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Hi everyone,
***NOT A WAMC, just put stats+background to see if it's worth it for me to take another gap year*** Just got my MCAT score back today and was gutted. It was a retake and I got a 509 (129/124/127/130) and last year's score was a 510 (127/126/127/130). I know it seems like I just took it again a year later with no improvement but I genuinely was scoring much, much better on practice FLs this year (513/515/515/519/520/519). My cars score is really the only thing dragging my score down so abysmally and it just hurts since I was consistently scoring 129-130 on cars for the FLs. I don't think me retaking the FL1-5 had much score inflation either since I think I show pretty clear improvement progression and I took FL6 for the first time and got a 519 on that...
I just feel like with the rest of my app being strong, it just feels so... lopsided to have a lower MCAT when I know I can do much better and my practice scores show that. I do think that I'm really overthinking this though and just want to see what people think. It's not even a huge ego thing that's making me consider taking a gap year, it's the fact that I would love to stay in CA for the in-state tuition but I realize my current MCAT scores are lower than the average for most of these schools. Plus the upside to a higher score would be more scholarships given by schools in general which would really help in offsetting the cost. Like I mentioned above, I'm low SES so fin aid plays a huge role in my decision in going to med school. Taking the MCAT again seems like such a high risk high reward situation but the what if is killing me 😭
That being said, I'm not sure if I should take another gap year, study, and take the MCAT again (currently still in the process of writing my personal statement) or if I'm being too neurotic and should just apply this upcoming cycle. I graduated in 2024 and don't regret the gap years I've already taken in the slightest but am unsure if it's worth it to take another one given my situation. The rest of my profile seems strong:
CA resident, Viet-American (ORM? URM? I get confused with how URM is defined sometimes for south east asians), first-gen, low SES
Microbio and Asian Lang+Ling double major, cGPA=3.8, sGPA=3.7
~1800 paid clinical hours --> ~650 as an MA at an endocrinologist office and ~1200 hours as an MA at a school based health clinic serving underserved students/the general underserved community in South LA
~950 clinical volunteer hours --> a hospital volunteering program... Nothing exciting here except for the fact that I've been involved in the program for several years and now hold a staff/leadership position in it. Also was in a viet community health student org and volunteered with them at health fairs and whatnot
~300 non-clinical volunteer hours --> at my old viet language school that I went to for 10 years but came back to teach for three years after I graduated from the school
~1400 research hours --> did summer research in the same lab for one summer, got 3 awards from my university, presented at my uni's showcase twice, poster at my major's symposium, was in a selective journal club run by my school's research center, but no pubs
~300 leadership hours --> held positions in language learning student org I helped found+the hospital volunteering program from above
~50 shadowing hours
Misc. activities are: study abroad+awarded a federal scholarship for it and being part of a competitive pipeline program at my university for underserved students interested in healthcare and committed to serving the underserved
***NOT A WAMC, just put stats+background to see if it's worth it for me to take another gap year*** Just got my MCAT score back today and was gutted. It was a retake and I got a 509 (129/124/127/130) and last year's score was a 510 (127/126/127/130). I know it seems like I just took it again a year later with no improvement but I genuinely was scoring much, much better on practice FLs this year (513/515/515/519/520/519). My cars score is really the only thing dragging my score down so abysmally and it just hurts since I was consistently scoring 129-130 on cars for the FLs. I don't think me retaking the FL1-5 had much score inflation either since I think I show pretty clear improvement progression and I took FL6 for the first time and got a 519 on that...
I just feel like with the rest of my app being strong, it just feels so... lopsided to have a lower MCAT when I know I can do much better and my practice scores show that. I do think that I'm really overthinking this though and just want to see what people think. It's not even a huge ego thing that's making me consider taking a gap year, it's the fact that I would love to stay in CA for the in-state tuition but I realize my current MCAT scores are lower than the average for most of these schools. Plus the upside to a higher score would be more scholarships given by schools in general which would really help in offsetting the cost. Like I mentioned above, I'm low SES so fin aid plays a huge role in my decision in going to med school. Taking the MCAT again seems like such a high risk high reward situation but the what if is killing me 😭
That being said, I'm not sure if I should take another gap year, study, and take the MCAT again (currently still in the process of writing my personal statement) or if I'm being too neurotic and should just apply this upcoming cycle. I graduated in 2024 and don't regret the gap years I've already taken in the slightest but am unsure if it's worth it to take another one given my situation. The rest of my profile seems strong:
CA resident, Viet-American (ORM? URM? I get confused with how URM is defined sometimes for south east asians), first-gen, low SES
Microbio and Asian Lang+Ling double major, cGPA=3.8, sGPA=3.7
~1800 paid clinical hours --> ~650 as an MA at an endocrinologist office and ~1200 hours as an MA at a school based health clinic serving underserved students/the general underserved community in South LA
~950 clinical volunteer hours --> a hospital volunteering program... Nothing exciting here except for the fact that I've been involved in the program for several years and now hold a staff/leadership position in it. Also was in a viet community health student org and volunteered with them at health fairs and whatnot
~300 non-clinical volunteer hours --> at my old viet language school that I went to for 10 years but came back to teach for three years after I graduated from the school
~1400 research hours --> did summer research in the same lab for one summer, got 3 awards from my university, presented at my uni's showcase twice, poster at my major's symposium, was in a selective journal club run by my school's research center, but no pubs
~300 leadership hours --> held positions in language learning student org I helped found+the hospital volunteering program from above
~50 shadowing hours
Misc. activities are: study abroad+awarded a federal scholarship for it and being part of a competitive pipeline program at my university for underserved students interested in healthcare and committed to serving the underserved
