<p>I think 2 weeks is the rule of thumb as the longest you want to wait before submitting, but I hear 3 weeks is acceptable as well. I wouldn’t go over 3, though, unless the school is non-rolling.</p>
<p>After reading some of my earlier secondaries, I am just realizing how much better my newer ones are. I just have a tough time writing about vague topics like “what if your biggest challenge” and “talk about a moral dilemma.” I guess you improve with practice, but I bet adcoms only skim through these because they have so much reading to do anyway.</p>
<p>lol. She had nothing…and what she wrote proved she had nothing. Sounds like you had the same problem. She didn’t have much for “challenge” either but she cobbled something together.</p>
<p>Everybody has somthing in their life that they ovecame, some just do not remember or felt it was too little to write about. However, if any lesson is learned, it is worthwhile to write. Bg or tine, what is important how you tackled it and what you got out of it. Those are relatively “easy” (in comparison). Thank goodness, D. is done with all of them. Good luck, Kristin!</p>
<p>It seems it is about the time (maybe within a week) DS would be verified by TMDSAS. How can we know whether he has been verified after he logs into his TMDSAS page?</p>
<p>SDNers also talked a lot about “being transmitted” after having been verified. Is there any significant delay between the verified status and the “transmit” status?</p>
<p>I will note that sometimes people find it easier to remember a situation which they regret – meaning almost by definition that there was a moral dilemma in which they chose wrongly.</p>
<p>Does anyone know what ranking AMCAS gives to a B+? At D’s school a B+ is a 3.5 vs. 3.0 for a B. Just wondering how AMCAS GPA might differ from school GPA. She had two B+'s in non-science classes that required a 94 to get an A. She had a 92 & 93 respectively.</p>
<p>D. said that all her “+” were stripped and all her “-” were kept. Her UG college is doing the same, so her AMCAS and transcript GPA are exactly the same. It could be the reason why she knew how AMCAS GPA is calculated.</p>
<p>Bluebayou’s conversion guide is exactly what you need to use. It’s a great tool and I’m glad I found it here (thanks CC!) </p>
<p>For mine, All A+=A=4.0, and the rest of the +/- stayed the same. I believe my GPA took a small hit because of the Bs I had from other schools (1 for calculus taken during high school, 1 for English taken online through a community college), which aren’t accounted for in my regular university’s GPA calculation. </p>
<p>So to kmkord: just make sure you’re taking all courses from all colleges ever into account for calculating GPA, and use the values bluebayou posted!</p>
<p>DS got his second invite. It is an OOS school. Not want to be too specific: It is one of the schools from which curm’s D got an interview invite also. He is excited.</p>
<p>We suggested him to take a Thursday’s spot instead of a Tuesday’s spot, as it will almost be weekend after the interview. His “work” seems to become more and more time-consuming these days (often need to work past 7 pm.)</p>
<p>Well unfortunately we’re still waiting on S’s bosses LOR. He promised it last week but of course no luck there. (He’s even been given a draft to try and get him moving – that didn’t work either). So most of S’ applications are still not marked complete. On the positive note all instate schools applied to and all but one secondaries received (suspect the last is due to not having the LOR yet), 10 of his secondaries have been written, 1 school marked complete, 3 more secondaries are being worked on hopefully done by the end of next week.</p>
<p>I’ve received 9 out of 13 secondaries–just waiting on Mizzou, Tufts, Loyola, and Drexel! Plan to have as many of them as possible out by the end of the week (classes start Monday and I don’t want to have too many additional distractions from either secondaries or classes).</p>
<p>Finished 2 secondaries last night–SLU and Boston. I decided to keep my essays somewhat casual and very conversational, as if I were answering the same question when posed by a favorite mentor. I’m quite pleased with the results because so far it seems to be an effective way to show my spirit through an essay. Hopefully, allowing my character to show through in my essays will help adcoms get to know me as well as possible via a piece of paper. I purposely avoided intentionally tooting my own horn or trying to sound really sophisticated with my writing. </p>
<p>Yeah, I think that is a great approach. My advisor said to keep secondaries direct and to the point. You can use subtleties and cryptic messages in your writing, and you could be hailed as a literary genius. Or, your message may be confusing and not apparent to the adcoms. I’d say the latter is the more likely scenario because adcoms have to plow through so many essays. So, short and sweet is best.</p>
<p>Sounds really good as long as “conversational” doesn’t mean sound like a “hick on a crick”. But no “dollar two ninety-eight” words are required. ;)</p>
Sounds like you had the same problem. She didn’t have much for “challenge” either but she cobbled something together.</p>