That sucks your MCAT was 4 lower than your average. I heard a lot of bad things about the Oct 21 test, I think people also complained about the Nov 7 one also?
I like your advice of trying not to have the all-or-nothing approach, in theory. But there really is a ton of pressure for us taking the exam in January. I think more so than people taking the test at any other time, because of the switch to the new MCAT. For us, if we score lower than what we are willing to accept, then we will have to study for a very different test. Therefore, there is an immense amount of pressure on us, yet that immense pressure may very well cause us to perform worse than expected, like you said.
So I guess my question is, what kind of approach are you going to have for this exam, if not an all-or-nothing approach, because it kind of is an all-or-nothing situation.
Also, with people taking the past couple of tests noticing a lower than expected score, doesn't this further increase your anxiety. It makes me think that the same thing could easily happen for the Jan 8 exam, where retaking becomes a much bigger problem.