Well it has been a busy week for DS. He had to complete a draft for his PS, contact all his professors to make sure that his letters will be ready by next week and submit his CV and other materials for the pre-health committee. He will interview with the committee members next week. His letter will be done right after finals. It feels so real at this moment. He will not take the MCAT until 5/22. I am glad that he bothers to tell me things, but is much more invested in this process than he was 4 years earlier when choosing a school. Most likely it is because he always knew where he wanted to go for undergrad but now has almost no control over this process. My only job seems to be to write the check for the applications and sound encouraging.
When S calls you with news of acceptance(s), your only job will have been well worth your efforts.
Being encouraging is a very important job. For most applicants, its a roller coaster year with ups and downs. From my experience, there are even a few meltdowns 
,and talking to other stressed out pre-meds at school isn’t always helpful. Having family to support them emotionally or to just be a sounding board helps keep them sane during the process.
Son’s committee letter will take much longer. All his paperwork is not due unitil May 1st. Interview happens in the summer. June or July. Letter ready sometime after August 1st. Don’t understand why school has to put more stress into already stressful situation. My husband tells me to relax. The school has been doing it that way for ages and have a pretty successful med school exceptnce rate. But still. Why make kids go back for a committee interview in the summer. We’re 4 hours drive away but what of kids that have to fly in. Just adds another expense.
Fortunately D’s school has no committees. How many letters are expected?
The number and type of letters is school-dependent.
Generally, it’s 2 letters from [BCMP] science professors and 1 from a non-science professor OR a committee letter.
But required letters can vary a great deal. My state school requires 5 letters. Besides the 3 academic letters, it wants a letter from a work supervisor (commanding officer, employer, PI, volunteer site coordinator) and one from a clinician (nurse, physician, NP, PA, etc) at one of the applicant’s clinical experience sites.
Information about school-specific requirements are in MSAR.
We received a packet of information in the mail from a med school that my D has not indicated any interest in. When I texted her to tell her it was here and did she want me to keep it for her she thought it was odd. She said that she thinks she doesn’t really match their profile as far as areas of interest and stats and she has not shown any interest in them. Is medical school like UG? Should we expect a lot of mailings from schools? I guess I thought that since med schools are so competitive that most of them anyway wouldn’t feel the need to spend time and money on mailings. I also would have thought that if mailings were to occur that it would have started by now.
A few med schools are pretty notorious about spamming potential applicants. (Basically, anyone who took the MCAT or whose MCAT fell into a particular score range). They do this for 2 reasons: average MCAT of applicants is a factor in US News rankings, as is the competitiveness of admission (number of applicants vs number of seats available).
Also the Caribbean med schools market very aggressively. Not uncommon to get mail and email from them.
hmmm. I don’t recall receiving one med school mailing at our home address when son was going through the process. Does your daughter have your address listed for these info @Bajamm?
@learninginprog yes, D has been using our address since it is her permanent address. She will be moving from college to her job for the next year at the same time that she is applying. She didn’t want things to be lost in the process. The school that sent the mail is a US school with an average MCAT score of 37.5. My d’s MCAT is lower than that and she is not targeting schools like this one. I have no idea why they picked up on her, unless they are one that sends to everyone…
I will appreciate any experience with gap year. DD is in 6th semester and is planning to graduate at end of fall semester. Good research and hospital experience. 3.85 overall and 3.60 Science GPA effected by a C in org Chem. She is taking MCAT this May but wants to try to get a job / internship this year and prepare for application process in next cycle in 2016. Her argument is that she wants to take two or three advanced biology courses in summer/fall and improve the GPA so she will not have time for the application process. My concern is related to the recommendation letters she will need next year from her college, months after graduation.
@prdparent-- She can open an Interfolio account for the LOR—or if her college has a letter service (D’s pre health office did this) open an account there for LOR. This can be done months and months in advance. Your D could ask for the letters prior to graduation and have them uploaded to such a service. Many students do this and take gap years. It is much better to take the time needed to have your BEST application ready to go the first time than rush through it and have to reapply.
