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Started by summer2002
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Personally, I think it would be too late.
Best case, let's say you do very well in July. You still wouldn't get the score back until almost mid-August, which is late (for the phase of the cycle you would be in). While other people are getting their first interviews, you would be scrambling to assemble a school list and write/turn over secondaries to those schools. And that's assuming an ideal situation where you were able to submit all of those secondaries the very same day as they came in, which is impossible. It would put you at a disadvantage to being complete earlier in the cycle.
The question is really whether the risk of not being maximally early is worth it to you. If you have the GPA and the good ECs you say and you get the 520, hey, maybe applying in August is not going to make or break your cycle. But say you end up with a more borderline score for your schools, or even slightly below their 10th percentile to the point where you could have argued that, hey, maybe having been 2, 3, 4 weeks earlier could have been meaningful in terms of whether you got the interview or not.
Worst case, you don't like your score, and then what? If you only applied to one school (the throwaway method), well, you withdraw and you can try again next cycle, taking the MCAT at some point throughout the fall/winter. You would not really be doing yourself a favor by taking it in July if you are not ready by then, either, because schools will see the score when you do retake and come around to applying again.
I don't know who you are or what resources you have, but I always assume a person can only give it one good try at admissions (it was the case for me). I needed to have a better-than-not chance of making it, and that meant I needed to exploit every possible advantage I possibly could.
If it were me, I would not apply with a plan to take a July MCAT for this cycle. Especially if you are only a month away and still not scoring where you need to. I say postpone until later in the fall/winter if you are still unsure, so that you can rest easy and pre-write for next cycle knowing exactly what your application looks like and where you will be applying.
Best case, let's say you do very well in July. You still wouldn't get the score back until almost mid-August, which is late (for the phase of the cycle you would be in). While other people are getting their first interviews, you would be scrambling to assemble a school list and write/turn over secondaries to those schools. And that's assuming an ideal situation where you were able to submit all of those secondaries the very same day as they came in, which is impossible. It would put you at a disadvantage to being complete earlier in the cycle.
The question is really whether the risk of not being maximally early is worth it to you. If you have the GPA and the good ECs you say and you get the 520, hey, maybe applying in August is not going to make or break your cycle. But say you end up with a more borderline score for your schools, or even slightly below their 10th percentile to the point where you could have argued that, hey, maybe having been 2, 3, 4 weeks earlier could have been meaningful in terms of whether you got the interview or not.
Worst case, you don't like your score, and then what? If you only applied to one school (the throwaway method), well, you withdraw and you can try again next cycle, taking the MCAT at some point throughout the fall/winter. You would not really be doing yourself a favor by taking it in July if you are not ready by then, either, because schools will see the score when you do retake and come around to applying again.
I don't know who you are or what resources you have, but I always assume a person can only give it one good try at admissions (it was the case for me). I needed to have a better-than-not chance of making it, and that meant I needed to exploit every possible advantage I possibly could.
If it were me, I would not apply with a plan to take a July MCAT for this cycle. Especially if you are only a month away and still not scoring where you need to. I say postpone until later in the fall/winter if you are still unsure, so that you can rest easy and pre-write for next cycle knowing exactly what your application looks like and where you will be applying.
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