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Now that I’m beginning residency, my tutoring is likely going to slow to a stop in the next two years. I didn’t want that knowledge to disappear into thin air, so I’m sharing the accumulation of my 7 years of tutoring insights here. This is tailored to the average student. I’ve worked with retakers, nontrads, 485s and 520s and everything in between. Different students need different methods, so take this advice with a grain of salt if your case is special. I also do admissions consulting and posted something similar for admissions on sdn recently.
1. Test Prep Materials
I’m a fan of the Kaplan books because they’re simple and students actually finish reading them (unlike PR or BR). 2-3 hours per chapter is typical. For Ochem, everything up to Bonding and Analyzing Reactions is pretty helpful but the rest of the book I find to be overkill. For Biochem, everything past structures feels lower yield to me. Actually, biochem as a whole is lower-yield to me. As long as you know enzyme kinetics, the basics of metabolism cycles (like enzyme names and broad overviews), and the major macromolecules including their smallest units and connections (dna, fat, carb, protein), then you can probably work around everything else. I’ve been hearing rumors about the uEarth books coming out soon, which sound promising.
For practice questions, uEarth is fine. Jack Westin is fine. Practice test bundles are fine. In reality, a lot of students don’t meet their goals and just the AAMC bundle (get this) turns out being enough for them. Don’t forget to apply for FAP if your parents are low-income (you can submit a signed letter for income verification by the way) BEFORE you start studying, because you get free prep materials and a free MCAT. You also get cheaper med school apps and can get most secondaries free/reduced.
2. Practice Tests
Obviously AAMC tests are the most representative, but they are not made equal. When I took the first administration of the new MCAT in 2015 (when they added the psych section), only the unscored sample test and the section bank were available. The psych section has changed over the years. In early years (including AAMC 1 and 2), there is a lot more content checking and fewer combined applications (i.e. they require you to know a concept going in and apply it to a concept described in the passage). AAMC 3, 4, and 5 are much more representative of the current MCAT, which is why students with strong psych knowledge tend to perform worse over the exams, but those with strong test taking skills improve. If you’re weak in both, you may notice no difference.
AAMC1 CARS has the highest number of “logicals” and standalone questions that don’t require reading the passage. This is a common weak area for students who over-rely on reading, and thus scores tend to be lower.
AAMC2 BB is notoriously hard because it has dense genetics passages and difficult figures, but I haven’t noticed the score differential is really that significant.
AAMC4 CP has the most challenging ochem application questions (more on reactions and less on structures).
My personal preference for tests: AAMC > EK and NS/BP > Kaplan and PR.
I don’t have strong opinions about uEarth. Their explanations and features are nice (you’ll use it in medical school, too, it’s the standard), but some of their questions are just ridiculous (aka calculate the distance from the earth to the sun). I found this to be true in medical school as well, some of their question writers need to be reeled in.
I’m not actually a huge fan of the section bank. People tend to have low percentages and freak out about it. Because it’s a bank and not a test, it doesn’t have “balanced” numbers of question types. The psych section bank is particularly weak.
Also, though no one ever talks about it (people are always harping over Jack Westin), there’s a big book of CARS questions by NS (the old name for BP) on amazon for $30 which is ten full sections. It’s called “108 passages in CARS.” It’s a great value.
3. Courses
I’m not a fan of Kaplan or PR courses. Many of my students come to me after saying they wasted $3000 and they actually have to unlearn bad habits. Some test prep companies just want to have their unique branded method and will suggest things like summarizing each paragraph in writing after reading it, which in practice will slow down most students. I was nearly hired 7 years ago for Kaplan, but they were paying their tutors $40/hr then, yet charging students thousands, and the curriculum was too content focused. You don’t need a course to learn content. Also, they were hiring based on scores. My understanding is those tutors are rarely experienced.
