Your preferred address is the address where any physical mail from medical schools will be sent. If your preferred address changes after you submit your application, you can update and save the changes by officially updating your application by selecting the Resubmit Application button. Be sure to keep both your email address and your preferred address current.

Your permanent address will be used only if correspondence sent to your preferred address is returned by the U.S. Postal Service. If your permanent address changes after you submit your application to the AMCAS program, you may update the address and then save the change by officially updating your application by selecting the Resubmit Application button.

An alternate contact is any person who will be able to contact you if you become unreachable at any point during the application process, up to the date of matriculation. We recommend you provide alternate contact information if you expect to be difficult to contact (e.g., studying abroad in a remote area).

By entering the name of an alternate contact person and completing all required fields, you authorize the AMCAS program and your designated medical school(s) to release information about your AMCAS processing and admission status to the alternate contact person. The AMCAS program and the medical schools, however, are under no obligation to release information to your alternate contact. If you do not list an alternate contact, the program will not make your information available to a third party.

If you are a U.S. citizen, select Yes to the question in this section.

If you are not a U.S. citizen, select No. Select your country of citizenship and the type of visa you currently hold from the designated drop-down lists. The options are Adjustment of Status; DACA; Exchange visitor/student (J1); None; Other; Permanent Resident; Refugee/Asylum; and Student (F1). If you do not currently hold a visa or have permanent resident status, select None from the drop-down list. If your visa type is not listed, select Other and enter a visa description in the space provided. Be certain to select the citizenship status you have been officially granted; do not select a type you are currently in the process of applying for.

You may not change citizenship status after submitting your application. If your citizenship status changes, please notify your designated medical school(s) directly.

The medical school(s) you apply to may be interested in your state and/or county of legal residence. Each state has its own qualifications for determining legal residency; medical schools may request additional documentation. You are responsible for researching and understanding a state’s qualifications for legal residency before claiming it as your state of legal residence in your AMCAS application. It may be possible to qualify for multiple states of legal residency, but you may select only one in the AMCAS application. If you have a state of legal residence in the United States, select Yes and then select the state in which you are a legal resident. If your state is not listed, select Unknown U.S. from the list. If you qualify for residency in more than one state, you may declare only one of those states as your legal residence in your AMCAS application. After selecting your state, select the county from the drop-down list. If your county is not listed, select <state name> Unknown County from the drop-down list.

If you are not a legal resident of the United States, select No.

After submitting an AMCAS application, you may request a change to your legal residence information.

To update your state and county of legal residence, please send an email from the email address on your application to AMCASExceptions@aamc.org and include the following information:

• Your name.
• Your AAMC ID number.
• The state and county of legal residence you listed in the application (may be empty if previously not selected).
• The state and county of legal residence you would like it changed to (may be empty if previously not selected).

You can only update certain sections after submitting your application. If you’d like to make changes, please notify your designated medical school(s) directly.

If you would like, you may self-identify with a race and an ethnicity. If none of the options apply to you, you may select Other and write in your response. This question provides medical schools with important information for understanding applicant and student body racial and ethnic diversity, as well as data for required reporting under local and federal laws. Race and ethnicity data are not collected for use in making admission decisions.

If you would like, you may self-identify your tribal affiliation. Tribal affiliation is the acknowledgment of membership or association with an American Indian, Alaska Native, or Indigenous tribe. This question is intended to provide you with an opportunity to share additional information about yourself and enhance your profile for medical schools in ways that you may not have expressed elsewhere. Applicants with affiliations to more than one tribe can enter multiple affiliations. The AMCAS program will not collect any materials to verify tribal affiliation.

Please add all languages you speak, including English. You may add a language by selecting Add Language. For each language, you will be asked for your proficiency level (Basic, Fair, Good, Advanced, or Native/Functionally Native) and level of use in your childhood home. After completing the fields, select Save.

In this subsection, you must answer questions related to your childhood, including questions about how you paid for college. To help you answer these questions, we define several important terms:

Immediate family: The federal government broadly defines immediate family as “spouse, parent, child, sibling, mother- or father-in-law, son- or daughter-in-law, or sister- or brother-in-law, including step and adoptive relationships.”

Medically underserved: Based on your experiences or the experiences of immediate family and friends, you may believe the area in which you grew up was “medically underserved” if there was an inadequate number of health care providers to meet the needs of the area; health care providers include physicians, nurses, hospitals, clinics, and other health care services.

