Medical 3.98/511 MCAT. To retake or not?

Status
Not open for further replies.

AlteredScale

Full Member
Staff member
Administrator
Volunteer Staff
10+ Year Member
Joined
May 10, 2013
Messages
9,049
Reaction score
8,528
Hi everyone,

main question: Wondering if I should retake my MCAT? Aiming for low and mid-tier MD's, applying broadly to 30 US MD schools and a few reaches within that mix ( but I would not be upset if they rejected me). My advisors keep insisting on a retake and i'm hesitant, considering my average was a 513 and I scored only 2 points below that

Gpa: sGPA: 3.98 cGPA: 3.98

MCAT: 511 (127/124/130/130) on my mcat when I took it in August.I'm applying 21-22 cycle and will be submitting on the first day to maximize my chances. I submitted my committee letter app already and am pre-writing secondaries. I plan on applying broadly to 30 schools. My MCAT FL average was a 513, so 511 is within range.

Demographics: White female but am a first generation immigrant, Low SES and disadvantaged status. NY resident. I also speak a second language fluently, it was my first language, and I speak it at home w my fam. It's not a commonly spoken language, and I have been asked to translate once while shadowing which was super cool! I also speak Spanish at an intermediate level

EC's:

Research:
-5000+ hours by the time I apply
-Corona virus research summer program (online, helped organize this under the supervision of a physician. We did literature reviews and held a conference for members of the general public): 50 hours
-publication in a high impact journal
-4 oral presentations at national conferences
-Was on a research fellowship for 2 years
-2 awards for my oral presentations

Clinical:
-200 hours as ER volunteer (it was over 2.5 years, and I have lots to talk about since it was at a very crowded hospital). Stopped in late Feb because of COVID
-100 + shadowing hours (OB-Gyn, Heme-onc, urological surgery, thoracic surgery, gastric surgery, anesthesiology, etc)

Non-clinical:
-President and mentor of a mentoring initiative started at my college: 800+ hours, this is ongoing
-Health educator for a non-profit org: 144 hour
-Teaching assistant for summer students in a research program I was in: 100+ hours

Awards/Honors:
Research Fellowship
Phi Beta Kappa
Salutatorian as well as departmental honors
Scholarship to study abroad
Got an award for the mentorship I provided to research summer students at MSKCC
Academic honors program at my college (was also my second major, interdisciplinary focus and I wrote an honors paper on the link between health inequity and pop culture/history/etc)
Two research awards for my oral presentations

Work experience:
Research is above so I won't include that here
-College advisor under DOE: 300 hours (At my old high school, and my disadvantaged statement explains my motivation for participating in this activity)
-Bio tutor: over 800 hours, ongoing

LORS: PI from the first lab I was in, Current PI, Physician I worked with extensively (also the chair of her dept), clinical letter from a supervisor, bio prof who I tutored for
All my letter writers know me very well

As far as outreach, I spoke with admissions at Virginia Tech. I know they're a little picky (small class size, prefer a specific type of student, etc). They told me they can't give me specifics but that I have a good, broad range of activities and experiences

I've been interacting with students at Weill Cornell a lot. My previous PI is actually a professor there and like I said I was fortunate to get a really strong letter from him. I went to a zoom event cornell had for networking, then another event specifically for first gen/low income students. I'm also going to a conference they are holding tomorrow

I went to a few open houses (Oakland and SUNY Upstate so far) but will be going to more as they are offered

My PI has a lot of connections to his alma mater, and to the current institution we are working in so i'm hoping to meet with an admissions officer.

Are there any other things you recommend doing? I don't want to make it appear that i'm playing the system but it would be great to speak to more people to get my name out there
Nothing else to really do. You have a strong application all around. Your Mcat is around 85th percentile. Unless you feel that you can make significant improvement from this I don’t think it’s worth retaking.

Of course having strong connections with medical schools through your research is good, but don’t bank on it getting anything beyond an interview. Everyone goes through the same process unless you donate millions to the medical school and even then no guarantees. Lucky for you your application is strong enough with it just standing alone.

Members don't see this ad.
 
Thank you so much for reading through that long post and for your reply! Yeah I definitely don't think I can score much higher than what I already got just given my average. I was trying to explain this to my advisors but they were very insistent on having me retake (I'm being patient with them of course, and playing nice since my college has a committee letter). Hearing this definitely provides a lot of clarity and makes me more confident in my decision not to retake so thank you!

That's great advice, i'm definitely not gonna get my hopes up too much since the process can be so unpredictable. I'm just gonna apply broadly, work hard to make sure my app gets in on day 1 and spend a lot of time on secondaries since I have the time to do so at the moment

Thanks again!!
Wouldn't retake. You have a solid app and should get some looks.
 
your advisor is yet another datapoint that pre-med advisors are idiots.

If you get rejected from Medical School, it will not be due to your MCAT score.

I recommend that you get in more service to others less fortunate than yourself, and off-campus and out of your comfort zone.
 
She gave me the weirdest advice. She said if I don't retake I should apply early decision, which makes no sense considering that would just limit my pool even more and be a waste of a cycle if I get rejected so I ignored her. She basically insinuated that I would not get accepted with my current MCAT score which scared me a bit.

Thanks!! So my college advisor position, the TA position and health educator position were all with underserved/immigrant students. the college advisor position was at my old high school which is poorly funded, the TA position was for a summer program specific to minority students and health educator position was at high schools in low income schools. I will def seek out more opportunities though
Play the bolded up in your apps!!!!!
 
This person should be fired.
I was trying my best to explain to her why I don't want to retake (scored around my average, would rather focus on my app, ec's, things of that sort) but she completely disregarded my concerns, which made me doubt myself. A friend of mine retook a 513 because of CARS and ended up with a 505... The advisor also recommended if I do retake, to retake in August of the cycle I am applying, which again is bologna. Luckily I do enough reading on here and the premed subreddit to know that it's not good advice. I feel genuinely concerned for students who don't have/don't know about outside resources and listen to her advice. I really, really appreciate your advice as well as everyone else on here to help students like myself in these situations
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top