If you’re looking for a tutor, try craigslist or just posting on reddit/sdn. There’s so many out there. Make sure to ask them about their experience, what their sessions will consist of, and whether they focus on content or strategy. Do they speak efficiently? If you learn a lot in your 5-minute intake call with them, you’ll learn a lot in your 1 hour session. Price does not always equal quality but often hints at it. In my first two years of tutoring, my prices were low, but I didn’t provide anywhere close to the level and quality of service that I do now.
4. MCAT “methods” and AAMC logic
I could write entire posts on this topic. I see “AAMC logic” a lot in online discussions. I like to think about it more in terms of test-maker mentality. Take a step back from the literal question and imagine what the point of this question is. What do they want you to do? Start noticing patterns in how questions will want you to identify a particular sentence in the passage and then apply a concept to it. Do you notice anything similar about those questions? Challenge yourself not to fall into the trap of “I missed this question because I didn’t know this piece of content.” Students who say this often are not only wrong but preventing themselves from learning test-taking skills. How else could you get the answer without knowing? Does it require changing your methodology (i.e. how you approach each question and what steps you take to answer it), or your mentality?
I have a lot of methods and strategies for specific question types, but in lieu of making this post any longer, just start paying attention to different question types. On CARS for example, “term meaning” questions are all kind of the same. They give you a phrase in quotes and usually a paragraph number in parenthesis. The task is typically the same, imagining what the word must mean or commenting on the purpose of including such a term (how it functions in the argument). Or, when it comes to “main idea” questions, they tend to reference the author’s argument. Or, logicals, which often begin with “Which of the four following facts/assertions/arguments cited in the passage” and typically have a word that connects two claims such as “strengthen/weaken/challenge/support/undermine/logically leads to.” If you start to notice what types of questions exist on each section, you can prepare for them and develop your own specific strategies for them.
One of the hardest things about teaching students new methods is breaking them out of their tunnel-vision gung-ho attitude. Sometimes, students are used to barreling through and reading as fast as they can. Stepping back to think creatively feels counter to their usual method. When you miss reading comprehension questions (the most common question type on all four sections), ask yourself, did I really understand what the question was asking? Can I rephrase the question in 5 words or less using different words than in the question stem? Did the question require you to find 1 key sentence in the passage (common)? Did you have an idea of what the answer must be before you went to the answers? Did you spiral when you read answer choices that felt tangentially related? Did you come up with five dimensions of oh-maybe-this-is-connected to explain each answer choice?
5. Timing Strategies
Are you the type-A perfectionist who can’t let go of a question until you’re 100% sure it’s right, or are you a panicked reader who desperately searches for info when you’re lost? If you’re struggling with timing, chances are you are either over-reading or endlessly deliberating over answer choices. “But I just read slow.” Sorry, unless you have a documented learning disability or disorder of executive function (e.g. ADHD), I don’t believe it. Many students tell me they read slow but when we do questions together, they actually don’t.
Over-readers tend not to be able to recognize it. I convince them by pointing it out every time it happens. Their minds are on a track and they can’t pull themselves out until they find the info. Pay close attention to timing per question. If your timing looks like (2min 30sec, 45 sec, 4min 20 sec, 3min 15sec, 18 sec) for a passage, chances are you’re over-reading and then making up time by blinking past easier questions. My solution is one, notice when you’re flailing and pull yourself out, and two, to develop a concrete, step-by-step methodology that you can practice and follow so your eyes don’t aimlessly wander across the page. Try using a 1.5 min timer that beeps (to snap you awake) for each practice question. Do this for days. You’ll develop an internal clock for when 1.5 minutes has elapsed.
As for the actual exam, some students will flag difficult questions and save them for last. Alternatively, I’m a fan of drawing a box with three columns in the bottom right corner of your scratch paper/whiteboard and doing a 1st pass, 2nd pass, and 3rd pass. The purpose of this is to “let go” of harder questions. If it’s very hard, put it in the 3rd pass column and essentially commit to skipping it, as you’re unlikely to have the time to have a 3rd pass. I find that students often fall for common traps and they have a less than 25% chance of getting these questions right. Thus guessing randomly on a hard question might actually raise their score. Some students will tell me it takes too long to categorize a question into one of three columns, to which, I imagine slapping them on the back of the head—just choose, dummy!
