How to Use AMCAS to Apply to Medical School

Aspiring physicians who dream of attending a U.S. medical school should know that getting an acceptance letter from one of these institutions is not an easy feat. In the 2017-2018 school year, the average medical school acceptance rate among the ranked institutions that submitted admissions data to U.S. News was 7 percent.Medical school hopefuls who are filling out their American Medical College Application Service forms, commonly known as AMCAS applications, should be thoughtful about what information and anecdotes they choose to share in these documents, experts say.AMCAS is a centralized medical school application system designed by the Association of American Medical Colleges, a nonprofit coalition of U.S. medical schools and teaching hospitals, which allows students to simultaneously apply to multiple medical schools. The AMCAS is solely available to first-year medical school applicants, so transfer applicants would need to reach out directly to the school they are interested in attending, rather than applying through AMCAS.