3 Scenarios While Waiting For Your MCAT Score

Deborah

Submitting your AMCAS application as early as possible is highly recommended because many medical schools operate on rolling admissions.  One reason an you might delay your AMCAS submission is because you are waiting for your MCAT score or retaking your exam and want to know your score before committing to the current application cycle.  For this current application cycle, a repeat MCAT exam should be taken by August to improve your chances of admission.

Let’s look at how this plays out in three different scenarios:

Scenario 1:  You take your repeat MCAT in August and are waiting for your MCAT score to submit your AMCAS application. You receive your score one month later and submit your AMCAS at the end of September.  It takes up to 6 weeks to be verified. That means that an admissions committee will not see your application until AT LEAST mid October.  By mid October some schools have already interviewed and admitted their first applicants.

The downside of waiting for your MCAT score in this scenario is that you are now competing for a more limited number of spots at each medical school and medical schools will become more selective the fewer spots they have available to offer.

Scenario 2: You take your repeat MCAT in August and you submit your AMCAS application in June.  Your application will be verified by July and sent to medical schools.  The schools will not review your application until it is complete. When you receive your MCAT grade in September it will automatically be sent to the medical schools that you designated and your application will be ready for review in September, one month earlier than in scenario one. BIG caution: if you do not indicate on your AMCAS application that you are waiting for your MCAT score from your repeat exam, you risk medical schools making a decision on your application with your original MCAT score.

The downside in this scenario is that if you do not perform well on your retake and you decide to withdraw your application after you receive your score you will lose the money you spent on applications. Once your AMCAS application has been processed you will also need to contact each medical school directly to withdraw your application.

Scenario three:  You submit your AMCAS application approximately one week before your MCAT retake. This scenario banks on the fact that your application may still be under review by AMCAS when you receive your MCAT score. If you do not get the score you want you can still  withdraw your AMCAS application when it is in the “Ready for review”, “Waiting for transcripts” or “Returned” status.  Once it is in “Processed” status you can no longer withdraw your application.  If you choose to withdraw your application you will lose the initial processing fee which is non-refundable, but you will receive refunds for each school you designated if their deadlines have not passed.

The downside in this scenario is that you may miss the window where you can withdraw your application and end up losing your entire application fee. Also, keep in mind that withdrawing your application is final and you will no longer be able to apply for the current application year.

Need more advice on what to do when waiting for your MCAT score, drop us an email at [email protected] and we can help you get through this application cycle.

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