1. AMCAS Communications Spring 2013
The 2014 AMCAS Application
Thanks for joining us for this presentation on the 2014 AMCAS application.
AMCAS Communications
Spring 2013

2. In this presentation… AMCAS Application How does AMCAS work?
2014 Application Dates & Participation
The AMCAS Application
Sections of the Application
After Submission
Verification
Post-Submission Changes
Criminal Background Checks
Multiple Acceptance Data
Fee Assistance Program
More Resources for Applying

3. How does AMCAS work? Application Submitted Application Processed
Online application completed and submitted to AMCAS
Fees paid (or FAP award used)
Application Processed
All required official transcripts arrive at AMCAS
Verification of coursework
Calculation of AMCAS GPAs
Application Delivered
Verified application sent to designated medical schools
Letters delivered on a rolling basis
MCAT scores automatically received (before or after application is submitted
The AMCAS process begins with you completing and submitting the application online. Once all of your required official transcripts are received, your application will join our processing queue where we will verify your coursework and calculate all of the AMCAS GPAs. Letters and transcripts do not have to be received before you may submit your application. Once your application is processed, which can take up to 6 weeks during peak season, we’ll deliver the application to the medical schools you selected. Letters (if assigned to medical schools) are delivered electronically on a rolling basis.

4. 2014 Application Dates Date Event January
2013 Fee Assistance Program opens
April 1
2014 AMCAS Resources released
May 1
AMCAS application opens
June 4
AMCAS application submission begins
June 28
Initial transmission of application data to medical schools
August 1
Early Decision Program deadline
Sept.-Dec.
Application deadlines
In the first week of April, updated AMCAS resources, including new video tutorials and a Quick Start Guide, will be posted to our website. The 2013 AMCAS application will open on Wednesday, May 1st. The application year always refers to the year that you would matriculate to medical school. You will be able to submit your application to AMCAS as early as Tuesday, June 4th, which gives you a month to work on completing it. The first day that AMCAS will begin transmitting application data to medical schools is June 28th. This is the earliest date that you could receive secondary applications from medical schools.

5. 2014 Application Dates Application Deadlines
Completed application must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. ET of the deadline date
All required official transcripts must be received by AMCAS within 14 calendar days of the application deadline date
EDP deadline for application and transcripts is August 1
AMCAS does not grant deadline extensions
Visit
Medical school deadlines are available via the AMCAS web site and within the AMCAS application and majority of the deadlines start in October and end in December. In addition, if you are applying to be considered for an early decision program the application and the receipt of your official transcripts is due to AMCAS on August 1st.
It’s important to understand exactly what we (AMCAS) mean by “deadline”. To qualify for an AMCAS deadline, your completed application must be submitted by 11:59 pm ET of the deadline date, and AMCAS must receive all required official transcripts within 14 calendar days of the application deadline date. Medical school deadlines are available via the AMCAS web site and within the AMCAS application and majority of the deadlines start in October and end in December. In addition, if you are applying to be considered for an early decision program the application and the receipt of your official transcripts is due to AMCAS on August 1st.
Medical schools also have secondary application deadlines so be sure that you’ve prepared accordingly.

6. 2014 AMCAS Participation For complete participation listings:
Application
143 Schools/Programs
All MD granting schools in the United States with the exception of MD programs at Texas public schools
AMCAS Letters
141 Schools/Programs
See
Criminal Background Checks
109 Schools/Programs
See
For complete participation listings:
Application:
Letters:
CBC:

7.
Visit aamc.org/amcas for all of the information you could ever want about AMCAS and to sign in to the AMCAS application. Sign in for the 2014 Application will become active on May 1. Also get to other resources by using the links to MCAT and the Fee Assistance Program.

8. The AMCAS Application Identifying Information Schools Attended
Biographic Information
Course Work
Work/Activities
Letters of Evaluation
Medical Schools
Essay(s)
Standardized Tests
We’ll go ahead and jump into the application. There are 9 sections in the application.

9. Accessing the Application
Use the same username and password that you used for MCAT or the Fee Assistance Program, otherwise click “register”
Visit aamc.org/amcas to access the application. Log in using your AAMC account—you already have an AAMC account if you registered for the MCAT or applied to the Fee Assistance Program. If you don’t remember your password, click “Can’t remember.” If you don’t have an AAMC account, click “Register here” to complete registration.

10. AAMC Registration
Only complete registration if you do not have an AAMC ID number
AAMC registration collects basic information from the applicant and pre-populates those responses in the AMCAS application. The Registration system will complete an automatic check for duplicate registrations when you attempt to complete registration. If you are a re-applicant you should use the same username and password from when you previously used AMCAS.

