<p>^“Made a HUGE difference for info gathering. Helped him eliminate schools after he received acceptances.”</p>
<p>-Exactly the same has happened. D. withdrew from one very highly ranked Med. School after staying with Med. School host there (and meeting few others). She said, that staying with current Med. Students is very helpful for choosing school.</p>
<p>Priceline works, but be aware that some airlines have now withdrawn their schedule information for ALL internet travel booking sites. Some (Southwest) never allowed it to be used in the first place. What I do is use a major internet travel site first to get an idea of costs, but then go directly to the airlines site to book. The price will be the same and if you have a problem arise–it’s easier to deal directly with the airline.</p>
<p>You might try this if you have some lead time and don’t need immediate ticketing:</p>
<p>[Airfare</a> Deals - Cheap Flights - Airfarewatchdog](<a href=“http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/]Airfare”>http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/)</p>
<p>And if there’s ever a time to join an airline’s mileage club–its now. Accumulate those miles! Probably won’t get enough for a free flight, but you may be able to get some upgrades.</p>
<p>Also some hotels will give you better (or at least the same) rates if you book with them directly. Sometimes calling the individual hotel may get you a better rate. (Mention the school.) And the individual hotel is better informed about airport shuttles and the like.</p>
<p>So do your research first, before you book.</p>
<p>Also try student universe dot com
You might check Allegiant Air dot com
If they fly from an airport near you, they sometimes have great deals, lots of add on fees to click OFF when buying a ticket, and limited days in many destinations, but all in all, you can get some amazing deals</p>
<p>thanks for the suggestions. did your kids have to sleep on couches when staying with a host student?</p>
<p>amcas finally got verified today!</p>
<p>waiting…sdn…cc…work…waiting…</p>
<p>DS is almost ready to hit the send button on his AMCAS app. I have not been that involved in the process, but will need to get up to speed, I’m afraid. In late August, he will be leaving for a post-grad year in Europe and will need to complete the process from there. </p>
<p>I expect I will be helping with logistics from here. Will he be able to do everything online? Or will he get hard copy apps, etc. that will have to be forwarded to him? </p>
<p>He’ll need to fly home for interviews, etc and would obviously like to consolidate those trips as much as possible. Any sense of how this might be viewed by med schools? Tips as to how to handle it? Are we totally crazy to tackle the process from across the pond? (If the answer is yes,…well…it’s too late for us to come to that realization! Have no choice but to try and work around it!) Any experience/thoughts on this crazy plan will be appreciated!</p>
<p>Is he applying to Rush? </p>
<p>AFIK, Rush is the only school D1 encountered that would not accept online secondaries, payment or photographs. Wanted hard copies of everything. It also wanted hard copies of LORs. PITA.</p>
<p>Others here might have different experiences.</p>
<p>Re: consolidating interviews–he can always ask. Some schools may be more willing than others to accommodate requests. In D1’s case, she was offered a limited range of interview dates (2-4 different days all in the same 2-3 week window) and had to pick one. YMMV.</p>
<p>^</p>
<p>GWU also has paper secondary with photo.</p>
<p>If things need to be mailed have him email a PDF to you for printing and mailing. My DD was also abroad and I did quite a bit of that. We needed photos for some of the secondaries, too.</p>
<p>Every year more & more is 100% online, but he will need you to be a contact in the states, to make cheaper, more timely phone calls, process mail, etc.</p>
<p>Yes, interviews were darned expensive and inconvenient.</p>
<p>Thanks, all. I’m sure we’ll benefit from others experiences. Ga2012mom and somemom, perhaps he should leave me some passport size photos for secondaries? Is that the size we would need? Thanks–a great tip! Hopefully we’ll get through it–he just couldn’t turn down such a great opportunity.</p>
<p>"He’ll need to fly home for interviews, etc and would obviously like to consolidate those trips as much as possible. "</p>
<p>-Might not be possible. Med. Schools might not adjust to his request. And then, what if he cannot decide. What if he needs to go to Second Look events. My D’s decision flipped after Second Looks at schools that she was debating about. She went to 6 interviews (2 combined one day apart at the same place), so basically 5 trips and 2 Second Looks. So, it was 7 trips. She applied only to 8 schools, usually people apply to many more and have more interviews. Their timing is also unpredictable and you are given sometime like 24 hours to respond. Being in Europe and doing all of this seems to be very challenging. Some adcoms might be more understanding than others. They cannot adjust to everybody. Everybody has certain circumstances. D. has been re-scheduling her exams with various profs at her UG when she needed to go. Again, some of profs were more understanding than others. So, expect this type of answers when requesting specific time: “everybody has to make adjustments to accomodate interviews”.<br>
It was exciting time though! Today is D’s first day of classes at Med. School. Lat week was orientation and yeserday we went to White Coat ceremony, unforgettable, I am glad we went. People were from all over the country, for us if was only 2.5 hrs drive. D’s class is amazing. Highest MCAT=42 with average =35.2, there are PhD’s and 2 lawers! Good number of MS’s, huge number of Ivy leque and 41 students from California out of 199 total in 3 programs. I hope that my 21 years old from state school will fit well. Her GPA is well above average of 3.7 though.
