Admit Status
WAITING FOR A DECISION
After you have submitted your application, you should receive notice from AMCAS confirming your application and then expect a request for "secondaries" from each school to which you have applied. If you do not hear from them two or three weeks after you have received confirmation from AMCAS, or after October 1, whichever is later, write and ask. If you get no answer in ten days, call.
What can you do if your application is complete and you hear nothing more? These principles apply both before you have an interview and are trying to obtain one, as well as after your interview when you are trying to obtain an admission decision:
• Unless time is running out, a well-written letter makes a better impression than a phone call.
• Additional recommendations about specific points relevant to your situation may help.
• Do not flood your file with meaningless general recommendations if you already have some good recommendations.
• Generally, letters from politicians or relatives are regarded as meaningless.
• Phone calls from anxious parents are more often a grievance than a grace.
• If a phone call is necessary to clear up some matter in a hurry, do it yourself or have someone at the University inquire for you, e.g. the Pre-Med advisor or a department chairman.
Mid-year grades are an occasion to send something to the admissions office. If you want to send a grade report and an attached letter, there may be relevant things to say. If you have already had your interview and you have reason to believe it was not favorable to your case, speak with the Pre-Med advisor.
REGARDING REPORTING OF FALL SEMESTER GRADES, NOTE:
AACOMAS (for all US osteopathic medical schools): does want updated transcripts and will send information to schools. They must be postmarked by February 15 to be included in their final round of processing.
AACPMAS (for all but one of the podiatric medical schools): applicants send transcripts directly to schools, and schools will want updated transcripts.
AADSAS (for most dental schools): sends an "Academic Update Form" to applicants in late January, but does not want updated transcripts. Not all dental schools use the information from the Academic Update.
AMCAS (for most M.D. granting medical schools): does not want updated transcripts. Will not change grades for current or future courses after application has been submitted. Updates should be sent directly to schools.
CASPA (for some physician assistant programs): does want updated transcripts and will send information to schools.
TMDSAS (for Texas medical and dental schools): does want updated transcripts for summer and fall grades and will send information to schools.
VMCAS (for most veterinary schools): does not want updated transcripts. Updates should be sent directly to schools.
Courtesy of Paul J. Crosby
MULTIPLE ACCEPTANCES?
If you are lucky enough to get more than one acceptance, you should, as a rule, hold only one place at a time. This means that you have a list of schools ranked according to your priority, and you will withdraw from schools on your list below the one into which you have been accepted. This goes for wait-list spots and indecisions, too. Given the anxiety of many students to enter, you should not tie up spots which you will not be able to use.
On the other hand, if you have not been accepted and you are on the waiting list, you should continue to inform the school whose waiting list you are on that you are still available and want to come. If the situation still exists in May, June, July, or even August, still persist! Let the admissions office know where you can be reached and that you want to come. Obviously the sensible thing is to have made alternate plans for the coming year. Nevertheless, people are taken from the waiting lists right up to the last weeks before registration, and an updated address or phone number, plus an assurance that you will come on a moment's notice, will help your case.
GRADUATE SCHOOL WHILE YOU WAIT?
Graduate school experience may help your application if the weakness in your credentials was your undergraduate coursework and you show good graduate work in the sciences. You should not begin a graduate degree that you do not intend to finish, especially if the graduate program is at the same university as the medical school you wish to attend.
At GU Medical Center there is a graduate program in Physiology which awards a Special M.S. Ask the Pre-Med advisor if this is right for your needs. It has the advantages of relevance to medical studies and speed -- twelve months.
There are a few other Masters programs around that also serve as stepping stones to medical school admission. New York Med, Hahnemann, and Chicago Med have similar M.S. programs.