11. AMCAS Main Menu
This is a screenshot of the main menu in the AMCAS application. This page is always just a click away from anywhere in the application by clicking the Main Menu button in the top right. The sections of the application are accessible from the both the horizontal bar at the top and the list in the center of the page. The sections automatically display Complete or Incomplete based on whether all of the required fields in that section of the application have been filled in. The action buttons on the right become active when certain information has been entered into the application. The application’s status is always displayed in the left column and clicking on the Details link will provide more information on what that status means, as well as detailing the status of transcripts and letters.

12. 1. Identifying Information
The first section of the application is called Identifying Information and is composed of much of the information you entered during registration, including names, ID numbers, birth and sex.

13. 2. Schools Attended
In the schools attended section, you are required to enter information about any post-secondary institutions that you have attended, regardless of credit earned or transferred. Full instructions on which schools must be entered are available by clicking Help at the top of the screen.
You’ll also answer questions about previous matriculation at any medical school and whether they have been the subject of an institutional action in this section.
I’ve highlighted the Advisor Release Statement, if you select yes to this statement you agree to allow your school’s official pre-health advisor to see particular parts of your application.

14. 2. Schools Attended
You’ll also determine in this section which official transcripts are required by AMCAS and request exceptions for those that are not required (this is rare though, most transcripts are required). You should prepare the transcript request form, which facilitates proper matching of your transcript to your application, in this section.

15. 2. Schools Attended
If you participated in a study abroad program—meaning that you were sponsored by a domestic institution and credit has been transferred—you should carefully read the sections on Study Abroad and Foreign Coursework in the AMCAS Instruction Manual or watch the tutorial on entering study abroad coursework to determine how you should enter this information in your application.

16. 2. Schools Attended
When you have entered all of the required information, you can review it on the summary screen before moving on to the next section.

17. 3. Biographic Information
The next section, biographic information, is where you will enter information about yourself, including address, legal residence, and race and ethnicity.

18. 4. Course Work
The fourth section is course work. This is typically the section that takes the most time to complete. We provide links to our video tutorials that demonstrate how to enter some of the different types of coursework on this page. We also strongly recommend that you request an additional copy of your official transcripts to keep for yourself and use while completing this section of the application.

19. 4. Course Work
Use a personal copy of your official transcript to complete this section
For each course ever taken at a postsecondary institution, regardless of whether credit was earned, you will fill in this information about the course, including: Academic Year and Term, their Year in School, the course number and name, the grade or symbol on the transcript if applicable and the credit hours shown on the transcript, if applicable.
You will indicate if there was a lab associated with the course and indicate any applicable special course type by using the checkboxes.
One note on entering grades—AMCAS requires applicants to enter the final grades for all attempts at any course that has been repeated, regardless of an institution’s grade forgiveness or covering policies. All grades from all attempts of any course are including in the AMCAS GPAs. Failure to do so will result in your application being returned you which could result in missed deadlines and forfeited fees.

20. 4. Course Work Average # of courses entered: 52
After the courses have been entered (the average number is 52, from usually 2 or 3 schools), you can review them and make edits as necessary on the summary screen.
Average # of courses entered: 52
Average # of schools: 2-3

21. 5. Work/Activities Maximum of 15 entries
Applicants can enter 3 additional date ranges for repeated activities
Maximum of 3 “Most Meaningful”
Section 5, “Work and Activities”, is where you have an opportunity to share with medical schools all of your work experiences and activities. You may add up to 15 entries in this section; for most activities, you are required to list a contact person and either an or phone number, so that medical schools may verify this information if they so choose. You may select up to 3 experiences as the “Most Meaningful” where you will be provided with an additional prompt and asked to reflect on the experience in writing.

22. Work/Activities You can indicate repeated activities
Up to four separate date ranges
Future end dates up to the start of the matriculation year (up to August 2014)
You will specify the total hours spent on this activity for each date range
Work/Activities entries will be shown in the order they are entered within the application
These entries are still sorted by each medical school’s preference during application review
You can indicate repeated entries in the Work and Activities section, so instead of entering a summer job three times, you can enter it once and indicate repeated date ranges for when you held this position. You can enter up to four separate date ranges and you can also enter future dates up to the start of your potential matriculation year (August 2014).

23. 6. Letters of Evaluation
You can submit your application before your letters are received by AMCAS.
The next section is letters. You will indicate which type of letter will be sent for them—a committee letter, a letter packet, or an individual letter. Up to 10 letter entries may be added to the application, but that does not indicate that medical schools wish to receive 10 letters per applicant. AMCAS allows this many entries to permit you to target letters to certain schools if desired. Letter packets cannot be broken up once they are received by AMCAS.
Most medical schools participate in AMCAS letters. Schools that participate require letters to be sent to AMCAS.
IF you are working with a pre health advisor or a career center to have your letters sent to AMCAS, you may want to check with them for specific instructions about filling out this section.

