situation is kind of weird. I have not finished any of my prep books for content review, for example i havent even opened the physics or the biology books which happen to be the fattest two, however, I was an SI leader for biology in the fall and I tutored chem for about a year and i just finished my biochem course right now so i would say a lot of the material is very fresh in my head. and honestly the application does't take as long as people think, i finished mine in a day, and i only have the EC to write about and I don't think it will be hard. my first FL was kaplan scored a 497 then reviewed it quickly and took a NS FL the next day and got a 503 simply bc i got exposed to the exam and learned how to answer the questions so i wonder how much i can improve by taking another 8-10 FLs in the month i have left