A Road Map

MCAT is taken, scores are back, and now on to actually filling out the application. And then....just waiting, right? Nope. Filling out the primary application is actually the simplest part of the whole darn thing.

I'm going to lay out the the three parts of applying to the wonderfully intimidating medical schools, so that when updates are given you'll know where that lies in the grander scheme of things. Also, so that the wayward internet-cruising pre-med (hereafter, WICPM because everything that has to do with college needs an acronym) can have an idea of what to expect, something that really prevented me from getting started as fast as I should have.

Here we go!

Oh, first, BUY THIS BOOK NOW (if you happen to be the WICPM):

Medical Schools Admissions Record (the "MSAR", man I love acronyms)
Most useful book to a pre-med

The MSAR will answer all of your hard statistical questions about average accepted GPA, MCAT score, demographics, percentage of accepted applicants who had research experience, deadlines; you name it, it's in there.
And seriously, it's the easiest and most reliable place to find that information and it keeps you away from the wonderfully helpful and relaxing forum folk.




First of all, the theme for the primary application is that it is where any semblance of consistency comes to reside for ever and ever without moving on. After submitting it, the rest of everything is school-specific. That being said, while the American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS, man I love acronyms) is accepted at almost all American Medical Colleges, there are some exceptions. Like Duke. They have their own application. And like all schools in the state of Texas. They've got their own application too. Oh Texas...

The AMCAS
Conveniently online, but still mildly confusing. Loooots of information.

First, normal name and background information. Demographics. Parent stuff.

Applying to med school is easy!

Next is your academic information. Which means every single grade you have received college credit for ever. If you took college courses in high school at a junior college, you've got to put those up too.  It is recommended that you obtain an official transcript and enter your information directly from that document. This is a good idea, because you will also be sending a copy of that official transcript to the AAMC so that after you enter in every grade ever, an AAMC person compares what you entered, line-by-line, to the transcript they received. That takes 4-6 weeks (aka 1-1.5 months), and if you get anything wrong, they send it back to you, not just correct it themselves.

Applying to med school is unnecessarily redundant!

That part takes about an hour, and $40 for the transcripts.

Next up is listing your extracurricular activities. You can list up to fifteen, I stopped at twelve. It asks for a contact person related to the activity, and how many hours a week you spent doing said impressive thing. From your activities you must choose at least one, maximum three, that you consider to be the most significant. You are given 700 characters (not words) to describe each activity, and an additional 1300 characters for the important ones to say why they're so special to you.

Then... the PERSONAL STATEMENT. That's how it looked in my head at least. The prompt is simple; "Why do you want to go to medical school?" and you get 5300 characters to let them know. That ends up being one page and a little bit with single-spacing. The statement is tough! I wish I'd started earlier. It was the biggest mental barrier I had to actually doing my application and kept me from submitting it earlier. But it came out pretty well. Having such a short amount of space to write about such a complex decision helps you realize which parts are the most important. If anyone wants a copy of my statement, let me know.

Next up you declare your letter authors, but you don't have to have their letters yet. This is pretty cool. It means that when your letter-writers do finish their letters, they upload that letter to AMCAS with the letter ID generated right then when you enter them and automatically, AMCAS knows who the letter is for and forwards it to your indicated schools. Hooray hooray. Boring details: they ask for name, position, institution, email address, and phone number for each writer.

Finally you get to select your schools. This is where I became very good friends with the MSAR (buy it now), and ended up selecting fourteen schools, the list of which will be in the next post; this one is getting so very long. Selecting schools is pretty easy. If I remember correctly, you select the state, the school, and then what program you want to apply to (MD, MD/PhD, MD/MPH, etc etc). You can also assign authors to schools at this point so that when the letters get uploaded, they just get automatically forwarded to where they're supposed to go. Thinking I was a clever kid, I assigned all my letters to all my schools. This was a big mistake.

You cannot change letter assignments after your application has been submitted. This means that if a school only wants 3 letters, and you (I) have 5 letters, they will get all five of them and maybe think you are (I am) someone who cannot follow directions and burn your (my) application with glee. You can cancel an author altogether, but if that author decides to be ambitious and helpful and upload their letter anyway, it will be sent to all the schools you'd previously assigned for that writer. Waaaa


But then....after what ended up taking me about four to six hours to finish....the AMCAS is comple--asking you for money! The fee is $160 for your first school, and $33 per school thereafter. For fourteen schools that works out to be $609. Joy.

(Then it's done)

Secondary Applications and Interviews

Are to be continued....