When to take the MCAT: backward from TMDSAS and AMCAS deadlines

You’re a junior trying to decide whether to take the MCAT this spring or wait for the summer, and the advice you have heard contradicts itself. The answer is to count backward from the day you want your application submitted: scores take about a month to arrive, both applications open in May, and so a test in late March, April or May gives you a score in hand for an early submission while a June test is the latest that keeps you in the early part of the review. The rest of this article is the dates table and the reasoning for each window.

The answer, in one sentence

Pick the earliest date that falls after you have finished the prerequisite content and can show a full-length trend at your target, and no later than June of your application year.

That sentence has two halves and people usually only hear one. The deadline half says earlier is better. The readiness half says a May score that misses by six points is worse than a July score that hits, because a retake costs more time than two months of waiting. The calendar below exists to serve the second half, not to override it.

The application dates

These are the published dates for the cycle that opens in 2026 for students entering medical school in fall 2027. Each one is marked for verification; both services publish their calendars and update them.

TMDSAS publishes its deadlines at tmdsas.com and does not extend them; AMCAS dates are at the AAMC’s site (format and application details at students-residents.aamc.org). Both services run rolling review, which means a complete file in June is read before a complete file in September, and that fact matters more than any single deadline in the table.

Score release changes the math

The AAMC releases scores roughly 30 to 35 days after each test date, by 5 PM Eastern on a published release day [verify]. That lag is the hinge of the whole decision, because an application that lists a pending score is submitted but often not reviewed until the number arrives.

So the real question is not “when is the deadline” but “when do I want my file complete.” If the answer is the first week of June, you need a score released by then, which means a test date in late April or earlier. If the answer is early July, a late May test works. If you are willing to be read in late July or August, a June test is fine.

Work it as a subtraction. Target file-complete date, minus 35 days, equals your latest test date.

There is one more variable, and it is the one that makes early matter: rolling review. Both services read files roughly in the order they become complete, so a score that lands in June meets a short queue and one that lands in September meets a long one. The deadline is the same for both files. The odds are not.

The MCAT calendar

Per the AAMC, the exam is offered from January through September, with roughly 30 U.S. test dates a year and none in October, November or December [verify]. Dates cluster in the spring and summer. The table maps a test month to a score month and to what that score supports.

Registration for a given year’s dates opens the preceding fall, and seats at convenient centers go early [verify]. The reschedule fee rises as the date approaches and no changes are allowed inside 10 days [verify], so pick carefully and register early rather than holding a date you do not intend to keep.

Four candidate windows

Most juniors are choosing between four realistic windows. Here is how each one trades off.

January of junior year. Strong if you finished biochemistry and the psychology and sociology content by the end of fall and used winter break for the final push. The score arrives in February, leaving a spring retake option before the cycle opens. Weak if your fall was heavy; a January test prepared during finals is a January test you retake.

Late March to April of junior year. The most common choice for a reason. A spring semester of study, a test before finals get serious, a score in hand when submissions open. The cost is a hard semester: you are preparing for the exam and carrying a course load at the same time, which is why the study plan has to be built around the semester calendar rather than on top of it.

May, right after finals. Two or three weeks of dedicated study after the semester ends, then the test. The score lands in June, early enough for the front of rolling review. The risk is compression: if the semester went badly, three weeks is not enough to recover and you have no retake room before the file goes stale.

June, after a dedicated month. A full month of study with no classes, a test in mid-June, a score in July. This is the latest window that keeps you early, and it is the right one for students whose spring was full or who need the dedicated time. Past this, you are trading review position for preparation, and the trade gets worse every week.

Taking the exam the summer after sophomore year is a fifth option for students who finished the prerequisites early. It works only if the content is actually done; an early date with missing coursework is a retake with extra steps. When it does work, it leaves the junior year free for the application itself, which is a real advantage for anyone carrying a heavy load.

Prerequisites you need finished before the date

The calendar is only half the decision. The content the exam draws on is set by the AAMC, and taking the test before you have covered it is the most common reason for a retake.

Before any date, you want completed coursework or equivalent self-study in general chemistry, organic chemistry, physics, biology, biochemistry, and the psychology and sociology material the behavioral sciences section tests. Biochemistry and the behavioral sciences content are the two most often missing at the moment students pick a date, because they sit later in most pre-med sequences and because psychology and sociology are not always required.

If your biochemistry course ends in May, a March test date is wrong no matter how good the calendar looks. Either move the date to June or plan to self-study the course’s content with a review book and question practice through the spring, which is possible but adds hours. Be honest about which one you are doing.

One more constraint sits on the other end. Most schools accept scores only within a window of about three years before matriculation [verify], which rarely binds a junior applying on schedule but matters for anyone planning a gap year or two. Check the policy at each school on your list before taking the exam early.

The second readiness check is the full-length trend. Two AAMC full-lengths at or near your target in the six weeks before the date is the signal to keep it. Two full-lengths well below the target is the signal to move it, and the earlier you move it, the cheaper the move.

When to move the date

Moving a test date is not a failure. It’s a decision, and it should be made with the same arithmetic as the original choice.

Move it when your last two full-lengths are more than four or five points below your target with fewer than six weeks to go, when a prerequisite course is not finished, or when life has taken more than two weeks out of the plan with no way to recover them. The reschedule fee is small if you are more than a month out and grows as you get closer [verify], and either number is small next to a lost cycle.

Do not move it for nerves alone, and do not move it twice. A second move usually means the plan is the problem, not the date, and that is a different fix.

The AAMC limits attempts to three in a testing year, four across two consecutive years, and seven in a lifetime, and voids and no-shows count. A moved date is not an attempt. A rushed one is.

What to do this week

1. Write down the date you want your application file complete, and subtract 35 days. That is your latest test date.
2. Open the AAMC testing calendar and circle the dates in the two weeks before that number. Check seat availability at your two nearest centers.
3. List your prerequisite courses with completion dates. If biochemistry or the behavioral sciences content is not done by six weeks before your circled date, move the circle.
4. Register. Rescheduling later is cheaper than losing a seat you wanted.
5. Put the TMDSAS and AMCAS opening dates on the same calendar so the study plan and the application plan are one document.
6. If you want to hear when our MCAT program opens, join the waitlist. The date decision does not wait for us.