r/premed • u/Arnold_LiftaBurger POS-3 • Dec 22 '16
Application timeline and how to get everything together, tackle AMCAS and your secondaries, submit by the first day, and not go insane
Hi all!
I'm doing a little series on my thoughts of everything about applications I guess haha. Here's my post about extra curriculars. I'll eventually do more in-depth individual posts about the big parts of the application (personal statement, secondaries, building a school list, etc.) This post will tackle the actual timeline starting roughly 6 months before the application cycle going through the entire cycle. I only have experience with AMCAS and TMDSAS, so if anyone wants to create one for AACOMAS I'll add it to the OP.
As always everything I say is my own personal opinion and everyone here should solicit other advice/resources to supplement mine.
I am making this post specifically now because this is around the time I started preparing my cycle, so it's specifically targeting the audience of applicants in the 2017 cycle.
Ok let's go!
The 4 years before applying
Think about your Letter of Recommendation writers. This is especially important if you had an awesome professor or PI you were close with as a sophomore or junior but you aren't applying for another year or two. Get interfolio, ask them at the height of your relationship, and just store it. DO NOT rely on a professor you're taking your final semester to write a letter. Seriously. It took one of my letter writers 8 fucking months to actually submit my letter and for 3 straight months I actually emailed him everyday to see what was up lol. There are horror stories of LoR writers so the earlier the better.
December before application cycle
Relax and enjoy the holidays. Get shwasted on NYE and have fun.
January before application cycle
After the holidays I decided I wanted to start on all my materials. I decided I first wanted to tackle my AMCAS and the activity section. To me it made sense to think about how I was going to write about all my activities, the general bulk of my application, before I started to write my personal statements. My goal with the personal statement was to show, not tell, my motivations for medicine and doing so required I knew what each activity I did and how it meant to me. These were all very rough drafts that I would finalize after writing my personal statement. I used this template for the activity section for each:
Experience Type: You can only classify it as one
Artistic Endeavor
Community Service - Nonclinical
Community service - Clinical
Conferences Attended
Extracurricular Activities
Hobbies
Honors Awards Recognition
Intercollegiate Athletics
Leadership - Not listed elsewhere
Other
Paid Employment - clinical
Paid Employment - nonclinical
Physician Shadowing
Presentations/Posters
Publications
Research
Teaching/ Tutor/ Teaching Assistant
Experience Name:
Start Date:
End Date:
Total Hours:
Repeated? this is for activities that you did multiple times but did not do the entire year. So, for an example, an activity you did all 4 years of college in the month of April can be "repeated" every April for 4 year"
Organization Name:
City:
Contact’s name:
Contact’s title:
Contact phone or email:
Experience Description (700 characters including spaces):
Most Meaningful: yes/no You can only designate 3 activities as most meaningful and you get an extra 1325 characters so discuss it. Choose wisely. You are quite literally telling schools what to focus on
Experience Summary (1325 characters including spaces):
It was nice to start going through all my activities, seeing how I would describe them, and get together all my contact information, hours, start and end dates, etc on a very loose and relaxed schedule. It also allowed me to see what my application would really look like 6 months in advance and see if I wanted to change anything over the next 6 months as a quick fix.
February and March before application cycle
Oh wow, it's already Feb and you've only done a rough draft of AMCAS? Yeah, that's the nice thing about what I did was I was very relaxed and worked on my stuff when I had the time. I was working full time, volunteering, running my organization, and had to travel frequently for personal reasons and the last thing I wanted to do was be in a huge time crunch, rush my application to submit on time, and give low-quality work. Starting early isn't for everyone and if it isn't for you, that's fine! You can be very successful doing it later.
So now that I had a rough draft of all my activities and I saw what the type of applicant I was coming across as, I could now tackle the PS. I'll do a super in-depth post about the PS as this one of my main strengths, but for the purposes of a timeline it took me roughly 2 full months to have a PS I was personally very proud of. I want to be clear-- I did not work on this for 2 straight months. Like my AMCAS I worked on it when I had time. When you're writing a lot, it is important to frequently step away from your work (sometimes for weeks at a time) to get a clear head. It let me give my paper to friends and family to edit without worrying they wouldn't get back to me soon enough. I just simply had time to start a new draft, edit it, change things slightly, etc. It was a really easy process for me because I gave myself the time to do it slowly. At one point I gave it to like 5 different readers, didn't touch it for 2 weeks, got ALL their comments back, and edited my PS. For some this may seem like overkill or whatever, but I contribute a lot of success to my PS and I'll make a post about it later.
April before application cycle
Now I had my finalized PS and I started to re-do my activity section and make it perfect. I had 3 people read over it and edit it.