Agreeing with camomof3, most if not all med schools participate in AMCAS Letters service which means they accept LORs electronically. So a student goes to career/student services and opens an acct (e.g. Interfolio). Interfolio is a service that will collect, store, and when student is ready submit, send collected LORs to AMCAS who will in turn distribute them to schools. S took a gap year, used Interfolio. Easy peasy.
D should seek out strong LORs, not generic. As sometimes profs can be slow, busy, etc, D’s needs to monitor Interfolio acct and may have to nudge prof. Try to ask for LOR as far in advance as possible. Also keep in mind med schools have different LOR preferences or reqs (e.g. committee or individual LORs). If individual LORs are sent, med school may want 3 with say 2 from science profs, 1 from non science profs. D needs to be aware of med schools preferences or reqs. Good luck
Also agreeing with camomof3 and jugulator.
D2 took 2 planned gap years to work in full-time research before applying. She used Interfolio to collect & store her LORs for med school applications. Be aware that Interfolio is not free. It charges a small annual fee.
One suggestion: if your D’s LOR are more than 2 years old, they may be considered “stale” my adcomms. She can certainly ask for her LORs now, save them to interfolio, then ask her recommenders to “freshen” her LORs before sending them to AMCAS when she applies.
D2 contacted her recommenders, asked them to update her LORs, sent them her updated CV and their prior LOR. All of her recommenders were very happy to freshen her LOR with her new accomplishments (additional research & programmic responsibilities, publications, additional clinical & non-clinical volunteering) and new date when the letter was written.
Son spoke to a friend who is a med school professor. He told him that Instead of working part time next year he should consider doing honor senior theseis in his major. He said that it will distinguish him from other applicants and will be an Interesting topic to discuss during interviews. This would be a lot of work and something he wasn’t planning on. I’m not sure this professor is correct. I’d like to hear everyone’s thought on this.
A senior thesis would be a significant achievement. And I agree it might make a interesting topic for discussion during interviews. But whether or not it will come up for discussion is largely a matter of the luck of the draw. Unless the interviewer is versed in the research area or has an interest in the topic, it may not be brought up at all beyond a mention or a couple of questions. (D2 did a senior thesis, won the top school based prize for it, presented at a conference and it’s now in press at a major national journal. Out of 10+ interviewers, she ended up discussing her thesis only twice.)
Is enough to make him stand head & shoulders above the mass of applicants? It depends on what schools he’s applying to. At research-intensive schools, a good many students who get IIs will have a senior thesis and/or publications.
Nothing was ever published that D. submitted, however, she was also dissapointed in very few discussions of her Med. Research lab long term project that she was part of for 3 years after obtaining grants based on her own proposal and had poster presentation at the end. Her most common topic of discussion at interviews was her Music Minor and everything connected to Music (from classical to contemporary pop bands) which was followed by discussion of her unusual for pre-med volunteering.
D. has never tried to “stand head & shoulders above the mass of applicants”, was never her goal. Based on her experience, it is not required at all. However, she had great amount of long term medical ECs and lots of others in wide range of her personal interests. She pursued them strictly because of curiosity and some were risky (for GPA) and very challenging for her, but what is a life without a challenge…it is a boring experience for a young person at college…and so it continued beoynd college…so far with positive results…
Question about transcript. I understand that the request has to be submitted with an official form from AMCAS. The application for this cycle will be available early May right? Is there a way to get the form before that. Son might be leaving school for the summer before application becomes available. He needs to submit transcript request before he leaves.
The application cycle opens May 1. (He can’t submit until June, tough.)
No.
Ok thanks. I guess he should stick around the campus until May 1st. Unless his committee interview is scheduled end of may. Then he can request the transcript at that time. He’s working on setting up the interview right now. He met with his premed advisor and she said that he’s in a good shape for the application process. She also told him to take whatever courses he feels passionate about next year. If he feels passionate about research and thesis then that’s what he should do. Because if he’s passionate about it, it would come through. Very good advice I think.