January 2012
- Apply to AAMC's fee assistance program to get a discount on the MCAT and AMCAS. (TIP: If you have kids, you must do this or else you are just wasting good money.)
- Write personal statement.
- Approach professors about potential letters of recommendation. (TIP: If they don't recognize you, go else where.)
- Revise personal statement.
- Sign up for the MCAT (TIP: Do it earlier. I was surprised by how many dates were no longer available)
- Put on five pounds. (Hey, when you are the one studying for the MCAT at 1:00 in the morning, you'll understand.)
- Revise personal statement.
- Freak out over MCAT
- Revise personal statement. (No, this isn't hyperbole.)
- Take the MCAT (Holy cow! I was not prepared. Revisit my posts from mid-2012.)
- Start AMCAS application.
- Start TMDSAS application.
- Fill out letter of recommendation cover forms and forward to letter writers.
- Pretend that the MCAT couldn't have possibly gone as bad as I thought.
- Revise personal statement.
- Get my official score. (Heartbreak and sorrow.)
- Despair for a while.
- Start AACOMAS application.
- Order transcripts (from FIVE schools--can you say "non-traditional"?) to be sent to each application service.
- Sign up for September MCAT (TIP: Only do this once if at all possible.)
- Send reminders to letter writers.
- Revise personal statement.
- Write (and revise, revise, revise) extracurricular activities sections.
- Find a letter writer to replace one of my letter writers.
- Send more reminders to professor to submit to the other application service. (TIP: If you get all of your letters sent to Interfolio, you will avoid some of this mess.)
- Find another letter writer to tentatively replace the writer you are now stalking.
- Take four full-length, five-hour practice tests.
- Submit AMCAS.
- Submit TMDSAS.
- Submit AACOMAS.
- Study for MCAT
- Get philosophical about where you are in life, what you've accomplished, and how you try to "live in the moment."
- Purchase "I'm a grown-up" suit. (Chocolate brown with turquoise top.)
- Preview secondary application essay prompts.
- MCAT redoux.
- Start writing secondary applications.
- Continue writing secondary applications.
- Get official MCAT score.
- Cry in relief.
- Get first interview invitation. Then second.
- Get first rejection.
- Get over it.
- Buy the "right" purse. (Bright red.)
- Start interviewing.
- Freak out and apply to more schools. (TIP: Apply early so you don't do this! $170 down the drain.)
- Keep interviewing.
- Send schools an "update." (TIP: You got to actually have something to update them with such as a new publication or a completed class.)
- Get in.
- Celebrate.
- Cancel interviews at "I'd rather go to accepted school than this one" schools.
- Cancel another interview.
- Decline an invitation. (Oh, the table has turned and it feels so good!)
- Fail first biochemistry exam. (TIP: Don't!)
- Start telling myself "I didn't want to there anyway" for the schools that have silently wait-listed me.
- Decline yet another invitation to interview.
- Join Facebook Group for Class of 2017 Totally Awesome University of MD Acceptance.
- Try to figure out my ambivalence over my state school (see Valentine).
- File federal tax return so that I can...
- File FAFSA. (Twice! One for me and one for Mini-Me. Looks like she'll get about a $700 Pell Grant.)
