When 40~ percent of total matriculants is comprised of less than 500 mcats, I am not holding my breath for strict quality control on behalf of new DO schools.
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A few things:
1. That group of people with <500 is actually 38% of the people that took the new MCAT for the 2016 class (meaning those who took it between 2015-2016). That number is actually, per your table, only 16% of all DO matriculants in 2016.
2. A 500 is something like a 24 on the old MCAT (although supposedly they can't always be directly correlated), so to be fair, it comes out to ~34% (or a bit more than 1/3) who are in that range for both the old and new exams.
3. Its also only one metric, and admittedly probably the weakest one for DO matriculants (probably ~2/3 of DOs that go DO because they couldn't get into a US MD school didn't get a good MCAT score). This really says nothing about the other metrics or likelihood of OP getting admitted.
That said, I do not inherently disagree that after years of work, it might be possible for OP to enter a less competitive/new DO school.
Appreciate the blunt honesty.
It seems like there was an assumption to immediately go back and try for US schools.
But that is not the case, I meant taking a few years to improve mental health and doing well in a Master's program (or SMP if possible), including retaking the MCAT and improving my application. Med schools wouldn't care for that then?
I would strongly recommend considering other options. You're going to have to do some soul searching, and really evaluate other possible career paths to make sure that medicine is the only thing you'd truly be happy doing. I'd recommend at least 2-3 years of other experiences before definitively making a decision. Its a freakin long road full of missed family get-togethers, missed weddings, birthdays, holidays, lost time with loved ones, sleepless nights/weeks, incredible physical and emotional stress, hell even missed funerals, a never ending sense of responsibility for your patients (we're talking mistakes you made keeping you up at night, being haunted by the people you harmed - which you will do), etc. and in the end there's a strong possibility that you won't get what you want. You really have to be all-in for it. Its going to be even harder given that you've already struggled with the material.
If at the end of the day, you feel like you just have to try it, then I'd recommend 1-2 yrs of post-bac/SMP, retake the MCAT, apply broadly, and cross your fingers. You will likely have to admit that you were dismissed from the Carib, so don't entertain the idea of not doing so.
Think about why you wanted to become a doctor. Look at some other careers and see how they can fill that need. The reality is that you may spend 100s of thousands of dollars and countless years chasing this without the certainty of being able to become a doctor at the end of the day. You could apply to SMPs that guarantee admission after successfully completing the program. But I would take some time off right now and do some soul searching and understand the reason why this is important and see if there is another pathway to meet that need. You need to get better, and fix what went wrong in the first place, with undergrad, mcat, and now carrib.
This advise is solid.
I'm glad you can draw broad ranging conclusions by your one month in medical school about the applicability and value about the MCAT and its relationship to success in medical school. I would urge any premeds to actually read the studies compared to your anecdote. The literature is fairly clear. The likelihood of board failure and attrition increases the lower the MCAT gets. This doesn't mean some people can't succeed. But more often than not people will have difficulties and attrition at those scores. That's the point. I would urge you to comeback and share your experience after taking step.
Just to point something out, you don't really see a bigger drop in passing of the USMLE Steps/completion until around 24-25 (~500 I guess), and even then from what I recall from the AAMC data is that its the
majority (70-80%) of people with those scores that still pass. Unfortunately, its hard to know what that really means, because the lower you go the more the data shrinks.
I would also say if someone really spent a solid amount of time (probably a couple months at least) primarily studying for the MCAT and maybe completed a review course, and the best they could get was a low 20s, then yeah that person is going to struggle. That said, I knew a lot of people in my school that had poor MCAT scores because they didn't know how to study, didn't take practice tests, didn't use solid resources for review, and spent a couple wks on the material. Those people actually did OK and average on the USMLE.
Some people are also just inherently more prepared by their colleges with the basic foundational material, and as a result don't need as much review. I remember the first diagnostic I took with 0 review time after my sophomore year of college (eons ago) was a mid-20s estimated score, so getting >30 was pretty doable with even mild test prep.