24. 6. Letters of Evaluation
You are required to provide contact details for the letter authors who will be sending letters to AMCAS. This allows us to prepopulate the Letter Request Form with the appropriate information and aids us in matching letters if they are sent by mail. Be sure to check with your advisor, if you have one, on the type of letters they will be producing and if there are any special instructions for entering contact information in the application.

25. 6. Letters of Evaluation Letter Request Form
Applicant’s identifying information
AMCAS uses this barcode to attach the letter to the correct application
Letter ID and Letter Type
The author’s address
Methods the author can use to send their letter to AMCAS
This is what the letter request form looks like. Full instructions for getting your letter to AMCAS are provided on this form. Please make sure that this Letter Request Form is delivered to your author or office that will be sending the letter(s) to AMCAS as it is necessary for matching to your specific entry in the AMCAS application. You should note that while AMCAS has no requirements for letters, many medical schools require that letters be on official letter head and bear the signature of the author so please remind your authors about this.

26. 6. Letters of Evaluation
Many medical schools require that letters of evaluation are on official letterhead and bear the signature of the author
You should note that while AMCAS has no requirements for letters, many medical schools require that letters be on official letter head and bear the signature of the author.

27. 6. Letters of Evaluation www.aamc.org/amcasletters Applicant
Letter Request Form
Letter Author(s)
AMCAS
Medical School(s)
Submission Methods:
AMCAS Letter Writer Application
Interfolio
VirtualEvals (VE)
Mail
Receive letters electronically, on a rolling basis after the application is processed
This is a diagram of how the letters of evaluation process works.

28. 7. Medical Schools
Be sure to select the correct program type and be mindful of program and transcript deadlines
In the Medical Schools section, you will select the schools you are applying to. YOu can find schools by state, deadline date, or program type. Once you select a school, additional information about the institution’s participation in AMCAS Letters and AAMC-facilitated background checks is displayed (we’ll talk about CBC’s later). The deadline dates are also shown on this screen.

29. 8. Essay(s)
You must also complete an Essay section and are provided with 5300 characters—about one page—to reflect on why you wish to attend medical school, etc. Things to think about including in this statement are available by clicking What information should I consider including in my personal comments? We recommend that you type directly into this field and avoid copying and pasting as formatting problems may occur and no changes may be made to this section once the application has been submitted. We also recommend that you very carefully proofread you essay before submitting.
For those of you applying to an M.D.-Ph.D. programs you are also required to complete two additional essays—one on your motivations for pursuing an MDPhD program and one detailing your research experiences.

30. 9. Standardized Tests Contact MCAT mcat@aamc.org | 202-828-0690
Monday – Friday
9 am – 5 pm ET
Finally, the last section of the application is the Standardized tests section. MCAT scores are automatically released to AMCAS. If you have already received your score, they should verify that it is captured in section 9 of their AMCAS application. The AMCAS application can be submitted without MCAT scores, but you should indicate your intended future MCAT testing date and keep that information updated throughout the application process.
This is very important for applicants who have previously taken an MCAT exam. Because the application will be delivered to medical schools with or without MCAT scores medical schools that don’t have any further notice that you’ll be taking a second exam could make a decision with all the information they have available at the time they get the application, because they don’t’ know what you haven’t told them.
If you are re-taking the MCAT and don’t indicate your upcoming testing date, medical schools may review your application without waiting for your new score.

31. Certification Statement
After completing all the sections of the application, you should submit your application. In order to submit, the you are required to indicated agreement to the Certification Statement

32. After Submission… Verification Post-Submission Changes
Criminal Background Checks
Multiple Accept Data

33. All Official Transcripts
AMCAS Verification
Transcripts
Once your application is submitted and all required official transcripts are received, your application will join the verification queue
You should consult the AMCAS Instruction Manual and video tutorials to ensure that all coursework is entered accurately
Academic Change Requests
From date of “Ready to Review” application status, 4-6 weeks
All Official Transcripts
Received
Application
Submitted
Verification Queue
As we mentioned at the beginning of this presentation, you are placed in the queue as soon as AMCAS receives all of their required official transcripts and you have submitted the application. You should use the Official Transcript Request form that is generated from within the AMCAS application, if possible as this form helps us match transcripts accurately.
Once an application has joined the queue it could take up to 6 weeks to complete processing, especially during peak submission times of July-September. AMCAS performs a line-by-line comparison of the information entered by you to the information provided on the official transcripts and calculates the AMCAS GPAs during this phase. After processing has been completed you have the opportunity to submit an Academic Change Request if you see that an error has been made by AMCAS during verification.
Processing updates are provided weekly on Facebook and Twitter!

