First step in applying to med school

AMCAS 2025 Application Opens Next Week

On May 1, 2024, AMCAS will open for prospective medical students. Here’s everything you need to know.

Key Reminders:

  • Medical schools will receive your text responses as plain text (formatting such as bullets, bold, and italics will be removed). 

  • While in AMCAS, save your work frequently as the application times out after thirty minutes and you will be logged out of the system.  

  • Ensure that you have edited and reviewed your application thoroughly prior to submitting. Once submitted, your ability to make updates to your application is limited. 

  • Add aamc.org as a “safe” domain for your email and/or check your spam box frequently to ensure that you receive any messages from AMCAS and medical schools. 

  • Your application will only enter the verification queue once you have submitted your application and your official transcripts are received by AMCAS. Letters of Recommendation are not required for verification. 

  • During peak periods, June to September, the verification process will take longer due to high volume. You should check your application status online to confirm that all of your application components have been received, your application is verified and processed, and medical schools have received your application. To confirm your AMCAS status, select “View Application Status History” on the Main Menu. 

There are minimal updates to AMCAS for 2025:

  • Mandatory sections will now be marked with a red asterisk (not just mandatory fields). 

  • There is an updated list of schools that participate in the PREview exam; schools not participating will not receive PREview scores.

  • “Self-Identification” has been added to the race and ethnicity categories and subcategories, and there is a new section for specifying Tribal affiliation.

What You Should Be Doing Now:

  • Develop your school list. You want a hearty list of "I could go here" schools and you’ll ultimately want to apply to between 25 and 35 allopathic schools. 

  • Finalize your Personal Statement and Work and Activities sections. This is going to take a while. If you blast it all out in one week, you haven't done it right. Give yourself time for revisions. 

  • Request your transcripts—and this includes those from schools abroad. 

  • Start entering your responses. Next week, when you can access the AMCAS application, enter your app info and follow up with your recommenders and/or your pre-health advisor/committee to ensure your Letters of Recommendation are on their way. AMCAS begins sending these materials out to schools in June. So, why are you checking on this stuff in May? "Because AMCAS must verify your application prior to its transmission, the wait typically is shortest in May, when it is just a few days," according to U.S. News & World Report. "By the end of July, the delay may be several weeks long." A delay in verification can hold up your getting Secondary applications (some schools send them as soon as they have your app; others read the app first and send them later). It can also mess with your getting optimal interview dates. 

  • Submit your primary application through AMCAS by mid-June. 

  • Start working on your Secondary Essays. "But I don't have the questions for the Secondaries yet!" you might say. That's true. Still, certain themes always come up, and if you have some stuff thought-out or, better yet, drafted, you can quickly tailor your answers to various schools' questions once they send them to you.

Creating an Outline for Your Med School Application Personal Statement

After you finish your brainstorming document, you may feel tempted to start drafting your Personal Statement. But, hold off. Instead, develop an outline for your essay that highlights your most poignant and pivotal moments. An outline will make writing way easier, we promise, as the hardest part of writing a Personal Statement can be deciding on the structure. Outlining will save you time and stress. 

During this process, we encourage you to think like a storyteller rather than an academic. One of the goals of your writing is to inform, but it is equally important to engage your reader and get them personally invested in your journey. You might even take a cue from an action movie. When the lights go down and the curtain goes up, you see the star in a sports car going full throttle. What you don’t know, immediately, is who or where they are. Similarly, narrative writing does not have to be linear. After leading with an attention-grabbing scene, you can go back and provide additional context and information on what’s missing. 

There is no one essay format to follow. That said, there are some ideal beats to hit, and you might hit them in this order:

Event/Problem: Show us you in action. Set the scene: Is it a high-stress experience? A significant interaction? An unforgettable, formative moment? 

Context/Background Info: Who are you in this scenario? How did you get here? What are your responsibilities and greatest challenges in this role/scene?

