COVID 19 brings unprecedented challenges to every workplace. For the AAMC, this means rethinking how to process tens of thousands of applications from people applying to medical school. The accommodations made thus far- namely- pushing the date of transmission of applicant data to medical schools from june 26 to July 10, has been inadequate in view of the additional challenges faced by additional parties responsible for helping applicants produce their supporting materials. Transcripts are an essential element in the application process. and many schools are able to provide AAMC with transcripts electronically. Thus, within hours, AAMC has the most transcripts provided to them by most academic institutions. However, many applicants do not have this luxury. Many academic institutions are not classified as approved senders by AAMC, meaning they must send a paper copy of each applicant’s transcript to AAMC. This created two entirely different cohorts of applicants during this early period in the application cycle: those whose applications will be ready for review, equipped with their transcripts immediately upon submission, and those who are at the mercy of undergraduate and graduate registrars’ offices, who are adjusting to working conditions during a pandemic, and can only give uncertain, prolonged timelines of when their transcript requests will be processed. 

Indeed, the discrepancy between the timelines of applicants who need paper transcripts and those who do not is drastic. For those who need not worry about the paper transcript process, transcripts can be securely transferred to their application by contacting their institutions and paying a fee for the use of an automated transcript request system. Their transcript is in AAMC’s possession within hours, and can be placed in the appropriate application digitally. 

For those who need paper transcripts, their academic institutions first need to receive a formal request form by mail. When this document reaches the school, applicants are at the mercy of the school’s policy on allowing employees to come to work, retrieve the transcript request forms, process the associated fees manually, and put the transcript in the mail. Often applicants are warned of, at minimum, a 10-day waiting period to process this type of request. When the transcript is delivered to AAMC, a new waiting period begins, as 25 days elapses between transcript delivery and formal acknowledgement that it has been received by AAMC. For instance, on the day of this writing, June 10th, 2020, AAMC announced that it is marking paper transcripts as ‘received’ that were delivered to them on May 15th, 2020. This adds a 35 day waiting period, uncontrollable by the applicant, that results in a distinct disadvantage in the application verification process, and by extension, the rolling admission process. 

We ask that AAMC postpone the transfer of information to medical schools until August 1st. This will put the majority of early AMCAS applicants on a level field of competition in the rolling admissions process. That is, both pools of applicants - those whose application was ready for verification on May 28th (the opening day of AMCAS submissions), and applicants who had to wait for transcript processing delays, will both have verified, medical school-ready applications at the earliest time of data transmission.