AMCAS (MD Schools)

What Is The AMCAS?

The AMCAS (American Medical College Application Service) is basically the medical school version of the Common App. It allows you to fill out the information that every school you are applying to will receive (your background information, letters of recommendation, work and activities section, personal statement, etc).

When Can I Submit The AMCAS?

The AMCAS will open about a month (5/1) before you are able to actually submit which means you have a month to fill it out and proofread it several times. The goal is to submit the primary application on the first day you are able to submit it (5/28). The reason for this is because once you submit your primary application, AMCAS will process it before sending it to your schools (at which point schools will send secondaries). The longer you wait, the longer it’ll take for AMCAS to process your application (delaying when you get your secondaries).

(Also random thought that I’m sure everyone has had, but is it a coincidence that a perfect score on the MCAT is a 528 and the first day you can submit the primary application is 5/28?)

What Are The AMCAS Sections?

The AMCAS has several sections to fill out:

• Sections 1-3: Background Information

• Section 4: Coursework
  
  • For this section you have to request that your official transcripts are sent from your undergraduate institute (including any that you took outside classes at like community colleges) and sent to AMCAS. Different schools have different processes for this so make sure you do this ASAP so it doesn’t delay your application.
  
  
  • You also have to go through and manually enter every single class and grade. This process is tedious, so you can split it into several days. What helps is having a printed copy of your transcripts in front of you while you are going through this. Also double check this section several times so that it exactly matches your transcripts.

• Section 5: Work and Activities
  • This section should largely be copy and pasting if you prepared this fully earlier. My biggest advice for this section is to double check the number of hours that you are calculating for each activity (I made a pretty big calculation error in this section that I caught after submitting my primary application…would not recommend it).

• Section 6: Letters of Recommendation
  • Here you have to enter the information about your letter writers and assign which schools get each letter. It helps to make a document where you keep track of which schools need which letters beforehand to stay organized.
  
  
  • Also ensure that if you use Interfolio to store your letters that you have sent them to your AMCAS profile (this sometimes has a delay of a few days). On the other hand, if you have your letter writers upload their letters directly to the application, it should be instantaneous.

• Section 7: Medical Schools
  • This is where you specify which schools you want your application to be sent to. Ensure that you meet the course requirements for all of the schools you are applying to (if you have APs that fulfill certain requirements, ensure that schools accept them). This will be very tedious (much like most of this application process), but it is important to do this carefully so you aren’t wasting time and money applying to a school you haven’t met the prerequisites for.
  
  
  • The primary application costs $175 to submit (and includes one medical school) and for each additional school you apply to, it will be an additional $46.

• Section 8: Essays
  • This is where you upload your personal statement which also is just a simple copy and paste situation because you’ve read and proofread it so many times at this point.

• Section 9: Standardized Tests
  • This section lists your MCAT score(s). Because the MCAT is through the AAMC as well, you don’t have to do an additional process of sending your scores to the application. You can submit your primary application before your MCAT scores come in (but the secondary won’t be marked complete until you have your scores).

Once you are done filling out the primary application, read and proofread it several times until you are happy with it! After submitting it, you are able to add letters of recommendation and add additional schools. Continue checking your AMCAS to ensure that your application gets processed.

AACOMAS (DO Schools)

The AACOMAS (American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine) is the osteopathic version of the AAMC. You can start working on this well after the AMCAS is done because the AACOMAS process tends to move faster.

Some things to keep in mind:

• You will have to send your MCAT scores over because AMCAS is separate from the AACOMAS.
• Send over your official transcripts and letters of recommendation as soon as possible.
• Like the AMCAS, you will have to enter your courses manually (there is an option to pay them for a service that will do it for you, but I don’t think it’s worth it).
• Edit your Work and Activities section to fit the reduced number of characters the AACOMAS allows.
• Some DO schools have their secondaries included in the primary application (you’ll know when you add that school to your list) so before you can submit the primary application, you’ll have to finish these off.
  • AZCOM, CCOM, and PCOM were the three I encountered that had this.