FAQ: Medical School Applications

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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Applying to medical school is a two step process

  1. AMCAS/AACOMAS/TMDSAS application (Primary Application)

  2. School-specific Secondary Application

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The AMCAS/AACOMAS/TMDSAS Application/Primary Application

AMCAS = allopathic medical schools
AACOMAS = osteopathic medical schools
TMDSAS = all Texas medical and dental schools

First, the applicant needs to decide which type(s) of medical schools they’re going to apply to.

Every public Texas MD and DO program in the state is included on TMDSAS. Texas applicants don’t need separate MD and DO primary applications to apply to Texas medical schools.

The applicant will create an account with the application service they’re going to use. (Most applicants will already have an AMCAS account since it’s required in order to register for the MCAT.)

Applicants will fill out demographic information, transcribe their academic grades using an official copy of their transcript(s) from all undergraduate and graduate institutions attended, upload Letters of Evaluation that will be sent to medical schools, and upload a Personal Statement. Once everything has been completed and uploaded, the applicant will pay a fee and submit the application.

For students who are lower income, there are fee waivers available for primary applications. In addition, eligible students may get up to 20 secondary fee waivers from AMCAS and 20 from AACOMAS.

AMCAS Fee Assistance Program
AACOMAS Fee Waiver Program

TMDSAS does not offer a primary fee waiver, but applicants may be able to use FAP or FWP to pay secondary fees at Texas medical schools.

Once submitted, an applicant can only edit a few sections of the application—the school list where the application is to be sent, the applicant’s contact information, which LORs are sent to which school. Because most of the application is not editable—please read and re-read the app. Once the submit button is hit, there is no way to fix typos.

Detailed information on how to fill out your application is available on the webpages of the application services.

2027 AMCAS Applicant Guide
AACOMAS Quick Start Guide 2027
TMDSAS Application Guide

Transcripts

All 3 application services require an official transcript from every academic institution the applicant has ever taken college level coursework. This includes any dual enrollment classes taken during high school. It doesn’t matter if those dual enrollment credits are shown on your college transcript, an official transcript from the dual enrollment institution still must be sent.

If you have grades from a foreign institution (not US or Canadian) please see the instructions for dealing with those in the relevant Application Guide.

The application services will not begin to process your application until the primary application is uploaded, all transcripts have been received, and an application processing fee has been paid. Since it may take an academic institution several weeks to send a transcript, plan accordingly.

Processing Times

Processing your application can take anywhere from a few days to 6-8 weeks during the busiest time of summer application season.

The application service will compare your transcripts to the classes and grades listed on the application. If there are discrepancies, your application will be returned for correction. The application services use the National Student Clearinghouse and other educational databases to check that a student has sent all required transcripts. Failure to send the required transcripts will delay the processing of your application.

Once the application has been processed, the application will be forwarded to the medical schools the student has indicated on their application. Schools receive application data dumps about once a week during the application season.

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Secondary Applications

Once the applicant has submitted their primary application, they will begin to receive secondary applications. (aka “secondaries”) These are school-specific applications that come directly from the medical school.

A few medical schools screen for secondaries. That is, the medical school will review an application before sending out a secondary application to a student. Applications that meet the screening criteria will get a secondary; those that do not are placed on an indefinite hold.

However, most medical schools send out a secondary application to everyone who applies.

Secondaries include a mix of demographic questions and typically 4-10 short essay response-type questions. Essay topics will vary by school. Some schools ask factual questions that basically repeat the information on the primary app. However, most secondaries also have short essay questions that require deeply thoughtful answers. All essays will have a maximum character length and any answer that exceeds the maximum gets truncated at the limit.

It’s possible to find the previous year’s secondary essay topics for particular schools on the internet should a student want to pre-write some secondary essays to get a head start on the application process. (Reddit and Student Doctor Network are good places to check.) However, schools do like to mix it up and often change topics that have been used for one or more years.

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Some typical secondary essay topics:

  • Why do you want to attend [insert name of school]?
  • Why osteopathic medicine?
  • Describe your biggest failure. What did you learn from it?
  • If you could re-do one decision in your life, what would it be? Why?
  • What accomplishment are you proudest of? Why?
  • What diversity will you contribute to your med school class? (NOTE: many people interpret this as a coded question about race. It is not, though a discussion of your race/ethnicity may be appropriate.)
  • For state public medical schools: What is the biggest healthcare problem facing your state? What do you think causes it? How would you fix it?
  • Describe any obstacles you’ve faced in your journey to medicine and how you overcame them.
  • Report any academic misconduct citations you’ve received, any misdemeanors or other offenses that are not reported on your primary application.
  • Is there anything else you would like to tell us?
  • Describe an instance when you were in a position of responsibility for a group endeavor. How did you build consensus? How did you handle group members who were unproductive or uncooperative?
  • Describe the community in which you were nurtured or spent the majority of your early development with respect to its demographics. What core values did you receive and how will these translate into the contributions you hope to make to your community as medical student and your career in medicine?
  • What do you consider to be the role of the physician in the community?

(And, yes, sometimes the questions may sound stupid or obvious, but a med school application is not the time to be facile or facetious.)

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Once an applicant receives a secondary from a medical school, they should return it within 14 days. Returning it after 14 days signals to the school that it’s not a high priority school for this applicant.

Submitting a secondary requires payment of a fee. The typical fee is $80-$120.

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