<p>I don’t think that my daughter even has a premed advisor, let alone a concentration advisor!</p>
<p>She should if she’s at Harvard. Her residential college (“house”) should have a medical student or a young resident who serves that function. Obviously this is not an ideal arrangement, as they lack broad expertise and reputations with medical schools themselves, but nonetheless she should have at least SOME advisor.</p>
<p>Twinmom: What year is she? Bluedevilmike is exactly correct. In my D’s house, there are several premed advisors. Hers is a resident.</p>
<p>Senior in September - taking a year off before med school. I’ll check with her, but i don’t think she’s established a relationship with the pre-med advisor in her house. Then again, maybe she just hasn’t told me.</p>
<p>Random thoughts update. </p>
<p>D applied to 22 schools. Of those 22 a handful don’t have any secondary application. Another few have secondary apps but no essays. Few of her schools have screened secondaries. There are a couple of research-oriented programs within schools that if selected for an interview at the med school you are invited to apply for special programs (with a separate application with other essays).</p>
<p>I guess my point is that this is far from standardized and a good deal of work needs to be invested up-front in forecasting schedule “pinch-zones” , especially if your summer schedule is already relatively full with lab work, hospital volunteering, other volunteering, social and travel opportunities. </p>
<p>D is handling it because there hasn’t been a flood of daily secondaries hitting her in-box. Everything has been done timely. So far. I think she has one she’s been pondering over for a few days (ethical dilemma) and just received another this a.m. (ethical dilemma). The only essays she’s expressed any displeasure with are the …ethical dilemma essays. lol. (As a matter-of-fact she just interrupted my posting with a call that said “I have nothing. No, Dad. I’m mean, really. Nothing.”)</p>
<p>So what new advice can I offer? Brainstorming, story-boarding previous years essays is time well-spent. Ditto investigating prior years timing of secondaries . And it has just hit home in the last week or so that some schools start interview invites in a few weeks with some interviews in August. I knew it, but it hadn’t registered that there could be conflicts with finishing her lab work (she’s the “under-boss”) and D serves as a Peer Assistant leader during First-year orientation. I can see what is coming. She’ll just have to juggle. Fast. </p>
<p>I’m sure with her senior class schedule the pinch-zones will come fast and furious, but I expected that. </p>
<p>D had originally thought of cramming in another Maymester abroad this summer. I don’t know how that could have possibly worked with her schedule.</p>
<p>Does she have nothing as in she cannot recall a serious ethical dilemma? Probably too busy to have time for any :D</p>
<p>What about witnessing some one else’s dilemma? Or becoming aware of cheating etc. going on? </p>
<p>DD decided to wait for her final transcript to click submit, that means she is still not verified, though watching verifications progress on SDN, I would guess some time this week.</p>
<p>DD has gotten 1 secondary from AMCAS and it took a while to do mainly because it arrived the morning she left for a 12 hour drive to move to a new city and begin a new job and it was the first time to think through some logistics, like re-entering courses, but only the ones which fulfill specific pre-req and trying to rehash the same essay info in a new and dymnamic way only using 5 lines.</p>
<p>I have been warning her to expect a flurry next week and to plan on working every night. i have also suggested she read and reread the prompts we downloaded from SDN showing last year’s questions so the thinking part is done.</p>
<p>DD is working 40 hours a week in an exciting research lab…well, she finds cadavers exciting and she said the first day was like an 8 hour Ochem class with the final the next day, so she is a bit brain-fried. It is actually good that most won’t come until next week.</p>
<p>She still has one LOR guy who has not submitted his AMCAS LOR and no one has submitted their TX evaluation. Grrrrrrrrr, just do it guys!</p>
<p>One nice thing about applying with the gap year is that DD can ask for time off from a job to (hopefully) attend interviews and will not missing critical class time.</p>
<p>I still think she was right to wait for the spring grades, but it is tough to hear about many others already verified and getting their secondaries done.</p>
<p>Ahh, the ethical dilemma. We had a number of dinner table discussions about that. Everyone has had a few curve balls thrown at them in life but I remember my D having a difficult time crafting something meaningful to say. Good luck. :)</p>
<p>Ethics, shmethics.</p>
<p>somemom, I know she was right to wait to click. She’s still early and now she has a bucket more A’s. </p>
<p>drb. lol. Can she use that and say it’s hers? </p>
<p>Ellen, I hope she gets inspired soon. Seems to be a popular topic.</p>
<p>I find this thread riveting its like reading a good book! Whats going to happen next?? OMG I hope there arent any bumps in the med school application road for these kids!! Curm posted …has his daughter heard back from any schools?? Its a real nail biter! </p>
<p>Thanks again SO MUCH for letting the rest of us go along for the ride!</p>
<p>Cornell and Pitt were sent already, Penn says there’s is on the way. I only applied to 12 schools, so my workload for secondaries will be lighter than most. That’s good, because I’m spending the summer in Australia and have no interest in using this time for essays.</p>
<p>Pitt has an ethical dilemma question as well. It originally worried me, but I think I have a pretty decent example. Tell her to think of any situation where she said, “what do I do?”</p>
<p>Or she can roll with my original ethical dilemma: writing about how it was an ethical dilemma to make up an ethical dilemma or not.</p>
<p>for those of you doing this next year, check out the LOR systems ahead of time, all the various options, school collection, Interfolio, AMCAS, etc are each a little different and are changing each year.</p>
<p>Then make an extreme effort right this fall to begin collecting them unless it is a prof with whom you will have a spring class.</p>
<p>DD is still waiting for 1 from a guy with whom she got an A+ and who recommended her for her research position she is now working, but he still has not submitted any LOR or TX evaluation. She finally decided to upload the remainder of her letters as a packet and is rerequesting his as an individual letter.</p>
<p>She has had to beg and bug and bother several profs through the entire year. One prof she had in 2nd & 3rd year and is a dept dean and it took forever to get his, too.</p>
<p>Some profs ask for your PS so they can write to that, which sounds great, but is stressful in that the student really needs to finish it even sooner! Even though they were your prof early enough to write an early letter, they still wait for the PS.</p>
<p>Anybody know how medical schools handle married couples with no real income with both going to medical school from the standpoint of financial aid?</p>
<p>
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<p>Thats a pretty unique situation and a question that is probably best suited for an actual med school financial aid office. I’m guessing that they would be treated no differently than two single students applying for financial aid. Both students could take out the maximum COA in loans just like any other student.</p>
<p>
If two guesses count more than one…you have two that agree. 
They still don’t have any income.</p>
<p>I don’t think I agree with your assessment. If they’re not married, they’re not considered independent and therefore when they fill out financial aid for most schools, their parental income is counted against financial aid. If they’e married, I would think that parental income is not included.</p>
<p>From what I’ve heard, parental income is still included. Fortunately schools do not double up on parental income – e.g. your in-laws’ income is not counted against you.</p>
<p>Seems somewhat bizarre, but I would figure that med students would get married just to avoid this if it weren’t the case.</p>
<p>If the students are both in medical school, then this wouldn’t affect their financial aid at all. Parents are counted, just like they are for singles, and the spouse has no income.</p>
<p>But yes, when the spouse is working, their income is an additional penalty in the FA process.</p>
<p>I would think it would be much harder to make the case that they are not truly independent from a financial aid standpoint.</p>