State and federal assistance programs: These programs are specifically defined as means-tested programs under which individual, family, or household income and assets must fall below specified thresholds. The sponsoring public agencies then provide cash and noncash assistance to eligible individuals, families, or households. Such programs include welfare benefit programs (federal, state, and local); Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF); unemployment compensation; General Assistance (GA); Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); Supplemental Security Income (SSI); Medicaid; and housing assistance.

Pell Grant: A Pell Grant is money the federal government provides to students who have, among other factors, demonstrated financial need. To determine whether you were ever a recipient, you may wish to review your past financial award letters or contact your graduating institution’s financial aid office.

The first question asks if you have served or are currently serving in the U.S. military. If you answer Yes, you will then indicate your expected military status at the time of enrollment in medical school by selecting one of the options provided. If you select Veteran, you will provide your separation date. If you choose Other, you will explain your status in the space provided.

The second question asks if you are eligible for a GI bill. If you answer Yes, please select one option from the drop-down menu (Montgomery GI Bill; Post 9/11 GI Bill; Other). If you answer Other, please write your GI bill name in the space provided.

Please note: The AMCAS program may require a JST. Review the requirements in the Transcript section for guidance.

The question asks if you have ever been discharged by the Armed Forces. Answer No if you have never served in the Armed Forces or are currently serving without previous discharge. If you answer Yes, you will be asked if you received an honorable discharge or discharge under honorable circumstances. If you answer No, you must explain in 1,325 characters (or fewer) the circumstances of your discharge, including the circumstances leading to your discharge, your period of service, and your rank at the time of discharge.

Responding Yes to the felony or misdemeanor question will not necessarily disqualify you from acceptance or admission to medical school. Individual medical schools will review your response for accuracy and completeness and consider the information in the context of their overall assessment of your suitability for admission. Failure to disclose information, or the submission of inaccurate or incomplete information, on this application or on the form provided by the school may result in an AAMC investigation and the school may disqualify you for admission.

The AAMC recommends to all U.S. medical schools that they procure national background checks on all applicants upon initial acceptance to the medical school (refer to AAMC-Facilitated Criminal Background Checks). Disclosure in the application provides you an opportunity to frame the incident in your own words.

Felony or misdemeanor convictions may prevent some medical students from completing their experiential education requirements or obtaining licensure after graduation due to site or state restrictions. Check with the schools to which you plan to apply for more information on the potential implications of certain convictions on licensure in their state.

You must disclose your felony or misdemeanor conviction(s) even if you have a pending petition for expungement before the court on the date you submit your AMCAS application, unless a state-specific law to not disclose applies (refer to state-specific notifications below).

Felony

You must indicate whether you have ever been convicted of, or pleaded guilty or no contest to, a felony crime, excluding (1) any offense for which you were adjudicated as a juvenile, (2) convictions that have been expunged or sealed by a court (in states where applicable), and (3) any offense you are not required to disclose pursuant to a state-specific law (refer to state-specific notifications below).

Misdemeanor

You must indicate whether you have ever been convicted of, or pleaded guilty or no contest to, a misdemeanor crime, excluding (1) any offense for which you were adjudicated as a juvenile, (2) any convictions that have been expunged or sealed by a court, (3) any misdemeanor convictions for which you completed any probation and for which the court dismissed the case (in states where applicable), and (4) any offense you are not required to disclose pursuant to a state-specific law (refer to state-specific notifications below).

Felonies or Misdemeanors You Do Not Need to Disclose

You need not disclose any instance of a felony or misdemeanor crime in which you were:

• Arrested but not charged.
• Arrested and charged, with the charges pending.
• Arrested and charged, with the charges dropped.
• Arrested and charged but found not guilty by a judge or jury.
• Arrested and found guilty by a judge or jury, with the conviction overturned on appeal.
• Arrested and found guilty but received an executive pardon.

If Yes to Felony or Misdemeanor

If you answer Yes to the felony or misdemeanor question, you will have 1,325 characters to explain the circumstances of your conviction, including the number of conviction(s), the nature of the offense(s) leading to conviction(s), the date(s) and location(s) of conviction(s), the sentence(s) imposed, and the type(s) of rehabilitation.

