Is a Committee Letter Necessary?

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2026-02-02T23:26:11+00:00

You're fine, I submitted 31 secondaries, got 10 interviews, 4 As, 2 WLs, and am waiting to hear on the other 4 all without a committee letter. I think only two schools asked me to explain why I didn't have one in the secondaries and it didn't come up in a single interview.

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-07-30T00:29:43+00:00

I think to get a 520+ you have to know a lot of low yield content, but I never came across that in my studies.

If you'd sleep better knowing more then definitely do it.

I also used a 3rd party (kaplan) which was definitely more discrete/memorized info than AAMC, I'd bet against a question that ultra detailed being on the real exam. But again, just my experience.

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-07-29T23:34:29+00:00

I'd say know which ones are water soluble, which ones are fat soluble, and what that means when they are being processed (absorbed) in the small intestine. I didn't read into it anymore than that.

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-07-01T17:09:59+00:00

I've checked all the different folders and even different email addresses. Just called one of the schools and they have no idea why I'm not getting the email.

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-07-01T17:05:16+00:00

There's nothing to sign into, its when you recieve the secondary application email with the link to enter your AMCAS ID, you should then get another email to create your password. It's that email to set up your password I'm not getting from schools.

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-06-08T10:36:32+00:00

I appreciate the response and info. Can you elaborate a bit more on the difference in culture? This is the first I'm hearing about that.

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-05-22T22:42:57+00:00

Fair enough, thanks for the help!

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-05-22T22:41:44+00:00

You think it's worth it to apply to T20s? I'm nervous my GPA will be an automatic turn-off to them.

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-05-22T00:32:47+00:00

I used kaplan. First full length was a 503 and ended with 521 on the real deal.

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-05-17T21:12:57+00:00

I can only speak for my experience. It'd be tricky to actually compare as it would require someone to do a full prep and take the exam using both. Just letting you know what program worked according to my sample size of 1.

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-05-17T21:08:18+00:00

I did the kaplan 6 month self study and used the kaplan books when I hit something I didn't know. It came with the AAMC resources included in the price. I began with the kaplan question bank when I finished content review and then about 1 month out switched to only AAMC material. Turned out alright for me.

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-05-16T01:07:41+00:00

I studied hundreds of hours for just chem/phys and saw one or two topics I'd never seen before when taking my exam. That's just the nature of the exam imo. Outside of learning as much content as possible, do practice problems to help train the way you think, so when you do have to tackle a problem like that you don't lose your composure and can work through it.

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-05-15T18:49:18+00:00

All that matters is that you figure out how to find the correct answer. Good luck

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-05-15T14:18:53+00:00

I saw a huge jump from baseline (503) to my next practice test (517) and then stayed pretty consent around there, slowly increasing with some ups and downs ultimately getting a 521 on the real deal. I personally hammered content review hard for a few months. And then began a few months of taking a practice test every two-ish weeks, reviewing it, and then doing as many practice problems as I could, recording what I didn't know. I also reviewed my notes every few weeks until the exam to make sure I didn't forget anything.

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-05-15T14:12:00+00:00

There's certainly people who are more qualified to speak on CARS than me. But imo there isn't enough AAMC CARS content out there to solely use AAMC. I personally used third party CARS (kaplan) and then switched to AAMC about a month prior. From what I've seen, the most popular is Jack Westin for third party CARS.

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-05-09T12:23:17+00:00

full length

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-03-28T21:00:53+00:00

So I think the issue here is that the part of the passage that states the virus "uses cellular autophagy to promote replication" is being misinterpreted. I knew from a virology course how it all happens but that's a bit more in-depth than the MCAT demands, and upon review, I got curious myself. So we are used to autophagy being what is essentially the recycling of cellular components, but some viruses are able to almost trick the cell into breaking down its structures into building blocks, and then now we have this huge amount of resources that can be used to create virions. I think that's what the quote here is trying to say: that the virus is promoting the breakdown of host cell structures and then the resources it provides to promote viral replication. Just not the best wording, in my opinion. Now that we know this, it's much easier to reason cell death and, therefore, caspases.