Best wishes, best luck! You need some luck in this process. Hopefully, it will work out!!</p>
<p>My daughter applied while she was at graduate school in the UK but I am afraid that I can’t help with the paperwork details because she handled much of that with the help of her undergrad pre-med advisor. I do know that she postponed a number of interviews until she returned to the US for the holidays. She came back very early in December and immediately headed off for interviews that she had rescheduled from offers made in Oct. and Nov. She made another trip home in early February for more interviews. I don’t recall her saying that any of the schools where she asked for the school to work with her timetable had a problem with it. I can’t say if schools are always so accommodating or if her being out of the country made them especially helpful when it came to rescheduling. D knew she would not be in a position to go to second looks but spent enough time at each interview school that she left feeling that she had a sense of the place and the student body.</p>
<p>It is very possible that D ended up on some wait-lists by postponing but she also received a couple of offers almost immediately after interviewing at schools that had been rescheduled so (fortunately) no harm done. She knew when she headed off to grad school abroad that she wasn’t necessarily positioning herself for a seamless application cycle. </p>
<p>One other thing - when D knew her timetable for returning to the US and was planning her flights for interview trips, she contacted schools that had not been heard from but were located near where she would be interviewing. She received one more interview offer that way.</p>
<p>3rd interview invite today. oos school. looked at flights and it cost $400. time to leech of my mom’s frequent flyer miles hehe</p>
<p>^Sometime you cannot use somebody else’s miles though. Check it out.</p>
<p>I was on vacation for a week and a half over the fourth of july, and I didn’t really pay attention to my secondaries, because I was trying to enjoy myself. Anyway, I am now drowning in secondaries! I’ve got some work ahead of me this week. Luckily it looks like I can recycle parts of some of my previous essays for the new ones.</p>
<p>good point about the miles. i think i should be able to if i remember correctly. i have enough for 3 out of state flights. will have to book two of those flights soon. i greatly underestimated the costs of med school apps (then again, i didnt exactly crunch any numbers beforehand)</p>
<p>^Yes, it is nice if you can drive to all of them. My D. drove to all and stayed with med. students hosts. We still worried about her driving in a snow. She had couple negative adventures, but at the end she learn few things and even went to Second Looks trying to choose the right Med. School. But by then, snow was long gone. D’ s application process was probably one of the cheapest, she applied only to 8 schools, paid only 6 application fees. Otherwise, it is expensive.</p>
<p>Hey bigreddawgie,</p>
<p>Yep, it’s definitely expensive–but you’ll realize it’s a drop in the proverbial bucket when it comes to paying for med school tuition and fees. I think it’s great that you’re trying to travel as efficiently as possible, but I wouldn’t worry about it that much in the big scheme of things. I hope you are proud that you’ve received interview invites before many students even complete the primary! You are definitely on your game. Good luck!</p>
<p>Best wishes, bigreddawgie! When are you interviews? I just realized that D. choose Med. School that interviewed her first. It was also the one that she wanted to attend while in HS.</p>
<p>Got my first rejection yesterday from University of Chicago, I was half expecting that. But i got my first interview invite from University of Michigan!!! Aug 19th!! So nervous and excited and now I have so much to do to prep.</p>