I was wondering if people with low GPAs usually score low on the OAT. In a previous thread it said that if you have a 3.0 you'll probably get around a 300 and 3.6, 360 and so on. Do you guys agree? I'm going to start taking the Kaplan OAT prep class at the end of this month and I was also wondering if the OAT was the kind of test if you study hard you will do well or if it was the kind of test where if you study hard you'll do pretty good but to do great you need to be "smart" (like have that intuition of how to solve problems). wow that sounds kinda stupid but I hope you get what I'm trying to ask lol thanks
i have a 3.05, anyone out there with a similar gpa but a great oat score? or similar gpa and got into optometry school? 🙂 thanks again
I took the OAT nearly 20 years ago now so you can take this for what it's worth.
My GPA was reasonable but my OAT score was a lot higher and I ended up doing better than many of my classmates who had GPAs much higher than mine.
I can't speak for today's version of the OAT but I believe, that in order to do well you have to move quickly and you have to have the right mindset to approach it with.
If you're the kind of student who constantly second guesses themselves, or who perseverates on a few questions or who tries to convince yourself that there's some sort of "trick" in every question, you'll likely do poorly because the OAT is/was not the kind of test.
My experience with it was that in order to do well, you had to trust your convictions that you had done the question correctly and and you had to move quickly to the next one.
I got 370 (I'm not sure how that compares to the "new" system) and I took it half way through my second year of undergraduate and I studied probably about 30 minutes total. That was it. And all I did was review physics and chemistry formulas and equations.
What worked for me was that I was able to plow through it quickly, which was always my style. All through high school, college and optometry school, I was always one of the first 5 students done with exams. Most classmates complained that they couldn't finish the OAT in the allotted time. I was able to answer every question. I think that made a huge difference.
As far as correlations go.....I think its safe to say that it's not an INVERSE correlation. Good students do tend to do well and poor students do tend to do poor.
However, it's also safe to say that if you have a mediocre GPA that you're NOT doomed to a mediocre score. Nor is there any guarantee that if you have a high GPA that you're going to smoke it. It's a very different test than what most people are used to I think.
