<p>BDM: Our home state is IL, but she is graduating from University of South Carolina. That gives her ties to both SC medical schools, and puts her a rung up versus out of state schools. </p>
<p>MCW is on the list because it is only 1-1/2 hours away, and relatively inexpensive even for OOS. We have also heard of many IL residents who have matriculated there.</p>
<p>How many schools is the ideal number to apply to?</p>
<p>*
BTW, where are there so many medical schools in IL? Is it because it is a blue state in the middle of many red states?*</p>
<p>LOL</p>
<p>Wouldn’t she have a lot of IL med schools on her list because she lives in Illinois???</p>
<p>Basically, you want to apply to as many as possible provided you can do the secondaries well. I can’t imagine hardly anybody being able to do more than 20 well.</p>
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<p>Don’t really know if there’s an answer to this. I know I personally tend to write quickly when I’m writing about myself, and could crank out the content of a secondary in an evening pretty easily. Since I know they’re pretty important, I almost always revised them a few times before actually sending them off. So in terms of “hours working on them” I’d say it’s hard to estimate. But after completing 13 secondaries last (!) application cycle, I can tell you it’s definitely reasonable to finish secondaries within two weeks of receiving them.</p>
<p>One of the reasons why it’s so easy to finish them quickly is that most of the questions overlap, so it’s easy to re-use portions of essays for other secondaries. My “strategy” was to figure out what elements of my candidacy I wanted to highlight–I chose service, leadership, founding a nonprofit (were these “generic” choices? Unsure, but they were the most authentic ones for me)–write about (and thoroughly revise) essays about those elements, and then find a way to incorporate each of them into every secondary. </p>
<p>Worked well for me; I was able to incorporate those elements/themes into each of my secondaries, and I am definitely pleased with the results. </p>
<p>
The vast majority are “automatic” in that they’re not screened, but not necessarily instantaneous because you generally still have to wait a while for an email containing login, password, and instruction information. I usually waited at least a few weeks for mine, some considerably longer. You can find the prompts on SDN if you want to get a jump on them. </p>
<p>I think only one of my 13 (Mayo) screened before secondaries, but Mayo doesn’t have a traditional secondary (they actually just “request your letters of recommendation” which in reality they already have, it’s just their way to notify you that you’ve made it to the next stage). </p>
<p>
Just a rule of thumb for the most part. The official deadline for secondaries is usually like, 4-6 weeks past the AMCAS deadline for that school (which varies from October through January). Since your kid’s way on top of things and not going to worry about those winter deadlines anyway (bet she’ll be done this summer!), for all intents and purposes, the only deadline is the one she sets herself–and the 2 week mark seems like a good one!</p>
<p>Thanks Kristen, very helpful.</p>
<p>hey kristen, so there isnt any additional essays for mayo after they request the LOR right?</p>
<p>Son did 24 last cycle (same cycle as Kristin), as a full-time student and researcher.</p>
<p>Wake screens, Univ of Washington screens, UNC screens OOS of the ones he applied to, rest were automatic. Harvard’s HST has a seperate essay from New Pathways. And some of the MD/MPHs have a seperate essay.</p>
<p>And yes you can recycle essays, esp with a heads up on the prompts from S D N.</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>Bigreddawgie, that’s correct. Mayo gets AMCAS (and your $$), then may request your rec letters (which they actually already have, they’re just notifying you that you made it to the next stage), then they may interview you, then they may accept you (I’m currently on the alternate list). </p>
<p>It seemed like the most mysterious process out of all of mine (no idea why, just a vibe I guess), but was far and away the most impressive medical school, hospital, physicians, med students, and staff I had the pleasure of getting to know on the interview trail (for reference, I interviewed at Missouri, Northwestern, Mayo, and Duke).</p>
<p>Also: agree with katwkittens. I applied to MD/MPH programs where available, and most dual degree programs required an additional essay (none of the schools where I interviewed did though).</p>
<p>The process is very expensive. Just a heads up that that AMCAS does try to help students that are not able to pay for the application with the FAP program. Look it up and it will pay for primaries and most secondary applications. You have to be a certain percentage below the poverty line to get it. Letters of recommendations are a beast! I will have 3 out of 4 by the end of the day. I just hope they are good… * fingers crossed * I hope we all kill it this cycle. I know we all worked hard and deserve to go to our top choices. Parents enjoy the ride. I wish my dad was as supportive as you guys are kudus. TMDAS opens in a week and AMCAS a couple days after. Let the games begin!</p>
<p>Son is applying this cycle too. I am a little worried about his management of LOR and finding time to work on his PS.</p>
<p>He is a guy who likes to leave everything until the last minute. He has only one week between commencement and his overseas intern. He will be out of the country between June 1st and end of August. He says that he can manage to apply overseas since he will have access to the internet. </p>
<p>By the way, if a school has a pre-health committee and the school collects all the LOR and puts all LOR into a single pocket. How do you fill AMCAS form about the LOR? Does the school send the pocket letter to AMCAS or individual med schools?</p>
<p>AMCAS now has a LOR management system. The school will send its letter packet to AMCAS and AMCAS will send copies to the schools. But not all medical schools participate in the AMCAS program. Your son will need to check to see which schools will accept LORs thru AMCAS and which won’t. Schools that don’t participate in the system have their own requirements–again he’ll need to check. </p>
<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/amcas/faqs/63226/faq_amcasletters.html[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/amcas/faqs/63226/faq_amcasletters.html</a></p>
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<p>So here’s how it worked at my school–perhaps your son’s is similar? </p>
