<p>When should the committee letter be sent? In primary or secondary application?</p>
<p>Once the student opens an AMCAS application (primary) and his application is verified, then the student will receive a notification that his file is available. He will then submit the names of letter writers to AMCAS. AMCAS will contact the writers by email, sending them a special code/unique email link that’s only good for 1 use. Once the writers receive that, the writer uses the link to submit a letter. </p>
<p>Assuming a student has told AMCAS to send his primary app to a list of schools, those schools are then enabled to download the letters via the internet into their application matrix whenever they choose. Some may DL letters from every applicants; some only those applicants who made the first round of cuts; some wait until the applicant goes to committee review for II consideration (most typical, I believe).</p>
<p>It’s a very hands-off process for the student.</p>
<p>ace550, I think the committee at DS’s school sent out his committee letter/package in the second half of July (likely very late in July). It was not as early as we had hoped for because many in-staters in our state applied very early, e.g., some time in the second half of May (for TMDSAS schools). But it is hard to know whether the delay was due to the applicant being late (submitting TMDSAS and then AMCAS primaries not particularly early), or it was due to the committee being late.</p>
<p>IMO, committee letters should be sent out by mid-July, but every schooL has it’s own timelines. And you’re not going to budge them from it…Sigh.</p>
<p>(One of the big hang-ups apparently is the fact that members of the committee aren’t available during the summer at many schools. So even if a student has been diligent about getting all their stuff in on time for the committee, the committee may not sit over the summer or during final grading period in the spring.)</p>
<p>^ I remember I was nagging DS to go to the premed committee to ask them to submit the committee letter and the answer he received from them was: “Do not worry. It is still not late.”</p>
<p>It may not late for most med schools, but the Texas applicants tend to apply much earlier because TMDSAS starts to accept the primaries like one month earlier than AMCAS.</p>
<p>Frankly, I still do not know what would be the “good” time for the committe letter to be sent, even though it is not our concern anymore.</p>
<p>My D’s school doesn’t send out their CL till August 15th. Things turned out okay but I’ll admit it was extremely nerve wracking at the time.</p>
<p>D1s UG school interviewed her in the spring in preparation for the CL. However, they don’t actually write it until you’ve been verified by AMCAS; it took 2 weeks between the time she was verified and when AMCAS received the CL. I assume they do this because they don’t want to waste time writing CLs for students who end up not applying for some reason. In her case this lag didn’t matter as she didn’t need the CL to receive secondaries.</p>
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<p>CORRECTION: After reading several of posts above, I think I do not remember the date correctly. His CL could be sent out by his college as late as Aug 15. This is because I believed he did his TMDSAS first at the beginning of July and AMCAS several days later. (Boy…at one time, he argued with me about why he should still do AMCAS if he thought he had a good chance with a TMDSAS school. If we did not insist he submitted his AMCAS then and he listened to us somewhat reluctantly in the end, he might skip AMCAS altogether at that time. I believed I convined him by saying “For med school application, anybody could fall through the crack if not luck. It is wise to have a backup plan (so AMCAS schools were his “backup plan” at that time). Also, BCM is an AMCAS school.” I did not (dare to) lecture him on that a “CC celebrity” told me that it is only “safe” after you have had 10 interviews, or have had gotten into one school.)</p>
<p>I just could not remember the exact date after more than 2 years, but it was nerve wracking when I saw (on SDN) many in-state applicants had received invites and his CL was still not sent.</p>
<p>DS1’s premed office has stated the following:</p>
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<p>What kind of time frame would it be? It sounds rather late.</p>
<p>^Depends on when you submit and are verified. D1 received her first secondary 2 wks after verification (submitted June 6, verified June 18, secondary July 2). I think this timeframe is pretty normal for an early submittal, she had a slight delay, but that only cost about a day in the verification process. Of course if you don’t submit until July, verification could take up to about a month and a half.</p>
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Wow, your D did it very well. This should be the golden standard of any med school applicant.</p>
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Quoted for its importance.</p>
<p>Every year, there are a group of “early birds”, and also there are another group of procrastinators who do not get their application in timely.</p>
<p>In case this is not clear: I believe the verification takes time mostly because AMCAS needs to look at your transcript and verify that your GPAs as reported in your AMCAS application be calculated by you correctly.</p>
<p>For those TMDSAS applicants: I think I originally learned about this from somemom: The fees for TMDSAS need to be mailed in by snail mail (in DS’s year) and it could take some time. All the timings for TMDSAS applicants are roughly one month earlier than their counterparts for AMCAS applicants.</p>
<p>Just to toss in another data point:</p>
<p>I submitted AMCAS in early July and was verified by mid-late July. My committee interview was during the first week of fall semester at the end of August (the earliest they did it; since then, myself and other former premeds have successfully campaigned for them to do committee interviews starting in mid-July). My committee letter was ready about ten days later. I received and completed secondaries late Aug-mid Sep, with the exception of one secondary I completed in Oct. My interviews were in Nov and Dec. I was accepted in Dec. It was a pretty wickedly awesome Christmas present. And my then-hospitalized (now fine) grandfather quite enjoyed telling anyone who would listen that his brilliant granddaughter is going to be a doctor.</p>
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<p>Ha, for the primary maybe, but secondaries were another matter. Most were completed in 2 weeks but a few took almost a month. She interviewed in Sept/Oct.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info Kristin, I should have said ‘late July’, I think that was when there was the longest backlog for verification. Your grandfather sounds like a great guy!</p>
<p>Son said that on SDN there was a thread kept for how long verification was taking per each day of submittal. He looked up the previous year and you could easily see the exponential time it was taking with each subsequent day. HUGE difference between day 1 and 2 and week 2 and after a month and then a month and a half.</p>
<p>He submitted after 24 hours since the server was jammed for the first 24. Went smoothly and he was verified within a day or two. Secondaries came quickly (when first batch of applicants info was dumped to med schools) and he had those submitted within a few days of receiving. He received invites at the end of July and beginning August with interviews in August, Sept and October and then received admittance on the earliest date allowed but was “unofficially” told well before that since money was being discussed.</p>
<p>He tells all his “people” applying to apply as early as they can. </p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>“Early is on time. On time is late.”</p>
<p>I believe that D. applied right after she got her MCAT score and it was in June. Whatever needed to be done by her committee was all done. I am not sure if I even was informed about much details of this process. As long as D. was happy with everyhting (and she was very much so), it was fine with me. She praised her UG so many times and it included her application process. The early time is a key, I knew that she was earlier than some here on CC. I remember that much, trying to hold on to the current events, the only way is to purge old stuff from the brain. The only important date (medical school related) for now is May 2 - Scheduled Step 1. But it has no significance to this thread.</p>
<p>Kat, your S must be a rockstar. I hope he also tells his “people” all his other tricks! Heck my SOM doesn’t even start regular interviews (as opposed to Early Decision) until OCTOBER.</p>
<p>I agree that earlier is better and that on time (literally meaning you submit on the day the thing is due) is late, but I have to believe there’s some flexibility there. Sure, in a perfect world, you’d submit two days later and have your secondaries written and ready to go–but sometimes life happens (or elements are outside your control–like the committee letter) and that timeline is just too strict. </p>
<p>Just wanted to throw it out there that it’s absolutely NOT the end of the world if you submit AMCAS in July and if you wait until September to do your secondaries. I think you should do everything in your power to submit AMCAS before August (the earlier, the better) and secondaries before October–and if you can’t do it, apply the following year. Believe it or not, I was one of the first few people accepted to my class–and I was among the latest applicants here!</p>