I thought I would do a little series on the whole process, for those who don't know, but are interested (cue cricket chirps). You already heard about the MCAT, a good first step for any aspiring doctor. The next step (approximately) is the AMCAS or "primary" application. For osteopathic medical schools the primary application is called AACOMAS, and is pretty much the same thing as AMCAS.
Some of the application questions are easy, like, "who's your daddy, and where'd you go to school?" Others are tedious, like manually entering all of your coursework, credits and grades. (Isn't that what transcripts are for?) Then there are activities to describe-- every good pre-med has lots of clinical, volunteer and research experiences. Finally, you have 5000 characters to explain in a personal statement who you are and why you want to be a doctor.
The personal statement could get an entire blog post of its own, but it is honestly something I would not like to revisit. My advisor suggested having only one person read your personal statement. Too many readers and editors will result in differing opinions and confusion. I did not take her advice, as I have always appreciated having all my friends and family help me with things like this. While I thoroughly appreciate all the input I received, my advisor was absolutely right. Let's not re-hash that meltdown.
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| Here's a pretty picture to break up this wordy post. This is June Lake, just outside Yosemite. |
Since you undoubtedly have completed this application during the month of May, when it was available, but not open for submission, you will be waiting with bated breath to push the submit button on the second Tuesday of June. Processing time goes up exponentially from then on. If you are one of the first few to submit, your application may be processed within hours. A few hours later, your processing time will be measured in weeks. This was something I didn't know the first time I applied, submitting my AMCAS in July. Armed with this new knowledge, I sat at the computer that Tuesday morning, refreshing the website until submission was available. Unfortunately, my efforts were lost when my application was held up until all my transcripts were received. BU and Maryland had sent in my transcripts weeks prior, but AMCAS needs a transcript from everywhere college credits were taken. I took one summer class at a community college and that transcript was holding up my entire application. Damn you, Montgomery College!! Fortunately, I found out later that AMCAS was not transmitting applications to medical schools until June 29, by which time my application was complete and processed. Things do have a way of working themselves out in life.
Applying to medical school is an investment. I didn't mention costs on my MCAT post, but registration for the test costs $240. Registering late, changing location or rescheduling will cost you extra. Test preparation can cost as much or as little as you like. You can pay a couple thousand for a class, or a few hundred for some books. I won't say how much I spent on books, mainly because I don't actually know, nor do I want to think about it. I will say that I have made $800 so far selling them on Amazon. Most of them sold for less than I paid, but I was able to mark up a few rare gems. AMCAS has a base fee of $160, and additional fee of $33 for each school. You can imagine the numbers rattling around my head when my advisor suggested I apply to 35 schools. I "only" applied to 20 schools-- 16 allopathic and 4 osteopathic. I tried to add more, but there really weren't any other schools I actually wanted to go to. Even some of those 20 were a stretch. I did not want to put myself in the potential situation of only getting into a school I didn't want to go to.
Next step- secondaries!
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