6. Study Plans
It’s common to do 2 months of content and then 2 months of practice. I think that’s fine. Though, I’d recommend doing a few practice questions a day earlier on and spreading out your AAMC exams during the last two months. I’m not a fan of “saving” your AAMC exams for the last two weeks. For one, many students don’t finish them. This is the best material out there. You shouldn’t waste it. Imagine having a year to train for water polo and spending the first 11 months just swimming. Once you’ve finished your content review, I prefer for students to establish a baseline by taking AAMC1 and spreading their AAMC exams out evenly over 1-2 months. You can do FLs from other companies in between, but just remember that their sense of “question types” isn’t as good. The biggest thing that differentiates 520+ scorers from other students is their ability to “look” at a question and understand what is being asked of them rather than shooting in the dark.
As for content, few students who recently completed their prereqs are globally content deficient (except certain nontrads). Instead, they just need spot treatment. Students who focus on strategy early tend to do better. Exceptions are everywhere. I’m full expecting many people to post “but I do suck at content and I did this and it worked for me”—that’s great, but most students know more than they think.
7. Risk factor 1: ADHD
I’ve noticed 3 risk factors that give me cause for concern that a student will underperform on test day relative to their potential. Specifically, “takes stimulants” (or doesn’t and needs to) is the risk factor. I have had multiple students that took the actual exam 3 or 4 times with trends like (504, 503, 506, 518). What happened? Adderall is what happened. It’s not some magic pill that will increase most students’ scores. But for people who legitimately can’t read properly without medication, it’s a game changer. However, stimulants can contribute to anxiety, which often tends to be heightened on test day, and that leads me to…
8. Risk factor 2: Anxiety
It used to be the case that if I ever heard a student use the word ‘anxiety’ in any context, I would become concerned. The MCAT can be anxiety-provoking for anyone. But for someone with pre-existing anxiety, it can easily overwhelm them. For many of my students (who become retakers), therapy and antidepressants are what they need to raise their score, not studying. I spend an inordinate amount of time recommending therapy to certain students.
Unfortunately, anxiety is common amongst medical students and not surprisingly it runs rampant in premedical students, at an age where it it’s less likely to have been fully treated (given treatment can often take years if not a lifetime). It takes a special sort of person to subject themselves to the horrors of the med school application process.
If you have testing anxiety, reach out to a therapist now. If you’re still in school, perfect, many student mental health centers have anxiety experts and are used to working with testing anxiety.
9. Risk factor 3: Nontraditional
If you took two years off after med school to be a medical assistant, you are not nontraditional and this will not apply to you.
Nontraditional students do worse, not only on the MCAT, but in medical school admissions. The vast majority of my nontraditional students did not ever make it to matriculation. It’s not that their life experiences weren’t coveted by admissions, but that real life got in the way. They gave up on their exam because a work deadline was moved up. They decided against applying for yet another year due to financial constraints. They decided they couldn’t be a parent and a doctor. People move away from medicine for all types of reasons. If you’re nontraditional and reading this, I’m not trying to dissuade you, but to clarify the additional barriers you’ll have to overcome. Many don’t take content review seriously enough or think that reading review books will be enough to jog their memory of classes they took a decade ago.
If you are non-traditional, GET SERIOUS. I had a student that locked himself in his bedroom every night for 3 hours for nearly a year. His wife took care of his 3 kids during this time.
10. Test Day
Replicate test day conditions before your test day. Know what you’re going to eat and drink, when you’ll wake up, and how far the drive is. If you use scratch paper at home, remember that some testing centers use white boards and markers that are less practical and may slow you down a bit. Bring extra food and drink options. You might find that a dry sandwich doesn’t appeal to you on test day. You find yourself feeling unusually tired and need a caffeine boost even if you normally don’t rely on caffeine. Having additional tools and options is always a plus. You can usually bring ear plugs into the testing center.
