- This program will waive the fee for the primary application and up to 20 schools included in the school list ($990 value). In other words, it will waive the original $170 fee + $42 fee for each school (up to 20 schools). If you have more than 20 schools, you still have to pay $42 for each school that you have extra (i.e., if you have 21 schools in total, you need to pay $42 for the one additional school that you have beyond the 20th school).
- Many medical schools also waive secondary fees for recipients of the Fee Assistance Program. So, this can be a huge cost-saver.
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1. We have no financial relationship or support to disclose. All organizations and products mentioned on this page are discussed based on our experiences and our discussion with other Pre-Med students. The organizations and the owners of the products did not contact or sponsor us to be promoted on this page.
2. Unless stated specifically, we do NOT have any endorsement or recommendation for any groups, companies, organizations, or products mentioned below.
- Community college years: take prerequisites and join extracurriculars, clinical or not
- Summer before transferring: Apply for Fee Assistance Program if eligible; start studying for MCATand take it if you feel ready
- Fall Y3: Start assembling LORs
- Winter Y3: Start writing Personal Statement and Activities; retake MCAT if necessary
- Spring Y3: Finalize school list; submit Primary Application; pre-draft Secondaries
- Summer Y3: Submit Secondaries
- Fall-Winter Y4: Go on interview(s)
- Spring Y4: Attend second-look weekend(s); bargain for FinAid; decide
- Community college years: Do absolutely nothing medically related like Charbel and Holly
- Summer before transferring: Travel and have fun like Charbel and Holly
- Fall Y3: Explore different extracurriculars and events, no commitment necessary
- Winter Y3: Start looking for research lab if interested in research
- Spring Y3: Try to commit to a few clubs and extracurricular activities to invest time in
- Summer Y3: Apply for Fee Assistance Program if eligible; start studying for MCAT and take it if you feel ready
- Fall Y4: Start assembling LORs
- Winter Y4: Start writing Personal Statement and Activities; retake MCAT if necessary
- Spring Y4: Finalize school list; submit Primary Application; pre-draft Secondaries; enjoy graduation!
- After graduation: Submit Secondaries; go on interview(s); attend second-look weekend(s); bargain for FinAid; decide
The AMCAS primary application is what you send to every medical school you apply to. It consists of:
- One 5300-character essay in which you answer the prompt “why do you want to be a physician?”
- A work and activities section
- Biographic information
- Schools attended and course work
- List of medical schools you want to apply to (you can add schools even after submitting)
- Letters of recommendation (you can add letters even after submitting)
Secondary applications are school-specific. At the end of June, schools that have received your primary application will begin sending you emails to invite you to complete secondary applications, which consist of more essays and oftentimes redundant coursework-entering and activities-describing. Hang in there, bud.
May: Submit all transcripts as soon as you can (do not wait for your spring grades to come out late-June); take the CASPer Test if any school(s) you are applying for requires it (don’t sweat this test!)
June: Submit primary application, start pre-drafting secondaries; take the CASPer Test if you have not already
July-August: Submit secondary applications as you start receiving them, preferably with a 2-week turnover timeline for each app.
September+: Go on to interviews and hear back as early as mid-October and as late as July
- Artistic Endeavors
- Community Service/Volunteer - Medical/Clinical
- Community Service/Volunteer - Not Medical/Clinical
- Conferences Attended
- Extracurricular Activities
- Hobbies
- Honors/Awards/Recognitions
- Intercollegiate Athletics
- Leadership - Not Listed Elsewhere
- Military Service
- Other
- Paid Employment - Medical/Clinical
- Paid Employment - Not Medical/Clinical
- Physician Shadowing/Clinical Observation
- Presentations/Posters
- Publications
- Research/Lab
- Teaching/Tutoring/Teaching Assistant
Ideally, you should ask for these letters in-person, while they still remember you. If not possible to meet in person (i.e., community college professor), you can reach out by sending a detailed email and asking if the person is able to write you a strong letter of recommendation. You may follow up with your letter writer with information that can help them write your letter, including your CV, draft personal statement, transcripts, AAMC letter writer guidelines, and specific attributes you would like them to touch on in their letter.
