I'm still trying to decide whether or not I should submit my amcas this cycle with the 24. Schools are going to see all my scores next year when I reapply anyways. So why not give it a shot now? Just to my in state schools
Let's walk through the very, very likely sequence of what happens if you apply this cycle, indicating a pending retake. Schools will know that you are trying again, but that 5 is going to look VERY bad to them, and a great many of them will decide to chuck your application without even waiting to see what you get on the retake. Your cycle will already be circling the drain by the time your retake is even scored, and only a fraction of your original list will ever bother to look at what your second score is. So, your best case scenario this cycle is applying widely just to have a few schools who will still be interested by the time your retake comes in, and hopefully your retake is strong enough to impress them (even though a 7-8 average on verbal is not encouraging - a 1-2 point difference between practice and test day is common, so I think you need to plan on several months of effort to really ensure the necessary growth). Even for those schools, you'll still be relatively late in the cycle, so you'll have forfeit a great advantage for underdogs like yourself. All of this leads to an application cycle strongly predisposed to failure.
Now let's look at next year, assuming you try and you fail this cycle. The second you mark down "reapplicant", schools immediately shift to a HEAVY emphasis on what you've done just this past year, looking for substantial achievement that convinces them to maybe now give you a shot. Improving your score, even all the way to a 30, is not going to be a very powerful improvement in adcoms' eyes, when assessing if you as a re-applicant are fundamentally stronger now than you were last cycle. I know it doesn't really seem to make sense - if your score now is the only thing holding you back, why wouldn't fixing it be enough for success as a reapplicant? However, they really look for strong
across-the-board improvement in re-applicants, and in your case, they wouldn't see it, unless you did a lot of good stuff
in addition to MCAT prep.
Therefore, the net prognosis for applying this cycle: you have a chance this cycle, but it's not a good one at all, and it depends on luck as much as timing and effort at this point. A failed cycle forces you to try again as a re-applicant, at which point you will no longer be hamstrung only by your verbal score - you will now have to contend with the re-applicant stigma, which will require more extensive work on your application to overcome.
The heavily recommended alternative in this thread is to forgo this cycle, and apply for the first time next one. Obviously you have no chance of starting school next fall if you don't apply, but as we are saying, you have only a remote chance of success even if you DO apply, so it's not that much of a concession. Far more importantly, however, next cycle you can make your first, best attempt at acceptance by submitting the day AMCAS opens, with a much improved score and no reapplicant stigma. A true recipe for success.
So it's your decision, and it's one that only you can make. Is a small chance of starting next fall worth the heavy risk of introducing another obstacle to acceptance in future attempts? Or is it better to focus on only one application cycle, with ample time to make it the absolute best it can be?
but you can't be faulted for it. Everyone cannot be made plural, that's the general rule.
