<p>Curmudgeon, I’ve got a rough list of schools (still trying to to cut it down to 12). I’ve requested my LORs, and they should be completed by June 1st. I’m working on my personal statement right now, with plenty of people ready to read / critique it over this next month. I’m leaving to study abroad / conduct research in Australia June 12th, so it’s crucial everything’s done early. Hopefully I can get around to writing old secondary essays as well.</p>
<p>From another thread
Sucks for my kid. For y’all playing the home version of the game 
that means at any school following this index a 37 MCAT can have a 3.4 science and 3.4 overall and slightly “out-index” a 33/4.0. Hmmmm. Curmudgeon be needing to crunch some more numbers to find schools with higher GPA’s and lower MCAT scores.</p>
<p>That index (and the LizzyM version, as well) is going to lose validity towards the extremes, though. I think looking at 10/50/90% numbers would probably be more helpful (I’d reason a 4.0/33 is more competitive).</p>
<p>But Steeler, we don’t have those numbers for matriculated students, do we? (My USNews just ran out and I can’t remember.) Looking at accepted students 10/50/90 stats on MSAR is just too depressing.</p>
<p>Another parent with a child looking at Med school a few years down the road, she’s just finishing soph year and is likely going to take a gap year. She transferred this year and it’s hard to tell yet what the effects will be on her Med school prospects; while she didn’t leave behind significant medical ECs, her gpa will definitely be lower at her new school. For the time being it’s the better place for her overall, so she’ll deal with the rest at a later date.</p>
<p>I’m looking forward to following you all step-by-step and get at least a rudimentary grasp of the process. Unfortunately we come from a state with only 1 Med school and it’s one of the most expensive state schools in the nation. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>sewhappy,
This came up with my D and her plans for the summer, and I got some excellent input from bluedevilmike. She is interested in clinical and public health work with underserved populations. However, she does have in the back of her mind that eventually she might like to apply to some Med schools that are strong in research such as UWashington because they also have very good programs in her interests. BDM pointed out the MSAR stats showing that a very high percentage of those accepted at strong research schools have had research experience. His concern was that she do some research during UG so that those Med schools “don’t question her basic science credentials”. She hadn’t considered the importance of where she applied since it’s still so early in the process, however, it seems prudent that she get some research experience so that it won’t be a barrier when she does make up her list. </p>
<p>So in the end, she picked a 10 week research internship at UNebraska Med School over a 5 week abroad to Mexico to do Public Health coursework and a project. The short duration of the Mexico trip and the fact that only about half of the time would have been spent on the project were other reasons for her deciding in favor of the research program.</p>
<p>Hope this helps, I know that we hadn’t considered this aspect of Med school applications before BDM brought it up. My D has a non-research WS job during the year that helps to keep her sane and she didn’t want to give it up for the lab, so the summer was really the only time for her to squeeze some research in.</p>
<p>Curm: I am with you, Dude, the logistics are very tough. </p>
<p>Do you submit the TX app now or is it just open now to be submitted by June 1? </p>
<p>My DD trashed her first PS and started from scratch, we have had a dozen people give comments via SDN…some conflicting, of course, but mainly in agreement with each other. DD is trying to finish it in the next two weeks whilst preparing for finals Luckily DD finishes finals by mid May, so along with preparing for graduation, packing up 4 years of detritus, cleaning her apt so as to get back the deposit, etc., she will put the finishing touches on her PS so she can submit the 1st day (Is that June 5th this year, not June 1st?)</p>
<p>DD’s post grad celebratory trip is a friends & family camping trip, so she has to have it all done and on the site prior to going out in the wilderness, then come in to an internet access point on the submission day; I think she will just do TX the same time, unless the PS is done sooner well enough to be submitted.</p>
<p>Transcript orders will be placed this week- gotta download all the TX & National cover sheets, then fax them to all the schools, including current school with a request to hold it until spring grades are posted. I think tis will be more efficient than waiting for grades to be posted and then requesting</p>
