If you are reading this, chances are you are either beginning your medical school application cycle, or you are in the middle of the cycle. Congratulations! Choosing to apply to medical school is a huge decision, and with it may come feelings of excitement for your career, but also anxiety about your application. The following tips are strategies I implemented during my application cycle to boost efficiency and productivity, while also limiting procrastination. These simple practices helped me to receive 10 interview invites from top medical schools.
1. Request letters of recommendation (LORs) months in advance
Throughout my application cycle, several of my interviewers told me to make sure to truly thank the people who wrote their glowing letters of recommendation on my behalf. It is important to remember that the people you ask to write your LORs have likely been tasked with writing letters for several other applicants. This means the time required to thoughtfully craft a letter may need to be split in order to accommodate each student’s request. To avoid this, request your LORs long before AMCAS opens. This will give your recommenders plenty of time to devote to crafting a letter that will make you stand out amongst other applicants. AMCAS does not allow you to formally request LORs through the portal until the primary application opens. One resource I used to request my recommendations months prior to AMCAS opening is Interfolio. Interfolio allows you to request and store your LORs all in one place. You can also set your own deadlines for these requests. When I used this resource, I set a deadline for May 15, ensuring that all of my LORs would be ready to upload at least two weeks prior to me submitting my primary application. Because my recommenders were able to focus solely on my LORs before the application season, they were able to portray me in the best light, and I believe it is the reason I received so many interview invites.
2. Finalize your personal statement and activities descriptions prior to the application opening
Timing is everything during the medical school application process. Data shows that the earlier you submit, the higher your chances are of receiving an interview invite. Every year, AMCAS typically opens in early May, and you can submit your primary application as early as late May or early June. Many applicants assume this means you are only given one month to draft and finalize your primary application. However, you can begin writing your personal statement and activities descriptions as early as you like. The structure of these sections rarely changes, so when writing, you should allow yourself enough time to brainstorm your ideas, outline your responses, write several drafts, receive thorough feedback, and make final edits before the application even opens. Once AMCAS does finally open, you can paste your responses into the application, and you will only need to focus on inputting your personal information and courses. Do not underestimate the amount of time it takes to input your academic record! It is an extremely tedious task and requires careful attention to detail. The more mistakes you make in inputting your academic record, the longer it will take for AAMC to verify your application. You should aim to complete your primary application one week after it opens, and submit within three days of AMCAS allowing applicants to submit. While AAMC does not send out completed applications to schools until the end of June, it is important to remember that it can take several weeks for your application to be verified. You want to make sure your application is one of the first to come across the admissions committees’ desks in order to increase your chances of receiving a secondary application, and subsequently, an interview invite.
3. Form a small group of other medical school applicants to review your pre-written secondary application responses
As you are probably well aware, most medical schools require that applicants submit supplemental essays, also known as secondary applications. The average applicant applies to approximately 16 medical schools. The number of prompts applicants are asked to respond to typically range between 2 and 6. This means that the average medical school applicant writes anywhere between 32 and 96 supplemental essays throughout the application cycle. Furthermore, the general rule of thumb is to submit your secondary applications within two weeks of receiving them. This is a daunting task. Luckily for you, if you have managed to complete the first two steps of this blog, you have roughly two months to pre-write most of your secondary essays. Most schools tend to ask the same questions in slightly different ways, and they also tend to recycle most of their questions from previous application cycles. My advice to you is to focus on pre-writing your responses to questions that you know will be asked by several schools. For more specific information on how to go about doing this, I encourage you to read “My Guide to Pre-Writing Secondaries in 4 Simple Steps” on Reddit. This post was extremely helpful to me during my application cycle, especially the part about forming a small group of 2 or 3 fellow medical school applicants whom you trust to peer-review your responses. Each time you complete a secondary application for one school, you can share it with your group for them to review and send detailed feedback within a few days so that you can make final revisions, submit your application, and move on to the next one. As stated in the Reddit post, with this method, you get out what you put in. So, it is important to review your peers’ work thoroughly.
Congratulations, again, on your decision to apply for medical school! Remember, timing is everything. I hope these strategies will be as helpful for you as they were for me. Good luck!
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