A schedule for junior or senior Premedical students applying for medical school in the coming summer/fall.
Junior Year (if applying to attend medical school directly after graduation from Rhodes)
Med School Requirements: Check out requirements for specific MD schools. A few have some unique requirements or recommendations. Most will require that you have completed requirements before applying for their program. A few such as University of Mississippi do not.
Start Jr year-to be done before summer
HPA Jr Info Meeting. Attend mandatory meeting (Sept/Oct) with HPA Director for all Jr’s, and anyone else applying in the coming cycle.
Register for MCAT. Prepare for and take the medical school admissions test (MCAT) as early as you can. Register early! Test sites fill up quickly. Click here to register.
Faculty Evaluators: Get permission from faculty to serve as your evaluators (see advice for this, separate).
Info for Evaluators: Make sure that your evaluators have needed or requested information from you (i.e., CV, LOE personal statement). Check to see that your recommendations are in before leaving for the summer.
HPA Recommendation Application Form. Turn in your Rhodes Pre-Application Form to the Director of HPA. This will have the list of faculty members to be contacted for their evaluations, and schools to which you wish to apply. After May you will need to add or send your AMCAS, TMDSAS, and AACMOS numbers, when you get them.
Thank You Notes. Write thank you notes to evaluators. Some students do this again next year, when they decide where they will attend. If you are making a new application you may want to ask LOE writers for an updated version.
Transcripts. Before May, be sure to know how to get transcripts from all institutions where you’ve taken college courses.
Contact Information. Make sure you have stable contact information and a professional email address for your entire application cycle (“cutie.pie.06.AOL.com” or “SixPacktoGo.hotmail.com” won’t give the impression that you will want. Rhodes email is fine if you will have it throughout the cycle). Application services and medical schools may send information using mass emailings. Some SPAM filters will block these. Turn off SPAM filters (ouch) for this or set up an email account especially for your application cycle. Whatever you do you must monitor your email account and make sure that it can receive notifications. You will not want to have a change in contact information during this process. Do not let your mail box be full. Medical schools will not be follow-up on any returned or non-delivered notices.
Start May
Before you leave for the term, print transcript request forms from the application services and submit to our Registrar to be sent as soon as Spring grades are recorded. Do the same for other institutions where you received credit.
AMCAS, AACOMAS and TMDSAS Applications. Open a current cycle account in May. Be sure that you start to enter information (before submission) in the correct year’s account. Information entered in a prior year’s cycle account will not roll over, unless you applied to medical school that prior year. Application (submission of finished forms) will be available in early June. Click here for AMCAS application, AACOMAS application, or TMDSAS applications.
May-Summer
Submit your application as early as you can do so without error. A slow point in the process is verification of transcripts. Later in the summer and fall it may take as long as 6 weeks to verify your transcripts. Also, students who wait until the fall to do an application are usually too late for acceptance at institutions with rolling admissions. Early submission will also allow you to get secondary applications done over the summer. Don’t wait until you have to juggle your classes and the application process. There are other advantages to applying early in the cycle, such as greater number of interview slots available, and ease of scheduling flights and travel around interview date options, as well as cheaper flights when made more than two weeks out.
Senior Year (if applying to matriculate the fall after graduation)
August-Fall
Interviews: Start planning/reading for your interviews if you have not already done so. Practice and prepare. Plan your wardrobe. Work with Career Services to plan practice interviews. The earliest interviews we have seen are the third week in August.
Fall-Winter
Decision Notification. Await your acceptances. If you are accepted to more than one school, be sure to notify the schools that you won’t be attending ASAP. In most cases you should only hold one acceptance at a time. Make deposits.
Be sure to let your evaluators, the Director of HPA, and other supporters know what happened. Thank folks again.
Be sure to share data with the Director of HPA so that we can accumulate more Rhodes specific data to help in advising future applicants.
March-April
Financial Aid: Work with financial office of your medical school to submit FAFSA forms. Even if you have not heard a final decision by December, this paper work must be done between January and April.
If you have not received an acceptance in the cycle, meet with the Director of HPA and medical school deans to learn what might be done to make a future application more competitive. Remember the average age of incoming medical students is 24-25.
May
If you do not hold an acceptance, and plan to reapply, start that process early again, even if you are still on a waitlist.
If on a Wait list. Continue to inform the school of your interest and ask about any information that you can have as to where you are on the wait list. If you were a Jr when you applied, you will need to inform schools and application services of a change of your email contact at the end of May, when you will lose your Rhodes email address.
We have seen from 7-14 applicants gain acceptances off waitlists between May 15th and July 23rd. Keep active and prepare for all outcomes.
1st year after graduation
If you have matriculated, work your M1 glute’s off and stay on task. Don’t second guess decisions until Thanksgiving. Stay in touch with the Rhodes HPA Director.
If you were not accepted to medical school, apply the feedback given to you from medical school deans and Director of HPA following your rejection. Reapply, work on other professional school plans, or continue in preparation for a later application. Rhodes HPA works with alumni.
As Alumni
Please stay in touch with the HPA Director and our alumni office so that you can help out with future students.