Advice on plan/activities

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GCS-15

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Hi everyone,

I'm a senior at a California UC school, was planning to apply to MD schools this year, but didn't do great on my mcat (505) so I'm going to retake. I have a 3.75c/3.70s gpa and
decent ECs:
-Clinical: 1. extensive volunteering/involvement at a clinic (3 yrs) and 2. assisted in clinical research at an ER (1.5years)
-Shadowing: 3. variety of surgeons (4 months ~ 100 hours)
-Research: 4. bench research for 1.5 years. Was more of an assistant: learned techniques, ran gels, read papers and helped experiments. 5. intern at another research center: ran tests, gathered/organized info (3 years)
-Non clinical/Other: 6. taught low-income/underserved elementary school children about cooking and nutrition (8 months) and 7. school club: outreached to students about health care resources (1.5yrs)
8. another club: educated people about eating right/wellness. (1 year)
+ sports and random hobbies

Can someone read my plan and tell me if there's anything else I need to do/ other activities I should get involved with?

retake mcat september (aiming for at least a 510 --> will this be a good enough increase? how bad is it that I need to retake the mcat 🙁
and then, try to find a job (maybe scribe) and volunteer some more
backup: if sept doesn't go well, take test jan 2017
apply June 2017
anything else I need to do? any advice on mcat retaking and prep?

Thanks
 
Hi everyone,

I'm a senior at a California UC school, was planning to apply to MD schools this year, but didn't do great on my mcat (505) so I'm going to retake. I have a 3.75c/3.70s gpa and
decent ECs:
-Clinical: 1. extensive volunteering/involvement at a clinic (3 yrs) and 2. assisted in clinical research at an ER (1.5years)
-Shadowing: 3. variety of surgeons (4 months ~ 100 hours)
-Research: 4. bench research for 1.5 years. Was more of an assistant: learned techniques, ran gels, read papers and helped experiments. 5. intern at another research center: ran tests, gathered/organized info (3 years)
-Non clinical/Other: 6. taught low-income/underserved elementary school children about cooking and nutrition (8 months) and 7. school club: outreached to students about health care resources (1.5yrs)
8. another club: educated people about eating right/wellness. (1 year)
+ sports and random hobbies

Can someone read my plan and tell me if there's anything else I need to do/ other activities I should get involved with?

retake mcat september (aiming for at least a 510 --> will this be a good enough increase? how bad is it that I need to retake the mcat 🙁
and then, try to find a job (maybe scribe) and volunteer some more
backup: if sept doesn't go well, take test jan 2017
apply June 2017
anything else I need to do? any advice on mcat retaking and prep?

Thanks
-Take on a peer leadership role.
-Add some office-based, primary care physician shadowing, to get a view of longitudinal care.
 
-Take on a peer leadership role.
-Add some office-based, primary care physician shadowing, to get a view of longitudinal care.

I was able to get some shadowing done at my primary care clinic I volunteer at- do you think that would be good enough? I'll look into the peer leadership roles.
 
How many hours?

Not really sure of the exact number, but around 5ish.
Also, some of the surgeons I shadowed had clinic days and most of the patients there were for follow up/more primary care stuff too so I think that could count. (I shadowed 8 hours in total of surgery clinic days)
 
anyone want to chime in for mcat advice or comfort me and let me know what re-taking it isn't the end of the world? :/
 
Just focus on retaking right now. The last thing you want is a downward trend.
 
anyone want to chime in for mcat advice or comfort me and let me know what re-taking it isn't the end of the world? :/

retaking is not end of world. Work hard, improve your score. You will benefit from more experience in this gap year + more time to dedicate to MCAT
 
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