<p>This doesn’t help much now, but I need to start reminding folks to ask for extra LORs and to set “soft” and “hard” deadlines.</p>
<p>^^I assume 5 LORs plus a committee letter will suffice?</p>
<p>2 science profs, 1 non-science prof, 2 PIs–one of whom is a physician [MD/PhD]. </p>
<p>And except for the committee letter (which won’t be issued until August), all letters have been uploaded to AMCAS.</p>
<p>Thanks for the feedback, everyone! Okay…no gift yet!</p>
<p>Okay, WOW, I wish our D’s school had a committee. I feel like this hassle would be avoided because I’ve never heard of committees not getting everything in on time. D’s school just did away with it last year. </p>
<p>BDM, I agree. She told this professor she needed it by May 1 because she was applying to TX schools. Thank goodness TMDSAS only allows a max of 3 otherwise she would have been really up a creek. She emailed him once in April as a friendly reminder and went into his office in May. She said he was kind of cavalier and smug and said, “I write recs all the time. Don’t worry, I know when they need to be in.” Huh? Then why isn’t it in? I told her what you said about having back-ups, and she’s going to go ask another science teacher she just spent a few weeks abroad with to step up to the plate. I feel really bad this prof isn’t getting much time to complete it. If both, however, go through by the end of the week, she’ll have 5: 3 science, 1 from her other major, and 1 from her coach. Your thoughts? Has the delay hurt her?</p>
<p>^^Committees have been known to screw it up too. (I could give you examples, but I’m holding my tongue in public for now.)</p>
<p>I can’t say for Texas schools, but for AMCAS, it shouldn’t be an issue. Applications just opened yesterday. AMCAS is already backlogged doing verifications. The first downloads to medical school adcomms doesn’t happen until June 28th. Adcomms probably won’t sit to review files and start issuing invitations until mid August. There’s still lots of time to get her LORs in.</p>
<p>don’t like the gift card idea just a personal visit should do it</p>
<p>DS submitted yesterday–no problems–and his transcripts have been received. Best of luck to one and all!</p>
<p>And so it begins…;)</p>
<p>good luck it is quite a journey</p>
<p>Let me take a moment to thank all of the veteran posters whose comments have been invaluable in the 2013-2014 applicants’ quest to avoid pitfalls and present themselves in the best light possible during this early stage of the process.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reassurance, WOWM. My DH made a good point…some schools that are on the quarter system haven’t received their grades yet so their transcripts haven’t been sent; thus, their apps haven’t been verified. The system certainly wouldn’t penalize kids simply because their school is on the quarter system (or presumably one would think) – You’d think their apps will get equal notice as the others. D’s study abroad science prof agreed this morning to write it and submit it within the week. Other prof has promised to submit it immediately. Hopefully both will follow through. She’ll now have five. ;)</p>
<p>Wishing you and your sons and daughters all the best as you submit those applications.<br>
Five years ago, D was just studying for the MCAT. Glad I didn’t know about CC at the time, jc40. I would have been so anxious about her terrible timeline - she applied in the fall of her senior year. :eek:</p>
<p>This probably is old news for the veterans out here, but it has been a frustrating few days in our household. My son thought he had everything under control with his application. He sent out the transcript request form the moment his last grade was posted. However the folks at his school’s registrar’s office had other plans. They sat on their hands (or so it appeared) for 2 weeks before finally mailing it out on the 3rd. He momentarily rejoiced when the application submission date got pushed out to the 10th, thinking that his transcript would be there in time.</p>
<p>Son’s transcript must have been delivered to AMCAS the next day since his school is in Baltimore. However, his transcript is still being shown as “Not received”. AMCAS is officially marking the transcripts that arrived on June 4th as “received”. They say that it takes them 10 business days to mark the transcripts as received! And that probably is a gross under estimation, as there are kids out there (based on all the threads on SDN) that have been waiting longer than that. AMCAS must be running a very tight ship for them not to be able to hire a few summer interns to file the transcripts as they come!</p>
<p>D2’s transcript was delivered to AMCAS on May 24th, but it wasn’t marked as “received” until yesterday.</p>
<p>The Memorial Day holiday delayed transcript processing by about another 3-4 days.</p>
<p>The processing delay is an issue with AMCAS every year—not just this one. Delays will get longer in the next few weeks.</p>