11. Retaking
I’ve had several students retake the MCAT after scoring in the 512-515 range. I personally retook a 512 and got a 523. My case is the exception. Retaking a BALANCED 512 is a mistake. Some students do worse, and the risk of not improving enough to justify your retake is more than significant, it’s almost assured. Do you think a 515 is that much better than a 512? Did you really commit months of your life for that? I consider a balanced 508 to 512 to be a gray zone, where you probably shouldn’t retake but there are some specific situations that could justify it. Below 508, if a student wants to retake I won’t argue with them, but it’s really not the best option for most students. I’m biased as a tutor, but I see what students go through and what they sacrifice for a retake. A 506 with 127 in the sciences is just fine for DO and doesn’t mean MD is completely off the table. These are all GENERAL rules, so please don’t quote me and try to draw a hard line. Every situation is different.
FAQ
-I feel like I bombed my MCAT? Should I start preparing for a retake?
Generally, no. If you have objective evidence of having failed, like leaving many questions blank or a fire alarm disrupting your session, then consider it. Otherwise, your stress and anxiety are likely affecting your perception of your performance. I have countless students who began studying for a month and then stopped when they got their score. Why waste the time? Go do something fulfilling.
-What MCAT score do I need to get accepted?
Loaded question and different for every student based on many factors of their application. GENERALLY, I used to see a 508 as a low bar for acceptance into at least one no-name US MD school WITH a good application. But most students don’t have a good application, and expectations for high MCAT score have been rising in recent years. Luckily, DO schools are more forgiving and the difference between MD and DO is growing more narrow by the year.
-Should I retake?
It’s really up to you. Can you handle committing many more months of your life? Can your application be improved in other ways? What specialties do you have in mind, and does DO severely limit your options for applying to that specialty? There are plenty of DOs in EM, IM, FM, Peds, Neuro, and Psych. Did something happen on test day and are you really confident you can improve your score? Remember that some people score worse. There’s a lot of variability in scores.
-My income is limited. What test prep should I buy?
Start small. Get the AAMC bundle (apply FAP) and second-hand review books (they don’t change much year by year). If you find yourself blasting through the AAMC question packs, then spring for uEarth.
1. Test Prep Materials
I’m a fan of the Kaplan books because they’re simple and students actually finish reading them (unlike PR or BR). 2-3 hours per chapter is typical. For Ochem, everything up to Bonding and Analyzing Reactions is pretty helpful but the rest of the book I find to be overkill. For Biochem, everything past structures feels lower yield to me. Actually, biochem as a whole is lower-yield to me. As long as you know enzyme kinetics, the basics of metabolism cycles (like enzyme names and broad overviews), and the major macromolecules including their smallest units and connections (dna, fat, carb, protein), then you can probably work around everything else. I’ve been hearing rumors about the uEarth books coming out soon, which sound promising.
For practice questions, uEarth is fine. Jack Westin is fine. Practice test bundles are fine. In reality, a lot of students don’t meet their goals and just the AAMC bundle (get this) turns out being enough for them. Don’t forget to apply for FAP if your parents are low-income (you can submit a signed letter for income verification by the way) BEFORE you start studying, because you get free prep materials and a free MCAT. You also get cheaper med school apps and can get most secondaries free/reduced.
2. Practice Tests
Obviously AAMC tests are the most representative, but they are not made equal. When I took the first administration of the new MCAT in 2015 (when they added the psych section), only the unscored sample test and the section bank were available. The psych section has changed over the years. In early years (including AAMC 1 and 2), there is a lot more content checking and fewer combined applications (i.e. they require you to know a concept going in and apply it to a concept described in the passage). AAMC 3, 4, and 5 are much more representative of the current MCAT, which is why students with strong psych knowledge tend to perform worse over the exams, but those with strong test taking skills improve. If you’re weak in both, you may notice no difference.
AAMC1 CARS has the highest number of “logicals” and standalone questions that don’t require reading the passage. This is a common weak area for students who over-rely on reading, and thus scores tend to be lower.
