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It has been a few years, but I went through the process so I will tell you what I know. Mind you I did not end up going to Med School, but my sister who to asked me about the process did. I also go though the admissions process for high school students interested in med school every year. I have done this for several schools in the district.
She needs to apply to MD schools through AAMCAS. This primary application used to consist mostly of fact based questions like GPA etc. On this form, the schools she wants to apply for have to be selected. The more schools selected, the higher the fee. Keep in mind that only public schools are AAMCAS schools. Private schools like Harvard and Yale have separate applications. I applied to Yale. All I had to do was call them up and they sent out the application. Their application asked for more information and the fee has pretty high as well. They were very nice to deal with though. Not the stuffy Ivy league mentality I thought I would encounter. They also called me and asked for additional information.
After the AAMCAS application is sent in, the individual schools will send out a secondary application if they are interested. There is another fee for this. The secondary application will most likely ask more personal questions like what would you do in this situation or that situation etc. What is you opinion on this.....I think you get the idea. Each school has different secondaries or the application varies a lot. I remember the Michigan State application was very plain. No questions, just more money.
After the secondary the field is narrowed again. The remaining candidates are called into an interview. This may be with an individual or a panel. There may also be several candidates interviewed at once. I hear the DO school in Erie did this a couple of years ago.
At this point, if the candidate is accepted they will be informed and a deposit to secure their place will be needed.
That is about it.
If your daughter is concerned that her MCAT scores are not high enough, consider a DO school. This is not a put down on DO schools, but there seems to be less applicants to them. I believe there are 20 or so DO schools in the US. I know several DO's and I like their approach to medicine. Like MD's they also do fine financially.
The DO application process is the same expect instead of applying through AAMCAS, the application goes to ACOMAS (Better check the spelling on that!)
One additional thing that she might have to do if she has not already is to have her MCAT scores sent out to the private schools and ACOMAS if she decides to apply to a DO school or a private one. As far as I remember MCAT does not automatically do this. They might have changed now. I am not sure.
If she does apply to the DO schools, I have heard good things about the Michigan State DO school (used to do my physical chemistry homework in the cadaver lab there) and Midwestern University in Chicago.
Best of luck and keep us up to date on what is going on.
Mike
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