Below is an example of Charbel’s request for a letter from one of his community college professors:
"Hi professor,
This is Charbel Bou Khalil. Hope is everything is going well!
I will be applying to medical schools this upcoming June and I am currently working on my application.
I am emailing you to ask if it would be possible for you to write me a letter of recommendation. I highly cherish my experience in community college, and your class particularly was one in which I was able to learn and grow a lot.
Regards, Charbel"
Below is an example of Holly’s follow-up with a professor who had agreed to write her a letter of recommendation:
"Hi Dr. ,
10 years later, Holly is finally somewhat satisfied with her personal statement. Thank you again for agreeing to write a letter for me despite your busy schedule. I have attached the supporting materials, including (1) my CV, (2) my transcripts, (3) my personal statement, and (4) AAMC letter guidelines. I will send you a request via Interfolio with the instructions on how to submit the letter. I am planning on submitting my application in the beginning of June, so it would be great if you can complete it by June 1st.
Since I am on the younger side of all medical school applicants, I would really value your remarks on my maturity and ability to work and bond with classmates from all walks of life. I loved teaching my peers in class, helping them with lab procedures or understanding course concepts. And of course, I'm sure you can vouch for my hilariousness. :D hehe
Ah, I cannot thank you enough, Dr. I will come visit as soon as I have time to go back home!
Warmest regards,
Holly Huang"
- Apply early
- The primary application opens on May 1, meaning you can start filling out the app, but submission does not open until June 1. Ideally, you want to submit your primary app by the end of the first week of June, as the verification process (where AAMC people verify your grades and perhaps audit your activities) takes at least 2 weeks. The longer you wait, the longer it takes for your primary app to be processed and forwarded to medical schools, meaning you will have to wait longer to receive secondary apps, and by extension interviews. For reference, Holly submitted on June 6, and got verified on June 25. Charbel submitted on June 5, and got verified on June 21. June 28 was when AMCAS forwarded our primary applications to each school. The later you submit, the wait time for verification increases!
- The key to submitting your app early is to start preparing before May 1. Ideally, you want to have a draft of your primary essay and activities section by the end of spring break. You should also aim to reach out to your letter writers and receive confirmation from them that they are willing to write you STRONG letters of recommendation by then. Reaching out early will give them the time they need to craft well-written letters.
- Pre-write secondaries
- Getting a head start on your primary application will give you extra time to start preparing for what is perhaps the most intense part of med school apps: secondary applications. If you don’t prepare ahead of time, you can get overwhelmed by secondary apps once they hit your inbox at a fast pace. Both Charbel and Holly did not pre-draft and were majorly overwhelmed during this time!
- Personal statement (Why do you want to go to medical school?):
- Word vomit!
- The essay I (Charbel) ended up submitting was the culmination of dozens of drafts and edits. It probably contained less than 10% from the first draft I wrote, yet writing that draft was crucial to getting to the final version of my essay. Writer’s block is real, and I struggled a lot to write down that first draft. One of the reasons I struggled was that initially I wanted every sentence to be well thought out and polished. Only when I let go of the unrealistic expectations, and just start to free-write, did I make any progress on my first draft!
- Don’t just tell, show!
- One thing I (Charbel) struggled with when writing this essay was that I was approaching it from a third-person perspective. I was talking about why the field of medicine is attractive, and describing different physicians I have encountered and their amazing work, but rarely was I advocating for myself and showing the adcoms why medicine is the right career for ME. Thankfully, I was able to show my early drafts to friends who are in medical school, and they pointed this out to me. In my later draft revisions, I added personal anecdotes and actions that elevated my essay by portraying agency and a first-person perspective to my essay.
- Showing humility is not a weakness but rather a strength, especially when coupled with evidence of a growth mindset
- Here is an excerpt from my personal statement that interviewers mentioned positively: “During my first week in lab as an EEG reader, I was overcome with excitement as I called my mentor to check the data of a seizure I thought I had just identified. What I was observing, he kindly noted, was the rat chewing. Rather than let my error deter me, I found ample stimulation in navigating the ambiguous nature of EEG data, and I improved. I share this example with the new lab undergraduates that I mentor to emphasize the importance of using contextual cues when evaluating EEG patterns, and to reassure them that it is always okay to seek help and ask questions.”