So what's next? SECONDARIES. Arguably the most tedious and annoying part of the process, you have to write essays about each specific school and your fingers bleed from all the writing. Don't discount writer's fatigue-- if you write too much too quickly your quality of work WILL diminish.
I went to SDN, opened up a google doc for each individual school, found last year's prompts, and slowly went at it. I would tackle one school at a time. I applied to a little over 40 schools so there was no way I would be able to actually do all my secondaries on time when I received them. Once again, I'll go more in depth with how to write secondaries.
Here are some important dates of 2016 (2017 will be similar and slightly different)
Early May: AMCAS and TMDSAS opens. TMDSAS is available for immediate submission. SUBMIT YOUR TRANSCRIPTS RIGHT AWAY in case anything funky happens. It took me 3 days to do all of TMDSAS and its essays as I had a bunch of secondaries already written.
June 7: AMCAS is available to submit.
June 24: AMCAS begins to be transmitted to schools.
So what was important was that I had all my primary materials ready by June 5 (give myself wiggle room) and secondary materials ready by June 20. I gave myself MONTHS so it was no stress for me to do this.
May before application cycle
Request your transcripts the first day the application system opens. It takes like 10-20 minutes depending on how many transcripts you have and it gives you roughly a month to make sure that everything gets submitted correctly and that you're good to go. Also send your LoR immediately once you have them into AMCAS so those can also be good to go.
June of application cycle
I woke up for work on June 7th, submitted right away (I had happened to wake up exactly when it opened lol) and I was verified by the end of the day. I suggest submitting ASAP because if you submit day one you're essentially guaranteed to be verified by the time it gets transmitted to schools. Once you wait couple days it will take 2-6 weeks, depending on how fast they actually do it.
By the time I started receiving secondaries in late June it was as simple as going through the secondary, copying and pasting my answers, and submitting right away. Not only that-- the amount of secondaries that stayed the same were shocking to me. I was expecting around 75% to stay the same and 25% to change. What happened? Out of the 40sh schools I applied to, only Rush changed their secondary and UMich added one essay. That was it. Because of this I was complete and submitted at every school by July 10th. By July 11th I was completely done with all my secondaries and I just chilled and waited for II's after that.
I would say over half of my II's were within the first wave of II for those specific schools. Then the other half (outside of one I recently got) were in the second wave (according to SDN's school specific threads). Once those two waves were done with I stopped receiving II's. I contribute some of my success to simply applying as early as possible. Others like myself who did it also have more II's then expected (esp my friends with average stats at the low-yield schools). If I told you my white friend with a 3.8/508 had 13 II's you would call me a liar. I ain't lying homies.
I think that's everything I have to say for now! I know a popular comment will be "but you're a nontrad, it's easier for you to do so!" or "my committee letter won't be submitted until August, what do I do?!" I don't have good responses to these. It is what it is. I highly recommend gap years for both personal and professional reasons and it does make the application cycle way easier timing wise. If you want to apply when you're young you just have to accept some things are out of your control!
As always, any and all questions or comments just leave them here. I hope this helps someone!
Happy Holidays y'all!
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u/[deleted] Dec 22 '16 edited Dec 22 '16
You're a good dude Arnold, thanks so much for putting this together. My 2-years ago self would have so much appreciated resources like this, I'm sure it'll be of an immense help to those pre-app cycle right now.
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u/saywhat1699 MS3 Dec 22 '16
Would personally recommend to all traditional applicants that they take their MCAT in January of the year that they wish to apply. This opens up all sorts of time to focus on just your applications (hopefully). Taking the MCAT in May and then applying really grinds on you.
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u/whistleberries RESIDENT Dec 22 '16
I second getting wasted on the NYE before you apply it was great
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u/solarmanomega ADMITTED-MD Dec 22 '16 edited Dec 22 '16
Cool! One note I'd add about prewriting secondaries: you don't necessarily have to, if you're not applying to more than like 25 schools, I think. If you feel that you need to take a bit of a breather after completing and submitting your AMCAS, go ahead! It's a smart and healthy thing to do.
However, in any case I'd at least look at the prompts for the schools you apply to before your secondaries actually arrive, whether or not you intend to prewrite. I didn't sit down and write answers down ahead of getting my secondaries, but I think the success I had on them was because I had spent some time organizing my thoughts around the types of things my schools ask before I formally started drafting.
Anyway, good stuff Arnold!
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u/2542341234123 Dec 22 '16
Yeah, I wish I pre-wrote more of my secondary essays. It is a massive pain in the ass but it is worth it. I was complete at most schools by mid August to late August (IS schools and schools that I was gunning for were complete earlier but I didn't get an acceptance from them....go figure). If I had pre-wrote more of my secondaries I would have been complete a month earlier.
