I took the MCAT last week and I was planning to submit my AMCAS application for fall of 2010 prior to receiving my MCAT scores as I don't want to apply too late. Now that I took the MCAT, I'm not so sure. I didn't feel terrible about it, but the physical sciences seemed really hard to me and I ended up just filling in some answers because of the time constraint. I also thought that the o-chem was difficult; I probably felt comfortable on about 50% of the questions. Bio and Verbal was ok. Anyways, now I am trying to decide whether to submit my AMCAS application without receiving my scores or wait until I receive them, which is pretty late to submit from what I hear. I am an ER nurse with a double major in Spanish, my undergrad GPA was a 3.85 and I have As in physics, orgo, and my bios. I also have done a great deal of medical mission work. I was scoring 25-27s on the last 3 diagnostics I took before the MCAT. I really do not want to wait until next year to apply, but I also don't want to submit the AMCAS if my MCAT is too low for me to get accepted. Any feedback would be appreciated!
Apply now or wait until after I get my MCAT scores?
- Thread starter ERNurse
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Why not go ahead and submit, but to just one school for now, so your transcripts will be verified. If your score comes back lower than expected, you won't be out too much money. If the score is good to go, add more schools and they'll get the whole package within a day. Meanwhile work on essays so you can return Secondaries within a day ot two when you are invited to do so.
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Go ahead and submit. Your GPA is pretty rockin so you have more leeway with your mcat score. I would submit to a good number of schools, at least 5 or 6 (how many were you thinking of doing?) I took the MCAT on friday as well and am hoping to get my AACOMAS/AMCAS submitted by the end of this week since it takes a month to get verified anyway. Have you looked into DO schools? Many will accept a LOR from a MD instead of a DO and they are more lenient than allopathic schools when it comes to mcat.
Thanks guys! Very helpful advice. I am going to go ahead and submit the AMCAS (once I finish my essay!) but just to one school. I was planning to apply to 7 or 8 MD schools but I will add the rest once I get back my score. I just started looking into DO, which actually seems right in line with nursing in terms of viewing the patient holistically...so I think I will apply at least to Michigan State's DO school...
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Good choice! As for DO schools, their application takes so long to process! I submitted mine 7/19 (with transcripts having previously been received 6/12) and it is still processing, so if you can start that ASAP! The DO application window is a little longer than the allopathic cycle, but you never wanna risk it too much by taking too long. Plus, many schools want an osteopathic LOR (some will let you substitute an MD or other type of letter, but some are strict)- so you may want to get working on that too. Good luck, any other questions feel free to PM me!
