What is the Eight-Week Guarantee?
The overarching purpose of the 8-week guarantee is to assist the Health Professions Evaluation Committee with prioritizing the completion and submission of applicants’ letter packets.
Large group management of a complex process such as applying to professional school is difficult, as each individual’s application contains multiple moving parts at any given time. To assist with the prioritization of numerous and unique populations who are at different stages of the application process at any given time, UMBC’s pre-health committee established an 8-week guarantee for applicants. If a MD or MD/PhD applicant has met certain criteria, the Health Professions Evaluation Committee (HPEC) provides a guarantee to such eligible applicants that their committee letter packets will be sent to the centralized application service within 8 weeks of the applicant’s AMCAS ‘completely processed’ date.
An applicant is eligible for the 8-week guarantee if they properly fulfill all of their HPEC obligations, including but not limited to, attending any mandatory application or committee-related meetings or workshops such as the annual Kickoff Workshop for currently enrolled students, and properly completing homework assignments in accordance to assignment instructions, and properly meeting homework or other committee related deadlines which are established by the pre-health committee. All applicants must fulfill all of their application and HPEC-related responsibilities prior to the letter packet being uploaded, regardless of 8-week guarantee qualification.
For example, an applicant is ineligible for the 8-week guarantee if the applicant missed any mandatory workshops or was late with any HPEC assignments or deadlines or received a zero grade for any assignments or did not properly fulfill their HPEC obligations in some manner. The committee uses Blackboard for assignment grades—a valuable tool that keeps all applicants informed of their individual assignment grades and in turn, their eligibility for the 8-week guarantee.
Regardless of 8-week guarantee eligibility, all letter packets are sent to the centralized application service in a timely manner and prior to any individual medical school’s AMCAS submission deadline.