AAMC2 BB is notoriously hard because it has dense genetics passages and difficult figures, but I haven’t noticed the score differential is really that significant.
AAMC4 CP has the most challenging ochem application questions (more on reactions and less on structures).
My personal preference for tests: AAMC > EK and NS/BP > Kaplan and PR.
I don’t have strong opinions about uEarth. Their explanations and features are nice (you’ll use it in medical school, too, it’s the standard), but some of their questions are just ridiculous (aka calculate the distance from the earth to the sun). I found this to be true in medical school as well, some of their question writers need to be reeled in.
I’m not actually a huge fan of the section bank. People tend to have low percentages and freak out about it. Because it’s a bank and not a test, it doesn’t have “balanced” numbers of question types. The psych section bank is particularly weak.
Also, though no one ever talks about it (people are always harping over Jack Westin), there’s a big book of CARS questions by NS (the old name for BP) on amazon for $30 which is ten full sections. It’s called “108 passages in CARS.” It’s a great value.
3. Courses
I’m not a fan of Kaplan or PR courses. Many of my students come to me after saying they wasted $3000 and they actually have to unlearn bad habits. Some test prep companies just want to have their unique branded method and will suggest things like summarizing each paragraph in writing after reading it, which in practice will slow down most students. I was nearly hired 7 years ago for Kaplan, but they were paying their tutors $40/hr then, yet charging students thousands, and the curriculum was too content focused. You don’t need a course to learn content. Also, they were hiring based on scores. My understanding is those tutors are rarely experienced.
If you’re looking for a tutor, try craigslist or just posting on reddit/sdn. There’s so many out there. Make sure to ask them about their experience, what their sessions will consist of, and whether they focus on content or strategy. Do they speak efficiently? If you learn a lot in your 5-minute intake call with them, you’ll learn a lot in your 1 hour session. Price does not always equal quality but often hints at it. In my first two years of tutoring, my prices were low, but I didn’t provide anywhere close to the level and quality of service that I do now.
4. MCAT “methods” and AAMC logic
I could write entire posts on this topic. I see “AAMC logic” a lot in online discussions. I like to think about it more in terms of test-maker mentality. Take a step back from the literal question and imagine what the point of this question is. What do they want you to do? Start noticing patterns in how questions will want you to identify a particular sentence in the passage and then apply a concept to it. Do you notice anything similar about those questions? Challenge yourself not to fall into the trap of “I missed this question because I didn’t know this piece of content.” Students who say this often are not only wrong but preventing themselves from learning test-taking skills. How else could you get the answer without knowing? Does it require changing your methodology (i.e. how you approach each question and what steps you take to answer it), or your mentality?
I have a lot of methods and strategies for specific question types, but in lieu of making this post any longer, just start paying attention to different question types. On CARS for example, “term meaning” questions are all kind of the same. They give you a phrase in quotes and usually a paragraph number in parenthesis. The task is typically the same, imagining what the word must mean or commenting on the purpose of including such a term (how it functions in the argument). Or, when it comes to “main idea” questions, they tend to reference the author’s argument. Or, logicals, which often begin with “Which of the four following facts/assertions/arguments cited in the passage” and typically have a word that connects two claims such as “strengthen/weaken/challenge/support/undermine/logically leads to.” If you start to notice what types of questions exist on each section, you can prepare for them and develop your own specific strategies for them.
One of the hardest things about teaching students new methods is breaking them out of their tunnel-vision gung-ho attitude. Sometimes, students are used to barreling through and reading as fast as they can. Stepping back to think creatively feels counter to their usual method. When you miss reading comprehension questions (the most common question type on all four sections), ask yourself, did I really understand what the question was asking? Can I rephrase the question in 5 words or less using different words than in the question stem? Did the question require you to find 1 key sentence in the passage (common)? Did you have an idea of what the answer must be before you went to the answers? Did you spiral when you read answer choices that felt tangentially related? Did you come up with five dimensions of oh-maybe-this-is-connected to explain each answer choice?