- The point is, med school is hard, and everyone will make mistakes! One of the things adcoms are looking for in applicants is the ability to recognize our personal limitations, as well as the ability to learn and improve from our mistakes once they inevitably happen!
- Word vomit!
As mentioned earlier, secondary apps can be very stressful because they all tend to be sent out during a very short period of time. However, a lot of this stress can be averted by preparing only a few high-yield secondary essays ahead of time! The three essays I (Charbel) recommend preparing for are the following:
- How will you add diversity to our school
- Diversity can mean a lot of things! It includes diversity of life experiences, backgrounds, skills, hobbies, and much more!
- Describe a challenge you faced. How did you overcome it and what did you learn
- This is a great place to demonstrate humility, introspection, and a self-growth mindset!
- Describe your gap year(s) plans (if you will be taking gap years before med school)
- Even if you don’t have concrete, finalized gap year plans when applying, you can give a general description of the kind of experience you are seeking, your motivation for seeking them, and what you anticipate to learn and contribute during that time!
Here is a link to all secondary med school applications: https://medicalschoolhq.net/medical-school-secondary-application-essay-library/
- Traditional interview:
- Usually 2, one-on-one interviews with a faculty or a medical student. These interviews last around 30 to 60 minutes, and are very conversational. If it’s an open interview, the interviewer would have read your file ahead of the interview, and will have questions pertinent to your app that they will want to discuss with you. If it’s a closed interview, the interviewer would not have read your app ahead of the interview, so they will have more general and broad questions and it is more up to you to guide the interview in the direction you like. For example, in a closed interview, the interviewer may ask you what kind of volunteer experiences you have been involved in since they haven’t read your app, you have more agency in choosing which experiences you want to emphasize and describe in more detail. On the other hand, in an open interview, the interviewer may be interested in 1 or 2 specific experiences you described on the app and will ask you to elaborate on those specific experiences.
- You really don’t need to prepare much for traditional interviews! Just re-read your application the night before your interview and make sure you’re able to discuss the experiences you mentioned or described in your app! Over-preparing for traditional interviews can be detrimental, especially if you try to memorize and regurgitate answers. So, just be yourself, really!
- At the end of a traditional interview, the interviewer will always ask you if you have any questions for them! Make sure to have a few good questions to ask, as it shows thoughtfulness!
- Multiple Mini Interview (MMI):
- MMI’s consist of several short assessments, around 10 minutes each. You will be given a scenario before each “station”, and then you’ll proceed to give your answer. The interviewer may have a few follow up questions. Unlike traditional interviews, MMI’s tend to be a bit more formal, and you don’t get to socialize with the interviewer or ask them general questions about the school.
- Hybrid: traditional interview and MMI
- Combination of both traditional interview and MMI. Typically, there will be less MMI stations and shorter traditional interviews than normal when a school opts for hybrid-style.
- Practice, practice, practice!
- Traditional medical school interviews are personable and enjoyable, but you should still practice your “Tell me about yourself” response, which dictates how the rest of your interview will go.
- MMIs could be more stressful, so definitely practice with prompts online or from MMI books. You can practice by talking to yourself and recording your responses, with your friends and roommates, and with a counselor from the UCLA Career Center.
- Understanding the MMI from the perspective of the interviewer was very helpful for me. This is a manual from McMaster University, who created the MMI.
- Check out books and videos that will give you more tips and resources!
- Books
- Multiple Mini Interview (MMI): Winning Strategies From Admissions Faculty by Samir P. Desai
- The Premed Playbook Guide to the Medical School Interview: Be Prepared, Perform Well, Get Accepted by Ryan Gray
- The Medical School Interview: Winning Strategies from Admissions Faculty by Samir P. Desai
- Youtube Channels
- Ali Abdaal’s videos were some of the first videos I watched about medical school interviews, and even though they are related to UK med schools I still found them very helpful!
- Books