<p>The premed committee requires students to give a form to each of our recommenders (waiving our right to view the letters, FERPA stuff, etc), and that form instructs the recommenders to address the letter “Dear Members of the Admissions Committee” (or something similar) and send the completed letters to the director of the premed committee. Then, the premed committee reads the letters, compiles the highlights into a composite letter, and interviews students to add the committee’s recommendation about the student to the composite letter also. The “dossier” that each medical school eventually receives contains the composite letter and each of the individual letters.</p>
<p>Since that dossier is actually coming from the premed committee, only the dossier requires the AMCAS form. You designate that it’s a “Committee Letter” directly on the AMCAS and go from there–you don’t need an AMCAS form for each of the individual letters that make up the committee letter. All the AMCAS form is for is to make sure your AMCAS ID # and bar code are attached to your letter packet. It’s really pretty easy!</p>
<p>One of my schools did not participate in the AMCAS letter system, but still wanted the committee letter + individual letters (which, again, come as a package deal). All I had to do was give the committee the address to send the packet. </p>
<p>All in all, the letters were a piece of cake. The only thing that’s a pain is actually getting your recommenders to turn them in!</p>
<p>one of my letter writers hasnt written it yet. It’s due next week for my committee letter. I’ve been bugging him so much the past few weeks, so I’ve given up. sigh</p>
<p>^ I sympathized with you.</p>
<p>This is probably a downside of going to a national research university (especially those which hire a lot of “big name” tenured professors/researchers. This may be especially true when the department you happen to major in is ranked high in the major-specific ranking. This is because grooming premeds is (very likely) never the priority of these professors (and the school, to some extent). The professors often try to finish their classes as soon as possible in the morning so that they can start to get to their “real work”, that is, they can spend more time on what the schools really want them to do – research.</p>
<p>I heard some LAC will even try to keep track of whether the professors write the LORs in time on behalf of the premeds. Money (i.e.,much higher tuition) did buy something here! (And the smaller scale research done by the professors there may be more in line with what an undergraduate premed needs to do just for applying to a medical school – at least they can not afford to hire zillions of postdocs.)</p>
<p>LORs: Ask for them early, way early, try to get them submitted before the end of the year. If not, don’t be afraid to ask about the prof’s summer schedule. Also, some schools offer an evaluation form for your profs, I think TX did this, forget it, by the time you get it over the summer, good luck getting it back.</p>
<p>My DD had them all sent to Interfolio. From Interfolio, she sent them to AMCAS + TX + a couple of schools which did not accept them from AMCAS. Cheaper for her to do this. I think she something like that for transcripts, too, as she had them from 4 schools (summer school)</p>
<p>Re: Secondaries, DD applied to well over 30 schools and completed the secondaries over a long summer process, mostly within 2 weeks. With only a 29 MCAT and our state school serving 5 states, and perhaps a little too much neuroses about her chances from reading SDN (:eek:) it just seemed smart to apply very broadly. Also, she really preferred NOT to go east, so a large chunk of those schools were middle of America schools which take a small percentage of OOS students, therefore we added extras to the list. DD had 10 interview invites 
Had she known she would be admitted early to her state school, she would have applied to only that one.</p>
<p>The secondaries are not so hard in multiples…a few are killer (KS, Minn, etc) but those questions once answered can be recycled to answer similar questions elsewhere. I think the most difficult part of a secondary is to read the question and think creatively as to how to answer it like a politician and tell them what you want them to know, what they need to hear about you. You can read, even now, on SDN what the secondary questions were the cycle before yours and begin getting together info as to how you would answer.</p>
<p>Hi All,</p>
<p>Long time lurker and new post-er and I can’t believe this application cycle is underway! </p>
<p>One of my recommenders makes it a habit to have the student write their own rec; he will compare my version to his own and blend the two. He said it with a smile on his face and he is an amazing academic but I’m a bit nervous because he’s an economic development professor with no previous experience in writing medical school LORs. He’s open to suggestions on do’s/dont’s and I knew that CCers would have great input- advice?</p>
<p>Thanks so much and good luck!</p>
<p>i heard from my premed advisor that my documents has already been presented to the committee and my committee letter should be done soon. i should really get started on my primaries haha</p>
<p>Great weekend! D graduated on Friday. She is staying at school to take the MCAT on 5/20. Moving out of aprtment on 5/21 and heading home. Starting gap year job on 6/7.</p>
<p>My D tells me that AMCAS opened on time this year. She has started the long process of entering everything. PS has been read and edited by many sets of eyes. </p>
<p>Let the games begin!</p>
<p>kimcord, It is funny the timing of taking MCAT, graduation, moving out of campus for your DS is almost the same as DS’s last year. But it appears your D, by her nature, is more organized and on top of these tasks as compared to DS.</p>
<p>As BDM pointed it out a long time ago (in his “Timing Alert” post or some other related post?), one challenge/inconvenience of not having the MCAT scores in hand before submitting the primary application is the difficulty of coming up with the school list. At one time (I forgot when), DS would not want to submit AMCAS applications because of this.</p>
<p>Wish her a good journey this coming year. I think she will be very successful.</p>
<p>kimkord,
The same here at a bit faster pace. D. graduated on Saturday, moved out of apartment on Sunday (had to move out by today - Monday, but could not afford another day), going abroad tomorrow (Tuesday), starting at Med. School first week of July, 2011. While moving out, we had to separate “going abroad” staff from “going to Med. School” staff" from “staying at home” staff. A bit challenging but she is packed to fly tomorrow. Have been packing / unpacking for 3 days. Will have to order furniture for new apartment for her new residence (have rented already) when she is back. If not delivered before her white coat ceremony, she will have to sleep on air mattress.</p>
<p>Good luck to everrybody, it has been amazing year, bittersweat, looking forward and at the same will be missing old place and tons of friends. D. is visiting her UG when she is back from her trip and before her Med. School starts.</p>