<p>DD is using her school’s letter service to hold letters, she did start asking people last fall, but several wanted to see her PS first! So, she is hitting that hard now, every day, to get them a rough draft so they can write them and submit them. Using the letter service allows her to track them now before the whole AMCAS thing- I am not even sure how the AMCAS LOR thing will work this year, as it seems they are shifting and experimenting.</p>
<p>Any one have any clue which blocks of summer should be set aside to be available for secondaries (ALL of July & August???) and what about interviews? Can an applicant plan to have any adventures? DD is graduating and will probably work, but would like to go see some friends in various places, but sure cannot plan that for the time when secondaries & interviews are happening!</p>
<p>I think we need a spreadsheet!</p>
<p>We are downloading prior year secondary questions via SDN so that she can prepare some basic answers to many potential questions in the down time next month, then be prepared to return secondaries more quickly.</p>
<p>DD has not done any research to speak of yet, though she has some potential spots lined up for this summer just so she can have the experience (won’t help on the app, but may help in an interview) and two of her classes this term are grad classes with research papers allowing her to learn that system.</p>
<p>For D she can’t submit the TX app until grades are ready (if I read the new TMDSAS site correctly). Anyway, the first batch doesn’t go out until about 6/12ish (historically) so the goal is to be complete by then. D won’t think about med school until finals are over. I’m on my own. Well, not really alone. I do have my paranoia to keep me company.</p>
<p>From our personal experience may I strongly recommend that your child request (and hopefully have submitted) one more letter of recommendation than required at each school that they are applying to.</p>
<p>My son had one person that he was highly counting on (MD/Ph.D at another institution that he had done summer research for) agree to write LORs. He says he wrote them all and took them to the school’s mail center to be sent out. Only a few arrived and left him short and with incomplete files at many schools. Luckily one school notified him of the situation and he was able to get several other schools to accept the LORs late with a letter of explanation for tardiness from both the Department Chair and letter writer. This caused a great deal of angst and semi sleepless nights for all of us for a while. Fortunately he was accepted to his number one choice which made the whole thing moot but I sure wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone. </p>
<p>Our kids have never learned to trust the “better safe than sorry” practices that we all grew up with. You’ll probably get resistance from yours as well but feel free to share our story.</p>
<p>An update on the boy…He is just about to finish year one, has received a paid summer research position in the Plastic Surgery Department (80 applied they hired 10) and was just asked by the Anatomy Department to be one of three to do dissections and pro sections for the PT students who are just beginning their anatomy class. They are also paying him for the anatomy lab work. He’s a very happy camper right now.</p>
<p>Good luck to all…</p>
<p>per TX site:</p>
<p>The application for entry year 2010 will open May 18, 2009. Applications must be submitted by 11:59 PM (Central Time) on October 1, 2009. So, I guess transcripts cannot be ordered yet?</p>
<p>For TX schools I can’t emphasize this enough; make sure the apps are turned in as early as possible. With their rolling admissions, the top schools often have their classes almost filled before the final deadline for applications. Those applying later in the cycle are the people who end up on wait lists.</p>
<p>absolutely true; when I applied I had two interviews done before I returned to college in August-which was nice, two less airline trips to arrange back to texas.</p>
<p>I will add this link over here, which might be useful to some.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/4/28/2422456/School_Selector_2010-2011.xls[/url]”>http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/4/28/2422456/School_Selector_2010-2011.xls</a></p>
<p>…and the AMCAS applications opens today. <a href=“http://www.aamc.org/students/amcas/[/url]”>http://www.aamc.org/students/amcas/</a></p>
<p>Yes, AMCAS has opened to start filling it in today. You’ll be able to submit on June 2nd.</p>
