I am finally free, well at least for an hour! I have a health fair to attend today, secondary applications to finalize and hopefully submit, non-profit stuff to do and a long list of other things written on a napkin LOL that I must do in order to reduce the chaos in my life. Now that I have taken the MCAT my stress level has gone from 10 to 6, which is a big plus for me and hopefully now I can focus on other things.
I tend to be a worry wort when it comes to test scores and my post test feelings sometimes are more intense than my pre-test feelings. I wonder if I changed too many questions, I want to review some of the material that was presented and this only adds fuel to an already blazing fire. Well as a part of my "Recovery" I am shying away from that type of behavior, I said that I would not look over material or anything while I wait for my scores. So I plan to do a post in Early-Mid October to share with you guys my MCAT Test experience, of course I will not be discussing any test specifics but just how I felt about each section etc.
So back to more excited things such as AMCAS applications. I submitted my primary application later than I would have liked (Aug 4). My ideal submission date was between June 15- July 1 but I had so much going on at the time, I had just started my MCAT summer program, family issues, I needed to re-do my personal statement, and update my experiences among other things. I have applied before in the past so 90% of my app was already pre-filled and just needed to be proof read to spot any typos that I may have missed in the prior cycle. I was verified in literally 3 weeks. Which is less than the 6 weeks time frame that is listed on the website, I think this was mainly due to the fact that I am a previous applicant with no course additions, so they didn't need to recalculate my gpa and the time in which I submitted. As with all application systems there are "Peak submission dates" I am sure that tons of eager students submitted as soon as the application portal opened, before college classes start back and even towards the end of the cycle, which will lead to high traffic for the AMCAS verifiers, and extended verification lengths.
Now on to secondary applications thanks to FAP I was able to apply to 15 schools, looking at the list that I have now, I should have done more research prior to starting my summer program to ensure that my application was as strategic as possible. Like why waste time applying to schools that have a very stringent GPA/MCAT cut off, despite not have my new test scores, I still did not want to apply to schools that would not even give me a secondary merely based off of my previous stats. Additionally as an African American Applicant, applying strategically is important, some schools make it known that they are interested in diversity. Of the over 85K medical school students enrolled in Allopathic medical schools less than 10% are AA students :-( a very small slice of pie compared to the big picture and with HBCUs medical schools diversifying more and more each year we have to apply broad.
I will have to continue my Post MCAT 2015, Secondary application talk in another blog post at a later date. And to hear more about my Nonprofit Organization check out my new blog! Thanks for stopping by