State-Specific Notifications About Felony and Misdemeanor Crimes

Below, you will find state-specific notifications relevant to the misdemeanor question in the application. This list may not be exhaustive, so you may wish to consult the admissions offices of the schools where you plan to apply for more information. These state-specific mandates are included here by regulatory mandate and may repeat information included elsewhere in the application.

• California Residents

  • Please do not provide any information concerning a misdemeanor or infraction marijuana conviction that occurred more than two years from today’s date and specifically HS11357(b) or (c), HS11360(b), HS11364, HS11365, or HS11550 as they related to marijuana before Jan. 1, 1976, and their statutory predecessors.

• Connecticut Residents

  • Pursuant to CT Public Act No. 02-136 and specifically Section 31-51i of the general statutes:
    You understand that you are “not required to disclose the existence of any arrest, criminal charge or conviction, the records of which have been erased pursuant to Section 46b – 146, 54-76o, or 54-142a; that criminal records subject to erasure pursuant to Section 46b – 146, 54-76o, or 54-142a are records pertaining to finding a delinquency or that a child was a member of a family with service needs, an adjudication as a youthful offender, a criminal charge that has been dismissed or annulled, a criminal charge for which the person has been found not guilty or a conviction for which the person received an absolute pardon; and, that any person whose criminal records have been erased pursuant to Section 46b – 146, 54-76o, or 54-142a shall be deemed to have ever been arrested within the meaning of the general statutes with respect to the proceedings so erased and may so swear under oath.”

• District of Columbia Residents

  • ​​​​​​​Do not identify convictions that are more than 10 years old.

• Georgia Residents

  • ​​​​​​​Do not identify any guilty plea that was discharged by a court under Georgia’s First Offender’s Act.

• Hawaii Residents

  • ​​​​​​​Please do not identify any felony convictions over seven years old or any misdemeanor convictions over five years old.

• Illinois Residents

  • ​​​​​​​You are not obligated to disclose sealed or expunged records of conviction or arrests.

• Maryland Residents

  • ​​​​​​​As permitted under the Maryland Second Chance Act, convictions that have been successfully “shielded” do not need to be disclosed on an application.

• Massachusetts School Applicants

  • ​​​​​​​Because Massachusetts educational institutions are prohibited from requesting information from you about certain misdemeanor crimes, your response to the above misdemeanor question will not be provided to medical schools in Massachusetts.Note: Medical schools in Massachusetts typically collect misdemeanor information via their secondary or supplemental applications. In addition, the AAMC recommends that all medical schools conduct a criminal background check on applicants at the time of acceptance.

• Nevada Residents

  • ​​​​​​​Only report those convictions that occurred within the past seven years.

• New Hampshire Residents

  • ​​​​​​​Only report those convictions that have taken place in the past seven years. Convictions that have been annulled will not necessarily disqualify you from employment.

• New York Residents

  • ​​​​​​​Do not disclose information about any criminal proceeding that terminated in a “youthful offender adjudication,” as defined in Section 720.35 of the New York Criminal Procedure Law.

• Ohio Residents

  • ​​​​​​​Please do not indicate any arrest or conviction for a minor misdemeanor drug violation (relating to 100 grams or less of marijuana or five grams or less of hashish).

• Oregon Residents

  • ​​​​​​​Do not provide information about a juvenile record that has been expunged.

• Virginia School Applicants

  • Do not disclose information about a conviction for marijuana possession.

• Washington Residents

  • ​​​​​​​Limit your answer to conviction for which the date of conviction or prison release, whichever is more recent, is within 10 years of today’s date.

You must inform the admissions office at each medical school to which you apply if you are convicted of, or plead guilty or no contest to, a misdemeanor or felony crime after the date of your original application submission and before medical school matriculation. The communication must be in writing and must occur within 10 business days of the conviction.

To provide some additional context around each individual’s application, admissions committees are interested in learning about the challenges applicants may have overcome in life. This question is designed to give you the opportunity to provide additional information about yourself that is not easily captured in the rest of the application. Learn more about the Other Impactful Experiences question.

Please enter information about your parent(s) and/or guardian(s). Select Save to add a parent or guardian. To enter another parent or guardian, select +Add Parent/Guardian.

Some medical schools want to know about your brothers or sisters, if you have any. Select Add Sibling to add a sibling.

Please enter the number of people who are financially dependent on you (do not include yourself).