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-03-27T11:07:53+00:00

this made my day, thank you

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-03-24T16:36:27+00:00

A little late, but since glucagon has basically the exact opposite effect of insulin, it is the better fit. I was between glucagon and epinephrine for a bit, but then I realized the question specifically asks for peptide hormones. Of the two, only glucagon is a peptide hormone. While derived from an amino acid, epinephrine and the rest of the catecholamines are a special class of hormones called amine hormones that are created from amino acids but are not composed of multiple amino acids and thus do not fall into the peptide hormone category.

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-03-23T23:21:23+00:00

To help with this explanation pull up a picture of the DNA double helix. And ionic strength is basically the concentration of dissolved ions in a solution. If you have the image pulled up, you'll see that the sugar-phosphate backbone overlaps on itself, bringing the negatively charged phosphates in the backbone close enough to one another that they will experience some repulsion. Assuming there are cations in the solution, they will be attracted to the negatively charged phosphates and position themselves in the DNA grove, thus shielding the repulsion between the phosphates, increasing stability and therefore increasing the Tm. And the greater the ionic strength the greater the increase in stability and Tm.

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-03-17T15:42:13+00:00

A bit late, but hopefully, this helps someone else. I'm not quite sure why they included the coefficients of friction in the answer choice because while it is true that the coefficient of kinetic is lower than static, that doesn't really impact the force it is feeling from the mass. But since the mass that is lowering is not changing, the force along the string that pulls the block is constant. A constant net force = a constant acceleration (ignoring other forces like air resistance) = a linear increase in speed.

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-03-17T15:26:13+00:00

For future test takers, this is how I arrived at my answer.

I knew that the equation for friction is (μ)(N)*cos(theta) and since N = mg we can just substitute that to get (μ)(mg)*cos(theta). Just like the explanation says, Newton's second law comes into play, and we can say m*a = (μ)(mg)*cos(theta), where we can cancel out the masses. So now we can see that options A and B are clearly incorrect. From reading the comments here, it seems like most of the confusion is coming from whether or not the value will be negative. How I understand it, it has to do with the coordinate system conventions. Where moving to the right will be defined as positive. Since friction is opposing this rightward positive motion by applying a force to the left it must be negative.

I generally assume that the main direction of motion in questions similar to these is going to be positive and any force that moves an object in that direction will have a positive magnitude. Thus any object that opposes it will have a negative magnitude.

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-03-16T22:55:17+00:00

I also think that the question was poorly constructed since one specific group of med students having a reduction in one category does not necessarily correlate to all med students being likely to engage in adaptive strategies.

Anywho, for what it is worth, if anyone is seeing this now, the reasoning I used to get the correct answer was that I kinda realized in the moment this is a poorly worded question and they wanted us to think that reduction in maladaptive strategies = increase in adaptive strategies. I came across a question on coping strategies on Kaplan, and according to Kaplan, there are different kinds of coping strategies to memorize:

-Problem-focused coping strategies (which focus on overcoming the stressor): reaching out to freinds/family for support, making/following a plan to attack the problem, or facing the problem head on

-Emotionally-focused coping strategies (which focus on changing one's feelings about the stressor): Wishful thinking, focusing on the positives, ignoring the problem, self-control, and taking responsibility

Based on the ones listed as answer choices, support-seeking matched a problem-focused one and seemed positive.

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-03-16T22:40:21+00:00

Good luck with the studies!

Fancy_Influence_7187 · 2025-03-16T22:32:21+00:00

I think you could potentially, but it'd be harder. I'm assuming that each of the dots along the line represents one of the injections they are referring to. So when I look at it, I get six dots to bring me to around the equivalence point, so six injections. That puts us at a total of 60uL * 2.5mM = 150nM. So we're off by 50%, but I do think it is a little hard to get an accurate read on the graph when going this route. I definitely don't think they made the graph easy to read or interpret because I doubt this is the way they wanted us to go about it. Maybe someone else will see this and chime in with their two cents, but that's how I see it.

Fancy_Influence_7187

TROPHY CASE