The AMCAS is medical schools’ first chance to get a glimpse of who you are, and it’s a standardized application that is used by many schools at once, so getting it right is a critical first step to get into medical school. Writing the AMCAS application can be a DAUNTING experience. But don’t worry! The Cracking Med School Admissions team will help you out with every step of the medical school admissions process. This blog post will be your AMCAS applicant guide.
Our goal is to provide you with basic information about the AMCAS and provide you with additional resources, including our AMCAS work and activities examples workbook.
AMCAS Applicant Guide:
We want to answer all the questions that arise while you fill out your AMCAS! Have questions about your AMCAS application? Feel free to get in touch with us if by filling out the contact form down below or emailing us at info@crackingmedadmissions.com. We’ve had several students ask us questions over the years, and we put the most common questions and responses in the “Questions from Current Applicants” section down below.
The AMCAS Application = primary medical school application for most schools
The AMCAS Application (short for American Medical College Application Service®) is a centralized application processing service that is available to applicants to the first-year entering class of participating U.S. medical schools. Make no mistake, nearly every medical school uses the AMCAS Application as the primary application.
No matter how many schools you end up applying to, you submit one primary application through AMCAS, effectively killing many birds with one stone. This is actually great news, because it saves you a whole lot of work. Imagine applying to 50 medical schools (which one student we advised did in fact do), and having to submit 50 different primary applications! The flip side of this, however, is that you need to work extra hard to make sure your AMCAS application is done well.
1) GPA and Grades
The classes you choose can accentuate your intellectual passions. For example, perhaps you are interested in social determinants of health. You can highlight this AMCAS application theme through the classes you choose (e.g. Public Health & Society) and the letters of recommendations you ask for.
2) MCAT Scores
There’s no way around it, but the schools will look at your grades + MCAT scores to see if you have what it takes to thrive from an academic standpoint.
3) Personal Statement
Most of the successful AMCAS personal statements our Cracking Med School Admissions team has read are stories about the applicant. As the old adage goes, “show, don’t tell.” One common mistake we see is that applicants try to cram too much information about themselves into their application. The AMCAS application, and especially the AMCAS personal statement is not a resume or a bibiliography about your life. Stick to 1-2 main points (themes) you want the med school admissions committee to remember you by, and write about it.
Buy our book for med school personal statement examples from successfully admitted applicants accepted to schools like Harvard, Stanford, and Johns Hopkins.
4) Work and Activities Section
Your activities will show the admissions officers what excites you about medicine. Highlight the impact of your activities, and reflect on how your activities have shaped you.
Aside from your AMCAS activities descriptions, you are also allowed to write short essays for your 3 most important activities. Like the AMCAS personal statement, paint a picture of yourself through stories and relate the experiences back to your themes.
For more specific advice about the work / activities section and examples of how to write your AMCAS work / activities section, follow our link here: AMCAS Work and Activities Examples
5) Letters of Recommendation
Make sure your AMCAS letters of recommendation also give specific details about who you are and what you have contributed. Make it easy for your letter writers by giving them a document that explains the themes of your application and examples they can highlight.
For example, instead of: “Sally was a great member of my research lab. She was an active contributor during lab meetings.”
Your Professor could elaborate, “Sally worked on her own oncology experiment. I worked with her closely to design the experiments. Additionally, during our lab meetings, she frequently asked insightful questions that led other lab members to consider modifications to their experiments. Sally would bring in additional, relevant research papers to followup on discussions we had in our lab.”
For advice about how to ask for medical school letters of recommendation, read our Cracking Med School Admissions book.