<p>Today is the first day for registration for the 2013 MCAT.</p>
<p>D2 spent 7 hours and 23 minutes in queue with AMCAS today before she was able to successfully access the MCAT registration site. </p>
<p>Site only crashed once.</p>
<p>7 hours and 23 minutes?!? I guess that puts my half hour wait in perspective.</p>
<p>While I wanted to initially test at the end of August before the semester started, the Physical Sciences section was just not where I wanted it to be. Here’s hoping that it will be come Test Day in a few months. Best of luck with preparations!</p>
<p>havent heard from S2 as to how long it took, or even if he had a chance to try today…full day of classes</p>
<p>2014-2014? You guys must be quick :)</p>
<p>^^Typo. I’ve asked the mods to fix it…</p>
<p>Jan. 26th, :eek:</p>
<p>Yay this is thread is finally here! Quick question- I plan to test at the end of April. How fast do the spots fill up?</p>
<p>Depends on the location, how many test centers are nearby and how many students are likely to be testing (a function of the size and number of the local colleges).</p>
<p>Okay, my state does have a high concentration of colleges. I will just register this weekend to be safe, I was waiting to find a Kaplan class first but i will go ahead. Thanks!</p>
<p>D signed up for the Jan. 26th date. Some of her friends who tried later in the day were locked out of the Saturday date and have to take the MCAT on the prior Thursday. </p>
<p>She said the site was a little slow but not too bad.</p>
<p>Joining the thread as a parent: DS will start the application cycle this next June. At his university, many students complete the pre-med requirements in their sophomore year and take the MCAT in July or August before beginning their junior year. That was the route he chose, although doing MCAT prep along with a summer internship was no picnic. I applaud those who were on their toes and got their choice of 2013 MCAT dates and sites; DS registered late enough (June) last summer that in August he had to travel to a site 100 miles away.</p>
<p>I recently registered for a retake in January, too - no problems.</p>
<p>Bump! Bump!</p>
<p>First deadlines are approaching for juniors at DS’s school: formal registration with the premed adviser by next week, then personal statements, resumes, brief paragraphs about high school accomplishments, names of recommending profs/mentors, and requests for committee interviews by the end of January. Those folks don’t fool around.</p>
<p>GOOD LUCK!!!</p>
<p>And remember APPLY EARLY, EARLY EARLY! </p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>I think I might arrange to have that reminder tattooed on D2’s forehead.</p>
<p>D2 is only coming home for 4 days over winter break. She’ll be using the rest of her holidays to take practice MCAT exams. January 26th is looming…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, as soon as finals are finished, I must open my e-folder and have it all finished by a March 1 deadline. Already have my LORs lined up and I’ve maintained a CV and several personal statements(different weightings) for years. Just need to dust them off, however, no one here ask anything about high school.</p>
<p>I’m currently working on a list of schools. I have decided to add a few west coast schools just to see what happens. I have family in Seattle, so I’m adding UW, but unfortunately, all the Cal schools seem to favor in-state applicants. :(</p>
<p>I’m in the trenches, too. January 24th is creeping ever forward. I should be competitive for my two in-state publics (one of which is right across the way), but I won’t be able to make an extended list of schools until I have a score in hand. </p>
<p>The committee letter writing process begins in February with a brief application, personal statement, and four faculty LORs. Thankfully, three out of the four faculty that I plan on soliciting letters from have already written me one in the past or are in the process of writing me letters for summer programs. This should make getting letters in on time easier. As our pre-med committee has a first come, first serve basis, I hope to be in the first batch of applicants evaluated. Otherwise, I have to wait until May. The third cycle begins in August, and I would definitely like to avoid that if at all possible.</p>
<p>Does anyone have advice with respect to brainstorming a personal statement? I was thinking of taking a dialogue approach, similar to my undergraduate essays. I generally have a hard time writing about myself and have found a dialogue style to be helpful in the past. Would this be considered too gimicky? Or worse, would this raise a red flag?</p>
<p>Personal opinion: I’d avoid the dialogue format. Too gimmicky. Med school adcoms aren’t looking for quirky and original like undergrad admission adcomms do. Be honest, be straight forward. Think about a significant incident that explains <em>why</em> you want to go into medicine/inspired you to look towards medicine as a career, and if applicable where you see yourself going in your career as a physician.</p>
<p>(IOW, if you want to be a primary care physician in an underserved area, say so. If you want to be at the forefront of medical research in cardiology, say so.)</p>
<p>A PS is not the place to brag about yourself or list all of your accomplishments–you’ll list your accomplishment on the application itself.</p>
<p>The best explanation for what a good PS should do came from curmudgeon who said a PS is the story of journey [toward medicine] that only you have taken.</p>
<p>All of this is not to say that your PS has to devoid of style and personality, but avoid gimmicky.</p>
<p>One of the things my DD did and which I have advised people since, is like undergrad, come up with three adjectives which describe you, which you want the adcom to use to think of you: rural, sporty, bilingual, musician, etc.</p>
<p>Then craft the application in such a way that all your activities and ECs are able to support that. My Dd had very diverse activities which may have appeared unconnected, but we figured out away to bring it all together cohesively and it worked.</p>