Want to apply to medical school? Well, you’re probably wondering “what is the medical school application timeline?”. This is an all encompassing guide to the timing and overall general structure of your application from MCAT to primary application, to secondary application, to interview invites. You’ll leave much more confident in how to plan out your application, check it out!
If you’re reading this, you’re either planning to or currently applying to medical school. Congratulations! It’s a huge leap forward in achieving your dreams. You may be looking at all the application segments, MCAT, letters of rec, and more that go into it and wondering when you need to actually have all this done. Today, I’ll be explaining the ideal timing and my own personal timing I used when I applied.
The main things to consider first are the letters of recommendation and the MCAT. These get handled first usually way before you actually apply.
For letters of recommendation, schools typically ask for 2-6 letters. Some schools accept more, but it varies by school. I recommend checking each school on your list and noting what they want. Something to note is that some schools have very specific guidelines such as one letter must be from a science professor or one letter must be from a clinical advisor. For MD/PHD, it is common that they want a letter from every research advisor you’ve ever had. Make sure you do what they want!
For letters, I always say the earlier the better. The more time a writer has to write your letter, the better it will probably be. Ideally, you want to give them AT LEAST 2 months and probably more like 6 months notice. I’ve been told by some professors that they’ll write a letter and then periodically go back to it once a month and add onto it as they remember more and more about the student. When you give them one month, it really limits your potential. Since the AMCAS opens on June 1st, I would aim to have this done in December or January of the year you apply. It never hurts to go earlier, just send a periodic reminder about the due date so they don’t forget.
I personally had 5 letters of recommendation. 3 from my research advisors, 1 from a physician assistant from my clinical work, and a physician from a different clinical position I had. I asked both the physician and physician assistant in December of 2022 to apply in May 2023. For my research advisors, I had already had each of them write a letter of recommendation for my Goldwater scholarship, so the letters were made. I asked them to tweak them for MD and MD/PHD applications, but I believe they mostly stayed the same. I asked them about 2 months in advance, but I wish I’d asked earlier.
For the MCAT, you want to tailor this to where you’re at in your studies. The traditional application goes in around June of your Junior year of college. The latest you can really take the MCAT to be still considered “on time” is early May of this same year since it takes 1 month for scores to be released.
I personally took the MCAT in the first week or so of April. I felt like I had a tough Fall schedule and since medical schools see every score you’ll ever receive on the MCAT, I found it very important to take it just once. April gave me the most time to study while also dealing with delayed studying due to a tough Fall semester. You’ll have to do the same assessment of your study time to figure out when you can take it. If you take it 3+ months before May, you’ll have time to potentially retake the exam if you don’t score high enough, so that’s also something to consider.
After this is all handled, you have what is called the AMCAS primary application. It opens on May 1 for submission of each year and you want to be as early as you can without sacrificing quality. I say this because after you submit, there’s a verification process where AAMC (the company that hosts the application) employees manually verify your GPA and class history. This process takes time and with 55,000 applicants each year, the verification line gets deep. I’m talking about multiple weeks of waiting or even months if you wait too long.
I personally submitted mine on June 3rd, only two days after it opened, and I didn’t get verified until June 28th! Long time, huh? Do this as quickly as you can without putting in bad quality. If you need to take a couple days to make sure your writing is good, do it! It won’t hurt you if its only a week or two.
Missed these deadlines and need to take a gap year? check this out.
Thinking about taking a gap year in general? Check out all my gap year articles.
After this you get what are called secondary applications. These are school specific essays that are usually a “why us” and some other ones. These come sporadically after your primary application goes in and they’ll come in randomly all the way through July if you applied in June when I did. For these, the general rule is to get them in within two weeks of receiving them. For some schools, this is a hard deadline. For others, it’s a suggestion, so read up on their website!
I turned in all of my secondaries within two weeks and usually within a couple of days. I finished my last secondary in mid July.
Once you get the primary AND the secondary in, you are set to wait for an interview invite! These timing rules are not set in stone and you need to do what works best for you! However, I would like to emphasize that the majority of interview invites and available seats at each medical school are greatest at the early end of the cycle and early Fall (August, September, October). If you do your primary in August and your secondaries in October or November, you are handicapping yourself!
Once you have applied, you’ll want to start looking at update letters, letters of intent, and letters of interest which will come into play later in the cycle!
Timing your application is a very important aspect and although these are not hard-set rules, they set you up for the best chances to get into medical school. Good luck if you are applying and I hope this gives you a better idea of a plan!