34. AMCAS Verification 2013 Application Cycle 2012 Application Cycle
# of days to complete verification
2012 Application Cycle
These graphs depict our peak submission times during the 2011 and 2012 cycles. The shaded region shows the time period of the application cycle when it took more than 15 business days to complete the verification process for a submitted applicant. These are for reference only, since Verification time depends on the number of applications and when they are submitted.

35. Post-Submission Changes
Once your application is submitted you can make changes to limited content of your application using the “Update Application” button.
If you need to make changes to your application after you submit, click on the “Update Application” button on the main menu of the application that will be activated after you successfully submit your application.

36. Post-Submission Changes
Only these items can be updated or changed in your application after it has been submitted:
ID Numbers
Name
Including full legal name, preferred name, and alternate names
Contact Information
Mailing addresses
Alternate contact information
Date of birth, birth address, and sex
Letters of Evaluation
Notification that a letter will no longer be sent
Addition of up to 10 letter entries
Next MCAT testing date
Addition of Medical Schools or changes to existing program types
Deadlines, fees, and restrictions apply
Release application information to school-designated pre-health advisor
Only these items can be updated or changed in the application after it has been submitted:
ID Numbers
Name, including Full Legal Name, Preferred Name, and Alternate Names
Contact Information, including Permanent and Preferred Mailing Addresses
Alternate Contact Information
Date of Birth, Birth Address, and Sex
Letters of Evaluation (only additions of up to 10 total letter entries and notifying AMCAS of a letter no longer being sent)
Next MCAT testing date
Add Medical Schools and change existing Program Types (deadlines, fees, and restrictions apply)
Release application information to school-designated pre-health advisor
You must re-certify and resubmit their application after making any change. There is no processing delay or fee for resubmitting an application—except for the additional designation fee if the applicant is selecting additional medical schools.

37. Criminal Background Checks
CBC Schedule
Participating medical schools have Criminal Background Checks on their accepted or waitlisted applicants facilitated by the AAMC
Applicants will receive an notification from Certiphi Screening, Inc., initiating the background check
Applicants have 10 calendar days to review their report for irregularities, after that time it will automatically be sent to the medical school(s)
There is no additional charge to the applicant for this service
Application Status
CBC Procured
Accepted,
Early Decision Program
Upon Acceptance
Accepted, Regular
After January 1
Alternate List
After May 15, by school’s request only
The AAMC recommends criminal background checks on all accepted applicants to assist medical schools in evaluating the ability of an individual to attain appropriate licensing in the future and to ensure trust in the profession of medicine. Criminal background checks are run on students accepted into an early decision program as soon as they are accepted, on students accepted under regular decision after January 1, and on applicants placed on an Alternate List after May 15 and only at the request of the medical school. Applicants have the opportunity to review their criminal background check report before it is sent to medical schools. There is no additional charge to the applicant for this service.

38. Multiple Accept Data
Medical schools cannot view the number or names of other schools that you have applied to
Medical schools have access to:
Multiple Accept Data (February 10)
This report allows medical schools to see other schools to which an applicant they have accepted is also currently holding an acceptance decision
The National Acceptance Report (April 1)
This report lists all applicants with a current Acceptance or Matriculated action
Medical schools can never see information about the other schools you have applied to. However, beginning February 10 of the application cycle will be able to see Multiple Accept Data. This means that for every applicant a medical school has accepted, they can see at which other schools those applicants are currently holding an acceptance action. Beginning April 1 of the application cycle, medical schools have access to the National Acceptance Report, which lists all applicants with a current Acceptance or Matriculated action. For more information read the AAMC Traffic Rules for Applicants on the AMCAS website.
See the Traffic Rules for Applicants for more info

39. 2013 Fee Assistance Program
Benefits
Reduction of MCAT Registration fee from $270 to $100
Free copy of The Official Guide to the MCAT Exam & access code for The Official MCAT Self-Assessment Package® (if award is used to register for MCAT exam)
Free access to MSAR Online
Waiver of AMCAS application fees for up to 14 medical schools
Benefits are only valid for the calendar year in which the award is granted.
Apply:
Apply for fee assistance before registering for the MCAT or submitting an AMCAS application. Benefits cannot be applied retroactively.
AAMC offers the Fee Assistance Program for applicants with financial need. You should complete the fee assistance program application well in advance of when you intended to register for an MCAT testing date or submit your AMCAS application as benefits are not retroactive. Fee assistance awards are valid only for the calendar year in which it has been granted. To start your Fee Assistance application, go to aamc.org/fap.

40. Resources Connect with us! Pre-health Advisors Hub
Updated Instruction Manual and Quick Start Guides
Pre-health Advisors Hub
AMCAS
Applicants:
Fee Assistance Program
MCAT
MSAR
Connect with us!
@AMCASinfo