What's competitive?

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[Madz25]

I'm very new to this, but what's competitive to even think of applying to an Ivey med school? I mean GPA, EC, etc-wise. I don't want to waste my money.

 

Also, side question. If I want to apply for entrance in 2008 (hypothetical date). Would I have to do MCATs in April or August 2007?

 

Thanks.

 

First, April and August 2007 are gone.

 

if you want to apply for entrance in 2008 - you're a little late, applications are in process NOW and it's getting late in the cycle. Applying next cycle (summer 2008) will be for ENTRANCE in fall of 2009.

 

you can do the MCAT whenever you want. you should apply early to US schools. by "early" i mean apply in june/july 2008 for fall 2009 entrance. so i suggest writing the mcat beforehand so you're not applying "blind" (without your marks) and so your application isn't put on hold until your mcat marks become available.

 

competitive for top tier schools: 3.8+ GPA and 35+ MCAT ...it would also help if you had some research under your belt. top tier schools like research.

 

hope this helps.

[Madz25]

Thanks. As for the dates, I said HYPOTHETICAL meaning I will prob apply in 1-2 years. I just wanted some #s in there to get a sense of time. So is your application technically NOT processed until they get MCAT scores? So what would be the point of applying in say June if my scores come out in August?

 

Your application is processed by AMCAS, it's just put on hold for review by individual schools until they receive your latest scores. The benefit of doing that is that you have all of your stuff in so your application will be ready to be reviewed as soon as your scores are in. Things like ref letters can take up a lot of time so all that can be out of the way. Also, AMCAS takes a few weeks to process your stuff so that wait period can coincide with the MCAT score wait period. The down-side ofcourse is that you're applying blind.