Complications: Late Mcat Score, Last-Minute Letter Of Rec, Or Transcript

May 30, 2018 - Mimi

Medical school applications can be overwhelming and often stressful without the added pressures of gathering all of your material before the May 31st submission date. Unfortunately, no matter how prepared we may be, there remain situations where you need to submit an application before your MCAT scores are posted or your application may hinge on the reply of an unresponsive letter writer. A lot of the time, these circumstances feel out of your control.

 Let’s delve into how to handle some situations you might find yourself in.

WAITING ON LATE MCAT SCORES

We all know the MCAT stands as a rite of passage for medical school admissions. It is probably the most difficult exam a pre-med student has to face. Sometimes unforeseen circumstances such as a bad test day, a sudden need to reschedule the exam, or numerous personal reasons will leave applicants without a MCAT test score ready by the time they need to submit their application. It is helpful to know that you are not alone. Many applicants apply blind (without prior knowledge of their MCAT score) each cycle and succeed in matriculating. In such cases, one option would be to submit your primary early with only 1 “throwaway” school to start the verification process early since you don’t need your MCAT score to be verified by AMCAS. Once you’re verified, you can add additional schools at any time, and it only takes about a day to send your primary to added schools. After you get your MCAT score, reassess and complete your school list based on your score range.  

IF your MCAT score is much lower than your target or predicted score, consider postponing a cycle to ensure you are submitting the best application possible. In this case, you can leave your primary submitted to only the one “throwaway” school. The advantage of this is that you will be a reapplicant ONLY at the one throwaway school.

Summed up: If your MCAT will not be scored by the initial submission date, you can submit to one “throwaway” school in order to be verified early. Once you receive your MCAT score, you can decide whether or not you should apply that cycle. By utilizing this strategy, you will be a reapplicant ONLY at the one throwaway school if your MCAT dissuades you from applying for that cycle.

LAST MINUTE LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION:

Professors, physicians, and other professionals lead busy lives and sometimes that means they are not able to respond to your letter of recommendation request in a timely manner. Do not take this personally, it happens to everybody. Once a letter writer has agreed to write you a letter trust that they will follow through on their promise; oftentimes these letter writers just need a little polite nudging to get the ball rolling. If it has been a while since you have heard from them, send a friendly email to check in on the progress of the letter and ask if they have any questions for you that may help with the process. As the time draws closer, it would be appropriate to send them an email reminder with a clear reminder of the upcoming deadline for submission. If possible, meeting up with your letter writer to check in with them in person is always a good course of action to take. Remember, you do not have to worry about letters of recommendation until you’re ready to submit your secondary applications. The AMCAS Letter Service is independent of the primary application, so Letters of Recommendation will not delay the submission of your primary application. Your letters will be needed for your application to be marked ‘complete’, which will not be until you finish your secondary applications anyway.

PENDING TRANSCRIPTS SENT TO AMCAS

AMCAS will begin accepting college transcripts May 1st so I recommend sending them as soon as possible. They require the submission of transcripts from all secondary institutions in the U.S. or Canada from which you attempted or completed coursework at (essentially every college you took a course with, including courses you took at community colleges during high school). Your application will not be transmitted to any medical schools without your complete official transcripts. For some schools, official transcripts can be sent electronically through the school registrar office directly to AMCAS. In other cases, the school needs to send the official transcript by mail with their cover letter to AMCAS. Note that AMCAS will NOT accept any official transcripts mailed from the applicant so it must come from the institution you studied at. It will take approximately 7-14 business days for AMCAS to process the transcript and attach it to your file AFTER it has been received in the mail. With that being said, try to contact all of your college institutions as soon as possible in order to avoid having your transcript processed late. If you wait upon receiving your final semester grades to send in the official transcript, there is a chance your transcript may not be received in time for the initial submission date. You’ll have to weigh how important that extra quarter or semester of grades are for your application, especially for students on the quarter system who will not receive their spring quarter grades until mid to late June!