<p>And the 2 weeks to get a transcript sent out–totally normal at most colleges.</p>
<p>Okay, question for the veterans out there…what’s considered “late”? The app only went live for submission on Monday; why do I sense this panic if transcripts and apps weren’t both received Monday or Tuesday? If both aren’t received like this week has an applicant’s chances just plummeted to essentially nothing? I truly don’t know the answer, but this wave of hysteria seems bizarre to me and would love clarification.</p>
<p>I’m no veteran, so I won’t comment on what is “late” in this process. I will say that DS arranged to have everything ready on Day 1 of the cycle because a few schools on his list send out secondaries and even IIs (for August interviews) as early as July, and he wanted to take advantage, if things work out, of some down time for travel/interviews before classes start in late August.</p>
<p>Part of the hysteria is driven by SDN and the [false] belief that one’s chances are better if your application is downloaded by med schools in the first application transfer on June 28th. (Med school transfer applications in batches, either weekly or biweekly depending on the school.)</p>
<p>While it’s true that some schools (particularly privates and elites) use a version of rolling admissions, so long as one’s application get reviewed before the adcomm has closed rolling and gone to regular decisions, getting your application in the first download isn’t all that critical. A few schools do hold early interview dates–in late August.</p>
<p>Western and midwestern state schools tend not to roll and have later interview dates and later acceptance dates. (Never known a kid who has applied to east coast publics so I don’t know if that applies there too.)</p>
<p>AMCAS does get backlogged doing transcript processing and verifications. It takes longer later in the application cycle to get an application thru the paperwork. Processing & verification can take as long as 4 weeks by late July. (Based on past observations). Usually by latter half of August AMCAS has caught up and verification takes only a couple of days. </p>
<p>The past 3 years have set records for the number of applicants. More and more applicants have been applying “first day or bust”. I think over on that other pre med website, someone toted up numbers and approx. 12,000 applications were received during the first 5 days of the cycle last year. That’s roughly 20-25% of the entire applicant pool.</p>
<p>Based on my observations, often the bigger cause for delays is the committee letter. Many school simply don’t start uploading committee letters until mid August or later. An applicant’s file is considered “incomplete” at schools until LORs have been received and cannot be reviewed.</p>
<p>Now Texas schools----that’s a whole another system and I don’t know a thing about how it works.</p>
<p>I know a Texas resident who applied last year whose school year started in 4th week of September.</p>
<p>Other than Baylor, all of the interviews were completed before starting college. The first interview was on August 6th or 7th and this person did 6 interviews by September 20th. All of the admissions came out on November 15th or whatever the early date was in Texas when they announce.</p>
<p>Thanks, y’all, for taking the time to respond. I just keep playing this over in my head, and like WOWM implied, schools have to allow a tiny grace period for things that are out of the scope of an applicant’s control. For instance, my D’s school shot off her transcript the very day she requested it. Other kids have said they requested their transcript almost two weeks ago, and it still hasnt been sent. These kids may be phenomenal applicants, and I can’t fathom a school filling all their II and subsequent acceptances from the very first wave of applicants knowing the potential for “better” still to come.</p>
<p>As for TX schools, I’ve read about kids who were later in the process and received early Nov. interview dates and yet they still pre-matched on 11/15. With TX, even if you don’t pre-match on 11/15, you can still receive a pre-match offer until the end of the year, and if that doesn’t pan out, you can receive a match offer in early February. My dentist’s D had a subpar MCAT and a decent but not stellar GPA. She didn’t pre-match but found out on match day she had matched with UTH. When Dell opens in 2016, that’ll bring the number of TX public med schools to 8, and all require 90% to be from TX. Baylor, the only private here, has 70% from TX. It makes me realize how lucky kids in TX are compared to some other states.</p>
<p>Texas residency. The greatest single advantage in this whole ungodly process.</p>
<p>But being early in Texas is still a huge advantage over having a mid to late submission. My D’s good friend almost missed the train and she wasn’t that late.</p>