Re-engagement: This is the heart of the essay. You've introduced the problem and yourself. Now, take us back to the anecdote. Show your critical and creative thinking, empathy, or collaboration. Delve into the complexities of solving a problem. Sometimes there isn't a solution or grand finale. That's okay. You just want to make it clear why this is the scenario you opened with—why this was meaningful to you. And you don't have to bang the reader over the head with claims of your best qualities; you want to show them those qualities through your story. 

Takeaway/Reflection: What did you learn via your experience? How did it change you? This should show that you’re dedicated to growth, self-awareness, and your values, and where these things could take you. 

Conclusion: How did this experience reinforce your commitment to the study of medicine?

Related: Laying the Foundation for Your Med School Application: Build a Brainstorm Document

Laying the Foundation for Your Med School Application: Build a Brainstorm Document

Before you begin work on your medical school application, we recommend that you create a brainstorm document where you will explore your formative experiences—what you thought, felt, said, and did. This brainstorm will be your touchstone for everything about this application process. It will help you discover what meaningful experiences and qualities you want to highlight in your Work and Activities, Personal Statement, and Secondary essays, and discuss during your interviews.

This brainstorm could end up being seven pages or 25—you want to be free and generous in your writing. While your brainstorm text does not need to be polished, your unfinished thoughts should be organized for greater ease when writing. Putting meaningful experiences into different "buckets" helps a lot. You might have some crossover with experiences technically fitting into two buckets or more—don't worry about that; put them in one bucket, for now, to keep things grouped. Maybe write: "This is also a leadership experience" or "Integrity/Critical Thinking" in your notes.

An important note: Eighty percent of these experiences should be from adulthood (college and beyond). Twenty percent can be from before then if they established foundational skills or led to evolutions in perspective. For example, if you taught wilderness first aid as an Eagle Scout. If your interest in medicine sprung from your prolonged childhood illness, that is relevant information.

Bucket 1: A-ha Moments: What meaningful experiences changed your mind about or expanded your perspective on something? Some could be spectacular successes, others, catastrophic failures. Have you learned from a mistake? What skills of yours did you discover in a challenging time? What did you think about these things at the time? How did you feel? (Prepare yourself, we're going to ask those last two repeatedly.) 

Bucket 2: Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving: In what meaningful experiences did you utilize critical thinking and problem-solving skills? How did you determine the best course of action? Did you approach something one way at first and then correct yourself? What did you think about these things at the time? How did you feel? 

Bucket 3: Leadership Abilities: In what meaningful experiences did you show your leadership abilities? Did leadership come naturally to you, or did you work to get to this place? (Both things are great!) How did you support your team? Did you encourage collaboration or independence? Did you feel supported by your team? Did you experience any pushback, and how did you handle that if you did? What did you think about these things at the time? How did you feel? 

Bucket 4: Teamwork and Collaboration: During what meaningful experiences did you work with a team or collaborate with others? Were you working with people unlike yourself? Was there a struggle for balance in the beginning? Any confusion? What did you appreciate about your team members? How did they influence and impact you and your actions? Did one or two team members step up in a way you admired? What did you think about these things at the time? How did you feel? 

Bucket 5: Empathy and Connection: Fill this bucket. You must have multiple experiences that touch on empathy and connection somewhere in your application. In what meaningful experiences did you empathize and connect with others? What effect did you have on others? What effect did they have on you? What did you think about these things at the time? How did you feel? 

Bucket 6: Experiences that Reinforced Your Commitment to Medicine: What meaningful experiences reinforced your commitment to studying medicine? You've probably known that you've wanted to be a doctor for some time—what let you know you were on the right track? Was it meeting a doctor you admired? Was it accomplishing something academically or in research work? While volunteering abroad? What did you think of these things at the time? How did you feel?

Bucket 7: Miscellaneous: What experiences have you had that you can't quite categorize? What else should we know about you? What do you think we don't necessarily have to know? Don’t be afraid to expose some vulnerability and use everything you’ve got. You should even include things about yourself and what you care about that you don't imagine will be a factor in an essay. You might be able to weave aspects of your personality or some fun facts into your Personal Statement, Work and Activities, or Secondaries to add some color—or something even better.

Related:

Your story set apart.