See Corrections & Amplifications item below.
The road to medical school is a rocky one, with cutthroat competition and complex rounds of applications. Last year, 248 students from Washington University applied to medical school, including approximately 40 engineering students. One challenge that these pre-med engineers faced was with the submission of cover letters that are required for secondary applications. Engineers receive these cover letters up to three months after pre-med students in Arts & Sciences, which is a significant disadvantage in a process that depends on timing. We urge the School of Engineering to send out cover letters in the spring semester, to give their students as much of a competitive edge as possible.
The common application, centralized through the American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS), can be submitted between June 1 and November 1. Individual medical schools send secondary applications and have varying deadlines from October 15 to December 31. Selected students receive interviews held between October and March. Admissions officers consider applications on a rolling basis as they are received and send out decisions beginning in January.
These deadlines, however, are misleading because the competitive applicant has finished both the common application and secondary applications by October. Many students take advantage of the summer months to finish off their applications. The secondary applications rely heavily on a cover letter from a pre-med committee. These cover letters are usually created by taking excerpts from faculty recommendation letters and personal interviews to make one cohesive letter that is usually submitted electronically to the medical schools.
One of the biggest differences for pre-med students between the College of Arts & Sciences and the School of Engineering is in the requirements for receiving a cover letter. In Arts & Sciences, each student is scheduled to have an appointment with the pre-med deans, known as the Personal Information Review (PIR), during his or her junior year to review application materials. Based on the PIR and faculty recommendation letters, due by June 1, the pre-med deans will generate cover letters. Depending on deadlines and the number of pending applications, cover letters are created a few weeks after submission of all materials.
The School of Engineering, on the other hand, requires each student to have a mock interview with the engineering pre-med committee before cover letters are created. The interviews begin in late August and are conducted in batches. When four or five students have submitted all the required materials, the committee comes together to start interviewing. This means that cover letters from the School of Engineering do not get submitted to medical schools until possibly the end of September. This delay can be especially problematic for early decision applicants, who apply by August 1 and are notified of acceptance by October 1.
According to Dr. Frank Yin, department chair of Biomedical Engineering and part of the M.D./Ph.D. admissions committee, engineering students have found the mock interviews the most helpful part of the application process. The benefits of a mock interview do not outweigh the possibility of receiving very few interviews, due to submitting late applications. Considering that the average number of engineering pre-med students is between 30 and 40 students a year, the committee should not have a problem accommodating these interviews in the spring semester.
Because the admissions process is rolling, time is of the essence. According to the University of California at Davis Health Services Advising center, “It is critical that you return/submit all secondaries just as soon as you can . if you want to keep a competitive edge. Ideally, this means a 24-hour turnaround and should not take longer than a week.”
Since the majority of medical schools send secondary applications automatically after receipt of the AMCAS, or shortly thereafter, a student could theoretically need a cover letter by the middle or end of June.
Peer institutions, such as Emory School of Medicine, receive approximately 6,000 applications in a given year. Emory’s deadline for secondary applications is October 15. Engineering pre-med students can only apply once they have received their cover letter, approximately around the end of September, leading to their applications being looked over or placed at the bottom of the stack. In such a highly competitive field, applying early is a critical factor for every student.
We recommend that the School of Engineering start their interviewing process in spring semester of junior year, before students start applying in the summer. While statistics may not indicate low acceptance rates for engineering students, the real problem lies in whether a student can be as competitive as possible. Should students be settling for lower-ranking schools when they are qualified for top-tier schools?
While applying to medical school is a comprehensive process, students should be able to focus more on the quality of their application than on making the deadlines.
Corrections and Amplifications:
Student Life mistakenly reported that mock interviews were required with the engineering pre-med committee before cover letters could be created. In fact, mock interviews are voluntary. Student Life regrets this error.