<p>Does anyone know exactly when HCEC starts releasing LOEs to AMCAS? Late July, early August?</p>
<p>Sir, the first thing that I have to tell you is to be patient with HCEC. They are severely understaffed right now because of budget cuts across the university and the men and women in the office are working very hard to write your LORs. Furthermore, this package from the HCEC will not make or break your acceptance into medical school. I’m sure you know this, but your grades, essays, and MCATs scores are more important. </p>
<p>In terms of an exact date, it depends on when you finish your AMCAS primary application. During the last application cycle, it tooks about 4-6 weeks after you submitted your primary application to AMCAS for HCEC to send out the packet of LORs. It may be slower this year, because of the loss of staffing in the office, but I wouldn’t worry about it. HCEC has access to your AMCAS file and will know when you submitted and then prepare the packets.</p>
<p>^There must have been a change in policy. Back when I applied 2 years ago, they refused to send out the LOR packet before mid-August even if you submitted your primary on June 1st.</p>
<p>i got an email saying it will start in like mid june and take 2-6 weeks. you get put in line depending on when you finish your application.</p>
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<p>It is a new policy that was instituted last year. Works amazingly well for those of us unfortunate enough to endure more than one application cycle…</p>
<p>I know that the LOE is not as important as the MCAT, GPA, Essay, etc. The problem is that if they can only give out LOEs by July/August, isn’t that going to be a huge disadvantage for applicants to rolling admissions schools? By that time, people have already gotten interviews/acceptances…</p>
<p>It is not a huge disadvantage by any means. LCME rolling-admission schools can’t offer their first batch of regular decision admission offers until mid-October (October 1 for those who apply ED). Most med school are quick to complete your admission file once the letter packet is received. The new AMCAS letter service has really helped speed along the processing of the LORs. </p>
<p>Back in the day with the old policy…my friend’s letter packet was sent mid-August. She had her interview by the first week of September and her acceptances by November. </p>
<p>Bottom line: don’t worry if your letter doesn’t make it out until July or August. You are not at any disadvantage.</p>
<p>Thank you; you just made my day :D</p>
<p>Does your friend also have a 4.0 and a 42 mcat? lol</p>
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<p>I wasn’t really bothered by the old policy but it didn’t make much sense to hold the LOR’s for so long. I’m glad they’ve changed it.</p>
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<p>No. As long as your application is complete before mid/end of Sept. you shouldn’t be at a disadvantage. As we’ve said, back in the old days (ie 2 years ago), no letters were sent before 8/16 and we all did fine 
In fact, I scheduled and completed 10 out of my 13 interviews before mid-December.</p>
<p>And the earliest day you can get an acceptance is October 15th.</p>
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<p>I never knew her exact GPA or MCAT score (it was a rule among my premed friends…and somehow we stuck to it, even to this day) but I’m sure she blew it out of the water (considering the fact she is at an amazing medical school now).</p>
<p>wow thats intense, you guys had rules! though i guess its true a lot of pre meds dont like to share their info w/ others! though my pre med friend and i share everything, but thats just us 2</p>
<p>Haha…well…we didn’t start off that way. We were pretty intense for our first semester together. Things changed as we moved closer to actually applying and we were all stressed…talking about grades and such didn’t help. So…we made an agreement that we’d be there to support one another…but no discussion of grades or MCAT scores :)</p>
<p>oh for us competition makes us work harder to get better grades =</p>
<p>Yeah…everyone has their own system. For a while…the competition thing was good for me. </p>
<p>Wait until you get to med school though. In my opinion, I think dynamic changes big time. I just finished a post-bacc program where I took almost the entire first year with the med students and I found the environment to be much more collaborative. I used to be anti-study group, but group studying is the way to go. I found that people tended to be in competition with themselves rather than their classmates.</p>
<p>i hate study groups cause i can’t read when i hear anything. whether its people flipping pages, or talking, or anything for that matter… =(</p>