American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS)
1 required essay, 2 optional for the 2026-27 cycle.
Deadlines
| Round | Date |
|---|---|
| 2027 AMCAS application opens | May 5, 2026 |
Essays
Personal statement (AMCAS, AACOMAS, TMDSAS) · 5,300 characters (spaces are counted as characters), or approximately one page · required
Every applicant is required to submit a Personal Comments essay. Use the Personal Comments Essay as an opportunity to distinguish yourself from other applicants. Some questions you may want to consider while writing this essay are: Why have you selected the field of medicine? What motivates you to learn more about medicine? What do you want medical schools to know about you that has not been disclosed in other sections of the application? In addition, you may wish to include information such as: unique hardships, challenges, or obstacles that may have influenced your educational pursuits; commentary on significant fluctuations in your academic record that are not explained elsewhere in your application.
Secondary essay · 3,000 characters · optional
MD-PhD Essay: Use the MD-PhD Essay to state your reasons for pursuing the combined MD-PhD degree. Your essay will be forwarded only to your designated MD-PhD programs.
Secondary essay · 10,000 characters · optional
Significant Research Experience Essay: If you're applying to MD-PhD programs, you're also required to write an essay that describes your significant research experiences. In this essay, please specify your research supervisor's name and affiliation, the duration of the experience, the nature of the problem you studied, and your contributions to the research effort.
The 2027 AMCAS application (matriculation 2027) is the one open during the 2026-27 cycle; the AAMC pages fetched are labelled 2027 AMCAS Applicant Guide. The Personal Comments Essay goes to every school unchanged and is plain text only. The two MD-PhD essays are only for MD-PhD applicants; their prompts and limits were fetched from their own guide chapters. Individual schools set their own deadlines (most between October 15 and December 1); the May 5, 2026 open date comes from an AAMC search snippet, the dates page itself would not load.
Checked against students-residents.aamc.org/applying-medical-school-amcas/publication-chapters/personal-comments-essay on September 9, 2026. Programs change their prompts between cycles; confirm on the program’s own page before you submit.
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Common questions
- How many essays does American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS) require for 2026-27?
- 1 required and 2 optional, 3 in total. Every prompt is listed on this page word for word, with the length each one states.
- How long should the AMCAS personal statement be?
- 5,300 characters (spaces are counted as characters), or approximately one page. That is the length the program states on its own page, which this record was read from on September 9, 2026.
- When is the AMCAS 2026-27 deadline?
- 2027 AMCAS application opens: May 5, 2026.