letter of recs and AMCAS

[fun8stuff]

I got some quick and easy questions:

When do you send letters of recs out? With secondaries or with AMCAS?

When is the earliest that you can start filling out the AMCAS? The exact date it can be submitted is in june some time?

Thanks in advanced!

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[Optimist]

Letters go out along with the secondaries, but of course, you will want to ask your recommenders to write letters several months before this, and have them turned into your school's letter service.

You can submit the AMCAS application in the first week of June. The only thing there that truly needs preparation is the personal essay, so that you have enough time to revise it.

 

[Amy B]

Do you have a pre-med advisor? If you do, most will handle your letters for you and will mail them out to the schools you need them to go to. Some schools charge you for this service.

If your school doesn't have a service, ask your advisor if they would handle it for you. I knew some people who did this and it worked out ok, plus the advisor was one of her letter writers as well.

There are some services on line that handle letters if you don't have a service at your school, but I don't know who they are. Perhaps a search will locate them for you.

AMCAS will only have you send them your transcripts starting in May. I would send them then so they will have them when you submitt your application. It will speed things up. The AMCAS application can be filled out starting in June. But for now you can be working on your personal essay so you can have it ready to go. Also get student copies of all your transcripts so you can have them in hand when you fill out your application. Fill out class stuff as carefully as possible so as to avoid delays.

And once you have submitted you can't change or add to your application so make darn sure it is correct. All you will be able to change is your address and what schools you want your application to go to, meaning you can add more but you can't delete schools from your application.

 

[fun8stuff]

I do have a pre-med advisor, but I am not aware of any "service". I know there is a a group of 3 or 4 that will write a comittee letter.

Thanks for the help guys!

 

[TRUE]

Originally posted by fun8stuff
I do have a pre-med advisor, but I am not aware of any "service". I know there is a a group of 3 or 4 that will write a comittee letter.

Thanks for the help guys!

That group of people will write your letter for you and then send the letter to the schools you indicate for you. At my school, we had to provide envelopes and stamps and fill the address all out by ourselves...that can get tedious

 

[bewitched1081]

ask for your letters to be completed at least 1-2 months beforehand. it is almost certain that most of your letters will come in later than the requested date. if you are well acquainted with your letter writers, you might even want to contact them now. so if you give them each 1-2 months to get the letter written and add that to the time they will probably be late with it, you should ask for the letter 2-4 months in advance of when you apply. of course, since you only have to send the letters when your secondaries come, they dont need to be ready when you transmit your amcas. however, it seems like you are an early bird. so getting everything prepared to send might take the stress off. but, if you meet another good letter writer sometime between now and june and ask him/her for a letter, he/she may be able to write it in time for your secondaries.

 

[LaurieB]

Also, if you do have a service, find out what their typical processing time is. It's best to try to get LORs and secondaries in close to the same time so that your file is complete as soon as it can be. You can get your LORs in early, but you run a greater risk of the schools losing your LORs because there was no secondary to attach them to.

My 2 cents.

PS If your school doesn't have a service, there are private companies that do this too.