Below, please write an essay describing what you think the MCAT is. List situations in which taking the MCATs during one's sophomore year is advantageous. List situations in which taking the MCATs during one's sophomore year is not beneficial. You have 30 minutes to begin writing the essay, and will be graded on a scale of J to T depending on your performance. You may begin : (Note, do not actually grade)
Everyone has a dream career that burst from sudden whims or from a strong impression from personal event or a role model. After one's university, one has a clear mind of what one wants to apply to, among them the practice of medicine, in which one has to study in medical school to have license to practice. However, gaining entry to Medical School isn't easy.
According to several recent surveys, the three most influential factors in medical school involves - performance in your school (your GPA, your relationships with teachers and high-upers, your club activities and volunteer which involves your relationship with peers, your time management), academic assessment of whether you are capable of being a good practitioner of medicine - the Medical College Admission Test (the MCAT), and the interview that you will face, once the medical school desired decides you are worthy of a chance.
Undoubtedly, the MCAT, being an actual admission test, is one of the toughest and challenging to prepare for, and one has to have tactics to decide when to prepare, and when is optimal to prepare. Like in many curve or linear relationships in a graph, there is a certain point in one's four college years that involves a "turning point" called one's "sophomore year. Depending on how one assesses this certain time, taking the MCAT during one's sophomore year may be beneficial or counter-beneficial, which amongst the beneficial involves four advantages.
1. You just finished your basic sciences in year 1, and year 2 dwelve a bit deeper into understanding (which drives you to insanity for details - for me, it's biochemistry), not only do you have a clearer head right after you mastered the courses for the MCAT, you have understanding required beyond the MCAT, making the MCAT seem a bit easier on you.
2. It's an earlier, but not too early of a time to take a "practice experience." Taking it in the Sophomore year allows you some flexibility in which you can decide whether you should take it again or not, unlike in your junior or senior years, which will constrict your abilities to retake the test. You can take it again during your junior years, and even the next summer, which means you have plenty of time to retake and reprepare to get an optimal score. If you completed your junior year, if you messed up during the summer MCAT, you only have the January option available, which means you'll be hardpressed to get a spring interview and in the worst case, you won't be able to attend the fall semester of the medical school you've made it to. Taking it during your senior year, unless you're intentionally dragging it out beyond your university years or are taking your time, is stupid because you will definitely have no time left to apply before you graduate.
3. Because the freshmen years and sophomore years are usually the hardest working times of one's university life, usually we want the height of our hard work to be at between sophomore and junior, so we can take the rest of our junior and senior years off to relax and take a long vacation.
4. Once you've completed your MCATs a bit earlier, you have more time to roam around, find details on what makes you a good applicant (like club activities, volunteer, and stuff). Once you've done the MCATs, you have more time to spare, and you can focus on more parts of your applications, rather than in junior year, it would be inefficient to worry about the MCATs and do your volunteer works or activities half-heartedly. It calls for more efficiency.
But certainly, nothing is perfect, though the sophomore year is tactical, it is also a hasty gamble. One may use this time to gain a practice experience, but the medical schools themselves are not so accomodating. First, taking the tests too early may mess up one's performance, as it is a hasty attempt to take an MCAT. A hasty performance leads to a hasty score, which in most cases, turn out quite upsetting. Because many schools tend to average your scores, a first poor perfomance in the 20s range may pull your averages of 30 down a few numbers. This automatically cuts off a lot of schools available to you. One may also choose to take a year to observe a bit regarding their rival applicants to see their perfomances, and use the results of their observations to optimize their own performance, causing a delay to be beneficial. Also, if one waits just a while longer, who knows? Maybe some drastic event will occur in your life, driving up your motivations and causing you to strive towards your goals at all costs, thus causing your first score you take to skyrocket to scores higher than the averages of the many attempts of the inexperienced.
However you decide to choose, just remember to calm yourself down, take some time to list some of the pros and cons of each without taking sides. Remember, the MCAT is one of the three most important parts of your road to medical school. Planning it right will lead you to success, while poor planning may lead to a tragic ending.
(Once again, do not actually grade, for if you do, I will not be responsible for any bad-mouthing or unpleasantry 😀)
