AMCAS® FAQs

If sent by U.S. mail, most transcripts take 7-10 calendar days to arrive at the AMCAS program from your institution. In general, it takes up to 15 business days from the day your transcript(s) arrived at our facilities for us to process them and mark them as Received. Remember, you will receive an email from the AMCAS program once your transcripts are processed.

One (1) official transcript is required from each U.S., U.S. Territorial, or Canadian post-secondary institution at which you have attempted coursework, regardless of whether credit was earned. This includes but is not limited to:

• College-level courses attempted while in high school, even if they did not count toward a degree at any college.
• Colleges at which you originally attempted a course, even if transfer credit was subsequently accepted by another school.
• Colleges where you registered but did not earn any credit (e.g., incompletes, withdrawals, failures, audits, etc.).
• Courses that did not count toward a degree, regardless of whether credit was earned or transferred.
• Extension programs through which you attempted courses, if a separate transcript is provided by the Extension Division.
• Correspondence and home study programs.
• Military education, including Joint Services classified coursework.
• American schools overseas.
• U.S., U.S. Territorial, and Canadian medical schools.

The AMCAS program does not require official transcripts in the following cases:

• Foreign college outside of the U.S., U.S. Territories, and Canada (not including American colleges overseas).
• Canadian CEGEP/Grade 13 Program.
• Current or upcoming coursework, if you have never previously enrolled at the college (if you select this option, the AMCAS program will not need a copy of the transcript when it becomes available. The AMCAS program will not update grades and/or courses that become available after you submit your application).
• Consortium/cross-registration program, if no separate transcript is available from the school where coursework was attempted.

Note: These institutions must appear in Schools Attended with a transcript exception requested.

The AMCAS program accepts official paper transcripts from all institutions and electronic transcripts from our approved vendors (Certree, National Student Clearinghouse and Parchment) and approved school registrars. Visit your institution's website for more information and guidance on their processes. The AMCAS program prefers electronic transcript submission. For efficient processing, please submit your transcript electronically to the AMCAS program. If you request an electronic transcript, do not send a paper transcript. When requesting e-transcripts, make sure to provide your accurate AAMC ID and Transcript ID to prevent delays. 

Paper Transcripts

Paper transcripts should be mailed to the AMCAS program along with an AMCAS Pre-barcoded Transcript Request Form to help us match your transcript(s) to your application. This form is found within the application. 

Paper transcripts may be sent to the AMCAS program via the U.S. Postal Service or expedited mail services, such as Priority Mail, FedEx, UPS, or DHL. Details for each mail service are included below:

Standard Mail Service: 
AMCAS Program, attn: Transcripts
AAMC Medical School Application Services
P.O. Box 57326
Washington, DC 20037

Expedited Mail Service (Priority Mail, FedEx, UPS, or DHL):

Please note, this address should only be used for transcripts that cannot be sent to a P.O. Box. All other mailed transcripts must be sent to the P.O. Box address to ensure accurate receipt and efficient processing.
AMCAS Program, attn: transcripts
AAMC Medical School Application Services
655 K Street, N.W. Suite 100
Washington, DC 20001

Electronic Transcripts

The AMCAS program only accepts eTranscripts from our approved vendors, Certree, National Student Clearinghouse, and Parchment, and emailed transcripts from approved school registrars. 

If your college or university has not requested that you provide a Transcript ID, they are not yet an approved sender. Requesting an electronic transcript from a school that is not yet approved will result in delays in your application, as you will have to submit another request to your registrar for a paper transcript.

Remember that the AMCAS program continues to accept official paper transcripts from all institutions

• The Transcript ID is used when requesting an etTanscript from Certree, National Student Clearinghouse, and Parchment.
• If your registrar's office does not require the Transcript ID, they cannot submit to the AMCAS program through National Student Clearinghouse and Parchment and you must send a paper transcript.
• Providing the registrar with the Transcript ID the AMCAS application assigned to another one of your schools will delay processing of your application.

No, the AMCAS program will not accept transcripts from applicants under any circumstances. Transcripts must arrive directly from the university registrar's office.

Registrars can send paper transcripts by mail or electronically submit an eTranscript via our approved vendors, Certree, National Student Clearinghouse, and Parchment. Approved registrars can also send emailed transcripts.

Even though you applied previously to the AMCAS program, you will need to resubmit official transcripts. Since we must verify to your designated medical schools that you have not taken any additional courses at a particular school, you must submit new transcripts each year you apply. In addition, the AMCAS application does not keep transcripts on file from previous years' applications. Thus, transcripts submitted in previous years cannot be reactivated.

AMCAS requires that official transcripts from all U.S. and Canadian post-secondary institutions are submitted, regardless of which school(s) accepted this credit. For example, if you take a summer course at a community college and transfer the work to your primary/home institution, AMCAS requires BOTH official transcripts (the one from the community college and the one from your home/primary college) even if the community college coursework also appears on your home institution transcript.

If you want grades from your last quarter or session to be calculated into your AMCAS GPAs, they must be:

• entered correctly in the Coursework section of your application, and
• reflected on your official transcript.

Therefore, if these grades are not available when the AMCAS program receives your transcript, they will not be included in your AMCAS GPAs. In this situation, your AMCAS GPAs will NOT be recalculated even if your registrar sends an updated transcript. You must also consider that the AMCAS program will not verify your application until all of your required transcripts have been marked as Received. 

The AMCAS program will not transmit your application to a medical school if it is not complete by that school's deadline.

For example, if your AMCAS application for School A was received before its October 15 application deadline, but one of your transcripts was received on October 30, one day after School A's transcript deadline, the AMCAS program will not transmit your application to the school. You have missed the deadline, and you are not eligible for a refund.

To prevent these delays from occurring, you should use the AMCAS Transcript Request form when requesting that official transcripts be sent to the AMCAS program in support of their application. You can find this form in the Schools Attended section of the application. This form, which registrars submit to the AMCAS program alongside the requested official transcript(s), includes the AAMC ID, the Alternate ID identified by the applicant as being used by the transcript-issuing institution, and other information helpful to the matching process.

An electronic transcript is either an emailed transcript or eTranscript. The AMCAS program only accepts eTranscripts from our approved vendors, Certree, National Student Clearinghouse, and Parchment. eTranscripts are transmitted to the AMCAS application using an applicant’s AAMC ID and Transcript ID number, which allows the AMCAS program to automatically associate the transcript with the appropriate applicant and school attended. Emailed transcripts are sent to an AAMC email address, manually processed by AMCAS staff, and then associated with the appropriate applicant and school.

The AMCAS program can only accept emailed transcripts from Parchment. We do not accept emailed transcripts from National Student Clearinghouse at this time. eTranscripts can be sent by both vendors. 

The following criteria must be met to constitute an official transcript:

• A transcript must have been sent from the issuing institution.
• The transcript cannot contain cuts, smears, burns marks, tears or any other issue that removes/obscures coursework.
• The transcript must be issued to the AMCAS program.
• Print Date/Date Issued – transcript must be issued within two weeks of receipt by the AMCAS program.
• Registrar signature and/or seal.
• Include applicant identifying information (name, date of birth)
• Verify the number of pages. 

Any transcript that does not meet our criteria cannot be used to process an application.

The AMCAS program requires that all transcripts must be issued/printed within 14 days before the date the AMCAS program receives your transcript. Please see example below of an acceptable issue/print date. 

Please note that any transcript received by the AMCAS program that was not issued/printed within 14 days before receipt will not be used to process an application. The applicant will be notified via email and should request another transcript.