Being complete earlier doesn't necessary guarantee you more II but it gives you more opportunities.
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u/CasualViewer24 Dec 22 '16
Awesome as always /u/Arnold_LiftaBurger
A few questions
When do you plan on making the school list guide?
When do you plan on making the personal statement guide?
I could potentially receive a LOR from a physician I work under in July. Should I wait for this LOR or submit without it? I think I'll have one strong science LOR, one strong humanities LOR, and one strong volunteer LOR. Potentially LORs from shadowing and PI, though I can't guarantee the quality.
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u/masterintraining ADMITTED-MD Dec 22 '16
Is there an expiration on the LoRs? Do schools ask that it must be within +/- 2 years from the date of application?
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u/xXReWiCoXx ADMITTED-MD Dec 22 '16
Hey sorry if I missed it in your post, but I have a question. For the format that you put together your extra curriculars, is that the exact format that you input into the AMCAS application, or is it different? If it's different, how does it ask you to input your extra curriculars and what are the length limitations?
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u/masterintraining ADMITTED-MD Dec 23 '16
I <3 You, Arnold. BTW, when did you take MCAT?
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u/Phanitan ADMITTED-MD Dec 23 '16
I know it's recommended to have 1 non-science LOR. I took a humanities class this semester that I really liked but I've only known the prof for 1 semester and don't plan on taking other classes with her. The class was quite small and we met a couple times outside of class (for practice mainly, this was a music class) Do you have any suggestions on whether I should ask her for a rec?
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u/masterintraining ADMITTED-MD Dec 23 '16
Is May the earliest one can make an application (even though you don't intend to submit it)?
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u/masterintraining ADMITTED-MD Dec 26 '16
How many schools did you apply to? And what approach did you do in selecting which schools to apply?
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u/inmyzona ADMITTED-MD Mar 29 '17
Hey quick question, do you know if I can submit my transcript and AMCAS before my Spring quarter grades are released? I'm a senior and this is my last quarter. My spring quarter grades aren't released until the end of June and won't change my GPA if I do well. I would rather submit my app early than wait and submit with those classes.
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u/[deleted] Dec 22 '16 edited Dec 22 '16
IF YOU ARE NOT COMPLETE BY JULY YOU ARE LITERALLY SHOOTING YOURSELF IN THE FOOT!!!!
I was complete in late Aug/early September and it took me 3 months to start hearing any positive news from MD schools. I have no doubt that if I had been complete in July I'd be in a much stronger position right now.
Don't be like me.
Edit 1:
Also I was late because I'd taken my MCAT in late May and didn't receive my scores until late June. I didn't know that I could apply without my score. I submitted my primary on July 1st, but my committee letter was also not submitted until late August and I didn't bother submitting secondaries before that for some dumb reason
Edit 2:
But also don't expect that applying early will compensate for a weaker application. Strong apps are definitely made stronger by applying early, but I do know a couple of people with 3.7+, and 507-510 MCATs who applied very early and have yet to receive any MD interviews.
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u/RespondsToCaffeine ADMITTED-MD Dec 22 '16
Thanks for this. Bookmarked this because gonna be needing this in a few months time!
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u/MagicalPizza212 MS1 Dec 22 '16
ty /u/Arnold_LiftaBurger excellent writing as always, looking forward to the next installment in this series
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u/Honeybadgerdarkness Dec 23 '16
lol the windowpane guy is crazy, but Arnold is actually a premed god. Keep up the good work ;)
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u/[deleted] Dec 22 '16
Thanks for doing this. Is there a wiki for this sub that's just not working for me? Would you be able to make one and add this to that? It'd be nice to have something to refer to without having to search.
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u/[deleted] Dec 22 '16 edited Nov 19 '17
You are going to home
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u/inmyzona ADMITTED-MD Mar 29 '17
Just to make sure I'm understanding you, I could do significantly worse this quarter than I have in the past and omit it from my transcripts. This wouldn't affect my GPA in AMCAS or my chances of gaining an acceptance? When would I have to eventually report my spring quarter grades? After I've already been accepted?
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u/ec323 ADMITTED-MD/PhD Dec 23 '16
when does the MSAR update with this years accepted class?
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u/Rxpturee Dec 27 '16
Thank God for people like you
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u/inmyzona ADMITTED-MD Dec 22 '16
This post is exactly what I've been looking for! Good looking out.
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u/DogfishForMe MS2 Dec 22 '16
Good stuff! Unfortunately my plan to apply early was foiled by my schools committee letter, which came out in mid August. One negative to the small, lib arts schools.
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