<p>My D will be applying to all the Texas MD schools and as of now, this is the list of “flyers”. Remember, based on her Texas residency, the comparatively low cost and high quality of the Texas state schools, she will only be applying to schools (and programs within schools) she’d like better than some of the Texas schools. Not a good bet in the bunch. And some are in the “Yeah, right” category. She has reasons for all her choices. Maybe not good reasons but reasons nonetheless. ;)</p>
<p>Baylor College (MD)</p>
<p>Case Western Reserve University (MD/PhD): “Also applying MD only”</p>
<p>Cleveland Clinic Medical School (MD)</p>
<p>Dartmouth College (MD) (Knows a researcher there.)</p>
<p>Duke University (MD)</p>
<p>Emory University (MD/PhD): “Also applying MD only”.</p>
<p>Harvard University (MD): “New Pathways and maybe HST” </p>
<p>Mayo Medical School (MD)</p>
<p>Stanford University (MD) I believe she knows somebody there.</p>
<p>University of Alabama (MD/PhD): “Also applying MD only” (Knows researchers there.)</p>
<p>University of Chicago (MD/PhD): “Also applying MD only”</p>
<p>University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (MD/PhD)</p>
<p>University of Pittsburgh (MD): “Also PSTP” (Knows researchers there.)</p>
<p>University of Southern California (MD)</p>
<p>University of Virginia (MD) </p>
<p>Yale University (MD) Knows researcher there.</p>
<p>And the Texas state schools</p>
<p>Texas A & M University (MD)</p>
<p>Texas Tech University (MD)</p>
<p>Texas Tech University, El Paso (MD)</p>
<p>University of Texas, Galveston (MD)</p>
<p>University of Texas, Houston (MD): “Also applying MD/PhD MDAnderson”</p>
<p>University of Texas, San Antonio (MD)</p>
<p>University of Texas, Southwestern (MD)</p>
<p>As if your D won’t repeat her college app success and get a bajillion great offers? Sure… ;)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>hahahaha! this is a PERFECT description</p>
<p>one thread that i found to be PURE gold was the “Great tips for entering your “Work/Activities” for AMCAS” thread…it’s a must read before tackling that section</p>
<p>^ yeah that is a great thread - if only you didn’t have to sort through its 1.3 million posts, many of which are not full of useful info :D</p>
<p>Add my DS to the list of applicants for the 2010 entering class. Cur, I followed your posts back when both of our kids were applying to college! You had some very useful posts back then. I am so glad you are going through this with me again! I can’t quite believe 4 yrs have gone by. I just got through the college application process with DS #2 and his deposit was sent last week. Now I get to go through all the anxiety again as DS #1 starts applying to med school. He just took his MCAT on Saturday and he won’t know his results for a few more weeks. Until he has those scores, he can’t really finalize his list of schools. He knows of several that he is very interested in though.</p>
<p>All courses except one are now entered on AMCAS and all the various transcripts have been ordered…DD moving on to harass LOR writers</p>
<p>D has been home since Sunday night and has since logged about 24 more hours into this process. She has entered her dual-credit and UG schools and courses (precisely), requested her transcripts (she’s now a senior-grades are in!), filled out all the personal stuff, and has a reasonably good rendition of her “experiences” (that will most certainly morph over the next couple of weeks). She used all 15 blanks :eek: but thankfully not nearly 1325 characters most times. </p>
<p>She’s going with bullet points, primarily. She is not doing the “mini-essay” narrative style. She saves the big character numbers for shadowing, clinical volunteering, and research. </p>
<p>It doesn’t suck. She just needs to refine it a bit and add some contact folks.</p>
<p>GPA continues to go up (!) and she got a big end of year research award from her school. Every little bit helps.</p>
<p>She’s only home for a couple more weeks at most so I’m going to have to keep stoking that fire. </p>
<p>Big decisions are being made on the fly about schools and programs. Lost a couple today and gained one. This is one confusing process and I’m (mostly) just a spectator and go-for.</p>
<p>I wonder how many cumulative hours these kids will have in filling out the primary Amcas app itself. 100? 200? More? Plus D has to do the TMDSAS app, too. (Plus her school appears to want her to apply- and will support her- for some post-grad scholarships. I really don’t know when she’s supposed to have time to do those, although she has at least started one of them.)</p>
<p>As to LOE’s, she has requested seven ( her PI, 2 bio profs, a chem prof, a history prof, and 2 docs she spent considerable time with) and her pre-med advisor is willing to customize the letter packets for each different preference as shown by the med schools’ websites. Hell, I’d probably have met the minimums, split the difference and hit Send myself. But based on the advice she received on SDN …poor fella. :(</p>