5. Timing Strategies
Are you the type-A perfectionist who can’t let go of a question until you’re 100% sure it’s right, or are you a panicked reader who desperately searches for info when you’re lost? If you’re struggling with timing, chances are you are either over-reading or endlessly deliberating over answer choices. “But I just read slow.” Sorry, unless you have a documented learning disability or disorder of executive function (e.g. ADHD), I don’t believe it. Many students tell me they read slow but when we do questions together, they actually don’t.
Over-readers tend not to be able to recognize it. I convince them by pointing it out every time it happens. Their minds are on a track and they can’t pull themselves out until they find the info. Pay close attention to timing per question. If your timing looks like (2min 30sec, 45 sec, 4min 20 sec, 3min 15sec, 18 sec) for a passage, chances are you’re over-reading and then making up time by blinking past easier questions. My solution is one, notice when you’re flailing and pull yourself out, and two, to develop a concrete, step-by-step methodology that you can practice and follow so your eyes don’t aimlessly wander across the page. Try using a 1.5 min timer that beeps (to snap you awake) for each practice question. Do this for days. You’ll develop an internal clock for when 1.5 minutes has elapsed.
As for the actual exam, some students will flag difficult questions and save them for last. Alternatively, I’m a fan of drawing a box with three columns in the bottom right corner of your scratch paper/whiteboard and doing a 1st pass, 2nd pass, and 3rd pass. The purpose of this is to “let go” of harder questions. If it’s very hard, put it in the 3rd pass column and essentially commit to skipping it, as you’re unlikely to have the time to have a 3rd pass. I find that students often fall for common traps and they have a less than 25% chance of getting these questions right. Thus guessing randomly on a hard question might actually raise their score. Some students will tell me it takes too long to categorize a question into one of three columns, to which, I imagine slapping them on the back of the head—just choose, dummy!
6. Study Plans
It’s common to do 2 months of content and then 2 months of practice. I think that’s fine. Though, I’d recommend doing a few practice questions a day earlier on and spreading out your AAMC exams during the last two months. I’m not a fan of “saving” your AAMC exams for the last two weeks. For one, many students don’t finish them. This is the best material out there. You shouldn’t waste it. Imagine having a year to train for water polo and spending the first 11 months just swimming. Once you’ve finished your content review, I prefer for students to establish a baseline by taking AAMC1 and spreading their AAMC exams out evenly over 1-2 months. You can do FLs from other companies in between, but just remember that their sense of “question types” isn’t as good. The biggest thing that differentiates 520+ scorers from other students is their ability to “look” at a question and understand what is being asked of them rather than shooting in the dark.
As for content, few students who recently completed their prereqs are globally content deficient (except certain nontrads). Instead, they just need spot treatment. Students who focus on strategy early tend to do better. Exceptions are everywhere. I’m full expecting many people to post “but I do suck at content and I did this and it worked for me”—that’s great, but most students know more than they think.
7. Risk factor 1: ADHD
I’ve noticed 3 risk factors that give me cause for concern that a student will underperform on test day relative to their potential. Specifically, “takes stimulants” (or doesn’t and needs to) is the risk factor. I have had multiple students that took the actual exam 3 or 4 times with trends like (504, 503, 506, 518). What happened? Adderall is what happened. It’s not some magic pill that will increase most students’ scores. But for people who legitimately can’t read properly without medication, it’s a game changer. However, stimulants can contribute to anxiety, which often tends to be heightened on test day, and that leads me to…
8. Risk factor 2: Anxiety
It used to be the case that if I ever heard a student use the word ‘anxiety’ in any context, I would become concerned. The MCAT can be anxiety-provoking for anyone. But for someone with pre-existing anxiety, it can easily overwhelm them. For many of my students (who become retakers), therapy and antidepressants are what they need to raise their score, not studying. I spend an inordinate amount of time recommending therapy to certain students.
