Completing the 2012 AMCAS Application

1. Completing the 2012 AMCAS Application Spring 2011 Lee Ann Michelson & Oona Ceder Office of Career Services Harvard College

2. Before you start • Check your SPAM filter: AMCAS and schools use applicant email addresses to notify you of updates, changes, deadlines, errors, and the status of your application. Be sure that your SPAM filters do not delete these multiple addressee emails. Add aamc.org as a safe domain. • Obtain copies of your transcripts • Check the admissions requirements of med schools to be sure you fill the eligibility requirements for each school.

3. Overview • About AMCAS • The AMCAS Application • Schools Attended and Transcripts • Biographic Information • Courses • Work/Activities • Letters of Evaluation • Medical Schools • Essays • Criminal Background Checks • Fee Assistance Program • Monitoring your Application Status • The Verification Process

4. About AMCAS • What does AMCAS do? • Provides an online medical school application • Collects one set of official transcripts from all applicants • Verifies academic records and calculates an AMCAS GPA • Distributes application data to participating medical schools • Collects & distributes letters of recommendation • Facilitates criminal background checks for accepted applicants

5. Application Timeline For the 2012 entering class

6. Application Fees • $160 processing fee which includes one medical school • $32 for each additional school (2011) • Refunds are available to applicants are not in verification or processed status. Applicants will receive refund for all deadlines that haven’t passed with the exception of the AMCAS processing fee • Payable online via Visa/MasterCard or Telecheck

7. The AMCAS Application • www.aamc.org/amcas

8. The AMCAS Application AMCAS Registration • Use accurate biographical information during registration:

9. The AMCAS Application • 9 Sections: • Identifying Information • Schools Attended • Biographic Information • Coursework • Work/Activities • Letters of Evaluation • Medical Schools • Essays • Standardized Tests

10. Overview • About AMCAS • The AMCAS Application • Schools Attended and Transcripts • Biographic Information • Courses • Work/Activities • Letters of Evaluation • Medical Schools • Essays • Criminal Background Checks • Fee Assistance Program • Monitoring your Application Status • The Verification Process

11. Schools Attended

12. Schools Attended • List every post secondary institution where you enrolled for at least one course; even if credits were transferred, no credits were earned, or you withdrew. • Include college courses taken in high school.

13. Schools Attended • Under program type, do not enter graduate level for Harvard College if you are working towards a fourth year Masters but have not yet completed it. • If you have graduated from Harvard College with a fourth year Masters degree, you will have two entries for Harvard College. One entry with undergraduate as program type for the first three years and one entry with graduate as program type for the final year at Harvard.

14. Transcripts

15. Official Transcripts (OTs) • Review AMCAS OT Requirements • Review your transcripts in advance • Research transcript availability carefully • Never assume a transcript is not required by AMCAS • Missing and unmatchable transcripts are the number 1 reason for processing delays

16. Transcripts • You will create AMCAS Transcript Request Forms to send to Registrars at every school from which you will be requesting a transcript. The Registrar will attach the form to the official transcript and send it on to AMCAS. • Transcripts must be sent to AMCAS directly from your Registrar’s Office. Transcripts provided by applicants, even if sealed, will NOT be accepted • Request that Harvard Registrar wait until Spring grades are available before sending transcripts

17. Transcripts • Applicants must request an exception for transcripts that are not required; failing to do so may result in missed deadlines • Research transcript availability carefully before requesting an exception. AMCAS cannot validate foreign transcripts and will not accept them.

18. Transcripts

19. Advisor Release Advisor Information Release Service: • Please give permission for AMCAS to share information with Harvard Premed Advisors by checking YES. (These reports will go to Lee Ann and Oona at OCS, NOT your House Tutors) The reports we develop on applications and acceptance to medical school are based on the data we receive from AMCAS. The information will only be used for aggregate statistics and all identifying information is kept strictly confidential. • If you encounter problems with your application, we cannot discuss your situation with AMCAS staff unless you check this box.

20. Advisor Release select “Yes”

21. Schools Attended Can indicate secondary field under minor

22. Institutional Action

23. Overview • About AMCAS • The AMCAS Application • Schools Attended and Transcripts • Biographic Information • Courses • Work/Activities • Letters of Evaluation • Medical Schools • Essays • Criminal Background Checks • Fee Assistance Program • Monitoring your Application Status • The Verification Process

24. The AMCAS Application • Biographic Information • Contact info • Citizenship • Legal residence • Race & Ethnicity • Languages • Family info – dependents/parents/siblings • Felony/misdemeanor/military discharge

25. Biographical Information • Visa: you may not designate Permanent Resident Visa status unless you currently have a Green Card. • Legal Residence: applicants who qualify for residency in more than one state may declare only one of those states as their legal residence on the application.. • Languages: enter information regarding the languages you speak fluently. Can list only one language as primary language.

26. The AMCAS Application • Changes to the Disadvantaged Section • The questions that have been buried beneath the disadvantaged question will be brought to the top level and presented to all applicants. • We will continue to allow applicants to self-identify as disadvantaged and write a brief essay.

