I've met quite a few nervous up-and-coming med school applicants this past week. These would be Harvard juniors planning to go straight through to med school and seniors who will be entering after a gap year. The big questions are, "What do I need to be doing right now?" and "Am I behind?"
This anxiety is understandable (as is the anxiety experienced during every step of this med school process) but perhaps not justified. My impression is that students are talking with seniors who have applied and are interviewing now, and hearing stories of the time and labor involved with preparing for and applying to schools. "It sounds like a ton but I haven't done thing yet."
First things first, if you're planning to apply this upcoming summer (2008), you're probably not behind at this point. It's important to be in communicate with your House premed committee--they will hold mandatory applicant meetings and have firm deadlines for things like waiver forms and rec letters. Every House will have its own system so there will be variation among students.
So let's go through a brief, approximate, suggested timeline of how and when things will happen over the course of this next year:
- Jan-Apr 2007: Request and secure recommendation letters (3-5 total). House deadlines fall between April and July.
- Mar-Jun 2007: Prepare personal statement
- Apr-Jun 2007: Put together list of med schools to which to apply
- Jun 2007: Complete common AMCAS application. Aim for the end of June. MCAT taken by this time, give or take.
- Jul-Aug 2007: Complete secondary applications
- Aug-Sep 2007: Letter packet (Dean's letter + individual recs) sent to med schools.
- Aug 2007 and on: Med schools begin granting interviews to students. This goes on until probably January 2008.
- Sep 2007 and on: Interview on campus at med schools. Interviews are conducted through about March 2008.
- Fall 2008: Finally...med school begins.
OCS puts on a series of application workshops (e.g. personal statement, selecting schools, AMCAS, etc.) in the spring. The timing of these workshops is intentional: to help give you a sense of when you might think about preparing such pieces.
So back to the question: what to do right now? Perhaps more general preparation rather than concrete items:
- think about the folks you might want as recommenders and keep up your relationships with them
- read through the alumni evals for particular med schools to get a broad sense of the differences between schools (older ones are in the OCS reading room)
- again, stay in touch with your House committee
- make sure that you've demonstrated through substantive experience a thorough understanding of the medical field and can argue for your fit within it
- continue to challenge and be realistic about your interest in medicine
...and if you're still nervous, come talk to Lee Ann or me.
2 comments:
I think if Harvard changes its timeline for LOR/committee letter from August-September to July-August, students will be at a great advantage for getting interviews and getting into medical schools. Primary and secondary apps were complete in July. It is August 20th and still waiting for the committee letter to be sent and before the med schools can review the apps. Very disappointed.
I can definitely understand your concern about the timing of letters. In years past, we have checked with medical schools to ask whether a letter sent a month earlier or later has any competitive effect on an applicant, to which they each said no. Also, premed advisors at our peer schools typically send their letters in the August/September timeframe (spending the summer writing the letters) so Harvard letters follow a similar process. Thanks for your feedback.
Post a Comment