Unfortunately, anxiety is common amongst medical students and not surprisingly it runs rampant in premedical students, at an age where it it’s less likely to have been fully treated (given treatment can often take years if not a lifetime). It takes a special sort of person to subject themselves to the horrors of the med school application process.
If you have testing anxiety, reach out to a therapist now. If you’re still in school, perfect, many student mental health centers have anxiety experts and are used to working with testing anxiety.
9. Risk factor 3: Nontraditional
If you took two years off after med school to be a medical assistant, you are not nontraditional and this will not apply to you.
Nontraditional students do worse, not only on the MCAT, but in medical school admissions. The vast majority of my nontraditional students did not ever make it to matriculation. It’s not that their life experiences weren’t coveted by admissions, but that real life got in the way. They gave up on their exam because a work deadline was moved up. They decided against applying for yet another year due to financial constraints. They decided they couldn’t be a parent and a doctor. People move away from medicine for all types of reasons. If you’re nontraditional and reading this, I’m not trying to dissuade you, but to clarify the additional barriers you’ll have to overcome. Many don’t take content review seriously enough or think that reading review books will be enough to jog their memory of classes they took a decade ago.
If you are non-traditional, GET SERIOUS. I had a student that locked himself in his bedroom every night for 3 hours for nearly a year. His wife took care of his 3 kids during this time.
10. Test Day
Replicate test day conditions before your test day. Know what you’re going to eat and drink, when you’ll wake up, and how far the drive is. If you use scratch paper at home, remember that some testing centers use white boards and markers that are less practical and may slow you down a bit. Bring extra food and drink options. You might find that a dry sandwich doesn’t appeal to you on test day. You find yourself feeling unusually tired and need a caffeine boost even if you normally don’t rely on caffeine. Having additional tools and options is always a plus. You can usually bring ear plugs into the testing center.
11. Retaking
I’ve had several students retake the MCAT after scoring in the 512-515 range. I personally retook a 512 and got a 523. My case is the exception. Retaking a BALANCED 512 is a mistake. Some students do worse, and the risk of not improving enough to justify your retake is more than significant, it’s almost assured. Do you think a 515 is that much better than a 512? Did you really commit months of your life for that? I consider a balanced 508 to 512 to be a gray zone, where you probably shouldn’t retake but there are some specific situations that could justify it. Below 508, if a student wants to retake I won’t argue with them, but it’s really not the best option for most students. I’m biased as a tutor, but I see what students go through and what they sacrifice for a retake. A 506 with 127 in the sciences is just fine for DO and doesn’t mean MD is completely off the table. These are all GENERAL rules, so please don’t quote me and try to draw a hard line. Every situation is different.
FAQ
-I feel like I bombed my MCAT? Should I start preparing for a retake?
Generally, no. If you have objective evidence of having failed, like leaving many questions blank or a fire alarm disrupting your session, then consider it. Otherwise, your stress and anxiety are likely affecting your perception of your performance. I have countless students who began studying for a month and then stopped when they got their score. Why waste the time? Go do something fulfilling.
-What MCAT score do I need to get accepted?
Loaded question and different for every student based on many factors of their application. GENERALLY, I used to see a 508 as a low bar for acceptance into at least one no-name US MD school WITH a good application. But most students don’t have a good application, and expectations for high MCAT score have been rising in recent years. Luckily, DO schools are more forgiving and the difference between MD and DO is growing more narrow by the year.
-Should I retake?
It’s really up to you. Can you handle committing many more months of your life? Can your application be improved in other ways? What specialties do you have in mind, and does DO severely limit your options for applying to that specialty? There are plenty of DOs in EM, IM, FM, Peds, Neuro, and Psych. Did something happen on test day and are you really confident you can improve your score? Remember that some people score worse. There’s a lot of variability in scores.
-My income is limited. What test prep should I buy?
Start small. Get the AAMC bundle (apply FAP) and second-hand review books (they don’t change much year by year). If you find yourself blasting through the AAMC question packs, then spring for uEarth.
