Medical School Application - Making Sense of the Puzzle

The medical school application process is going to be long and expensive. The application is, in a sense, the culmination of the work you have done in so far. The applications were the most annoying part of the process for me just because I had to rely on others for many of the required items. But with enough time and persistence, you'll have everything you need. It also pays to be very organized because it will be a multi-step process.

Applications Are Expensive

The more schools you apply to, the more expensive it is going to be. The costs increase for the primary application, the secondary application, and other miscellaneous costs as you apply to more schools. The average medical student applies to more than 10 medical schools. If you apply to just 10 schools, expect to spend more than $1000 on the whole process. I'm not even taking MCAT preparation costs into the equation. So unless you have a lot of money to burn, do not apply until you are competitive in terms of MCAT score and GPA. Check out the medical school requirements section for more details.

Set Your Own Deadlines

Before we jump right in, we should first set up a simple timeframe of what items should be accomplished when. I have included the deadlines I set for myself when I applied to medical schools:

• April: take MCAT
• May: receive MCAT score, research medical schools, begin primary application
• June: send primary application, ask for letters of recommendations
• July: start secondary applications, follow-up for missing letters of recommendations
• August: send secondary applications, follow-up for missing letters of recommendations
• September - December: interviews and acceptances
• January (of the following year): send Caribbean medical schools applications
• February - April (of the following year): interviews and acceptances

As you can see above, I only planned to take my MCAT once. I would get in all the required materials to the US medical schools by the end of August. And since I was willing to attend a Caribbean medical school, I was going to apply abroad if I did not hear anything by December.

The Early Applicant Gets the Acceptance Letter

The deadlines I set for myself are much earlier than the deadlines set by the school. The reason for that is because the earlier you get your medical school application in, the higher chance you have of getting accepted. I read somewhere that 80% of medical school students get their primary application in by June and their secondary applications in by August because schools start accepting students early (by September). In fact, my acceptance to UMDNJ was in mid-September.

You may feel like you will need more time to make your application perfect, whether it is to prepare more for the MCAT or do more impressive things. However, being early is one of the most important things next to an impressive application. If your medical school application is good enough, apply. The reason for this is that a few months into the interview season, they have already made a substantial amount of offers. By March (six months into the interviewing season), I would say more than 95% of the class is already formed. So if you want to make up the remaining 5%, you will need a superb application. The standards for admission are higher at the end than compared to at the beginning.

Now that you know having an early completed medical school application is key, you will also see that many items are required for a completed application, such as MCAT and transcripts. Since the MCAT is a very big deal, check out the section dedicated solely to the MCAT exam.

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