27. Childhood Information • Underserved: do you believe, based on your experience or that of family and friends, that the area in which grew up was adequately served by health-care professionals? Were there enough physicians, nurses, hospitals, clinics, and other health-care providers? • State and federal assistance programs: these are defined as "means-tested programs” (such as AFDC, unemployment compensation, GA, food stamps, SSI, Medicaid). Family income, assets must be below certain thresholds

28. The AMCAS Applications Changes to Parental Information • Applicants will be required to provide information about their parents or guardians • Expanded occupational & educational categories

29. Felonies and Misdemeanors

30. Felonies and Misdemeanors • Applicants need not disclose any instance where applicant: • was arrested but not charged; • was arrested and charged, but the charges were dropped; • was arrested and charged, but found not guilty by a judge or jury; • was arrested and found guilty by a judge or jury, but the conviction was overturned on appeal; or • received an executive pardon

31. Felonies and Misdemeanors For any post submission convictions, applicants MUST notify their medical schools within 10 days of the offense. Warning: In Virginia and Ohio, speeding conviction = misdemeanor! Must be reported on AMCAS.

32. Overview • About AMCAS • The AMCAS Application • Schools Attended and Transcripts • Biographic Information • Courses • Work/Activities • Letters of Evaluation • Medical Schools • Essays • Criminal Background Checks • Fee Assistance Program • Monitoring your Application Status • The Verification Process

33. Coursework

34. Coursework Coursework to be listed: • Any course ever attempted at any U.S. or Canadian post-secondary school, even if no credit was earned. • Includes all college-level courses taken while in high school.

35. Coursework Coursework to be listed (cont’d): • Courses from which you withdrew. • Courses for which you received a grade of "Incomplete" and for which no final grade has been assigned. • Courses that have been repeated. • Courses that you failed, regardless of whether they have been repeated.

36. Coursework

37. Coursework Year and Term • For courses taken at Harvard, use the semester system calendar designation. • List a full-year course as “Full Year”. Do not divide full-year classes by term. • For summer courses, assign the upcoming status. (e.g. courses between FR & SO year, will be listed as SO status).

38. Coursework Year and Term (cont’d) • Do not assign more than one status to a term. • Assign High School (HS) status to college-level courses taken while you were in high school, regardless of the physical location of the college-level course.

39. Coursework

40. Course Classification

41. Course Classification • The Science GPAfor AMCAS is comprised of courses that are considered Biology, Chemistry, Physics or Mathematicsonly. • If you have a question, such as coding a psychology course as biology, ask yourself if the primary content of the course was biology. If yes, you can code the course as biology. This classification is not based on the department offering the course. Use your best judgment.

42. Course Classification • To learn more about the BCPM GPA, click on the HELP button at the top of the AMCAS application webpage. Open the "Course work Classification" section under "Course Work." Scroll down to find a list of courses. Any course classification followed by "BCPM" will be included in the BCPM GPA

43. Course Classification • If AMCAS changes a classification, and the applicant disagrees with the change, the applicant can appeal the change via the application's Academic Change request option (available within the AMCAS application). • AMCAS generally will not return applications if they disagree with your coding but if they do contact you, please let Lee Ann or Oona know.

44. Specific Course Information

45. Specific Course Information • Because Harvard does not indicate credit hour equivalents on the front of the transcript, AMCAS prefers that Harvard applicants leave Credit Hours blank. When AMCAS verifies the application, each half course will be coded as 4 credit hours and each full year course will be coded as 8 credit hours. • If you choose to list credit hours, be aware that the 4 and 8 will be taken out in Verification processing and an "X" will be placed in the Verification Mark Column.  The “X” only represents a change made in Verification to reflect the view of the official transcript.

46. Specific Course Information • A half-year course (one semester) is equal to four credits; a full-year course (two semesters) is generally equal to eight credits.* • Chem 10/15 is equivalent to only 4 credits. (It will, however, fulfill the medical school requirement of one full year of general chemistry.) You can write “Accel” to indicate it was an accelerated course. * Note: Half courses extending throughout the two terms of the academic year are equal to four credit hours.

47. Specific Course Information • Lab hours are not counted separately. They are included in course credit hours. You can click on “combined lecture/lab course” for the question “did this class include a lab section?”

48. Special Course Types

49. Special Course Types Only necessary for certain courses. • Audit: if officially registered, but no credit, then no credit hours or AMCAS grade should be assigned. • Pass/Fail: courses are listed on Academic Record, but excluded when computing AMCAS GPA. Harvard’s SAT/UNSAT courses should be listed as such. • Honors: Harvard does not have “honors level” courses.

50. Advanced Standing Only Only if granted and accepted Advanced Standing: • AP scores are considered freshmen courses for the year you began Harvard. So, for your first year at Harvard, you should list your four AP courses as freshmen courses and your Harvard courses as sophomore courses. • The total credit hours for the AP courses should be equal to 32 (e.g. 4 AP courses at 8 credit hours each.)