I am retaking my mcat, what are some signs I should void my mcat when I retake it?

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A few things: what are your practice test averages? If they're at all near 29 (27-32), you may need to be prepared for the fact that--even without the stupid mistakes--you won't make significant gains in your score. If it is a higher average, say 33/34, then just make sure you feel like you did when you took your practices. That's why it is so important to prepare for AAMC practice tests like you prepare for the real thing.
If you aren't finishing passages, when you were totally fine on time usually, that's a pretty good signal. Otherwise, post-test feelings have almost no correlation to final score (anecdotal evidence, to be sure, but the n=100's if you check on previous MCAT date threads in the MCAT forum).
Make sure to get sleep, water, coffee if you need it, and food before your test. Not enough to make you need to use the restroom during a section, but enough to get you ready and feeling your sharpest at 8 AM (or 2 PM).
 
A retake is nowhere near worth it if you're shooting for a 30 after having gotten a 29. The difference is little to nothing, and will not be the factor that sways a school's opinion of you.

Also, there's always the chance that next time you'll do worse.
 
It's not like once you hit 30 you cross a magical line that makes you competitive. If you're going to retake a 29, you better be scoring an average of 34+ on your practice exams to actually make it worthwhile. Retaking a 29 and getting a 30 or 31 is a waste of your time.
 
Ismet said:
It's not like once you hit 30 you cross a magical line that makes you competitive. If you're going to retake a 29, you better be scoring an average of 34+ on your practice exams to actually make it worthwhile. Retaking a 29 and getting a 30 or 31 is a waste of your time.
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I'd say if you retake with a goal of 30 or 31, best to let your score expire first.
 
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schools will see that you retook a 29 to get a 30. Given that the standard dev. on the MCAT is a couple points, all that getting a 30 will show was that you reached the peak of your abilities with a 30 (knew what the test was like, weren't surprised by the situation, had more time to study, etc). Scoring a 34 would be more than one standard deviation from your old score, showing real and statistically supported improvement; that is, the first poorer score was not indicative of your abilities. Some schools do only look at your higher score, but they still know you retook.

mrh125 said:
Yea that's crazy talk for me. I'm not waiting three years and taking the awful new mcat. I'm applying this cycle regardless



Why a 34 avg? Isn't the improvement a 3 pt improvement instead of a five point improvement cuz unless I'm missing something it was a 3pt improvement (32 for me). Also why wouldn't a 30 be seen as an improvement to admissions? Getting a30 doesn't get easier and the chances of getting in with a 30 with my demographic are way higher. Also don't med schools sometimes take the highest mcat score? How common is that? You'll have to forgive my skeptically because most of my premed career involves being told not to do something and hearing dire predictions because a lot of the time I did it anyway and things turned our better. If a 30 on a retake gives me any visible advantage at all over A 29 I'm Taking it. Does it? I don't want to sit on a 29 if it's not competitive for any md med schools and gets me zero interviews
Oh and wouldn't retaking the aamcs exams give me an Incredibly bias unreliable score? That's what I'm concerned about if I retake them
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mrh125 said:
Why a 34 avg? Isn't the improvement a 3 pt improvement instead of a five point improvement cuz unless I'm missing something it was a 3pt improvement (32 for me). Also why wouldn't a 30 be seen as an improvement to admissions? Getting a30 doesn't get easier and the chances of getting in with a 30 with my demographic are way higher. Also don't med schools sometimes take the highest mcat score? How common is that? You'll have to forgive my skeptically because most of my premed career involves being told not to do something and hearing dire predictions because a lot of the time I did it anyway and things turned our better. If a 30 on a retake gives me any visible advantage at all over A 29 I'm Taking it. Does it? I don't want to sit on a 29 if it's not competitive for any md med schools and gets me zero interviews
Oh and wouldn't retaking the aamcs exams give me an Incredibly bias unreliable score? That's what I'm concerned about if I retake them
Click to expand...

https://www.aamc.org/download/321520/data/2012factstable25-5.pdf Use this to figure out the acceptance rate to MD schools for people with certain MCAT and GPA.

A 29 will not keep you out of medical school if you apply smartly. There is no difference between a 29 and a 30. I said shoot for a 34+ average because usually people score within +/- 3 points of their AAMC average. So if you're averaging a 32, you're more likely to end up back at a 29 than if you're averaging a 34. At this point you're taking the MCAT in a couple weeks so there's not much you can do.

Retaking the AAMC practice exams would give you a biased result, so you cannot use that to gauge your readiness the second time around unless you have some AAMC's you haven't taken yet.

What's your GPA? What's your MCAT breakdown? You might be doing this all in vain...maybe the rest of your app is great and in that case, the MCAT score won't hold you back if you apply to the right schools. Maybe the rest of your app isn't so great, and bumping up your MCAT score 1 or 2 points won't do anything for it.
 
Ismet said:
https://www.aamc.org/download/321520/data/2012factstable25-5.pdf Use this to figure out the acceptance rate to MD schools for people with certain MCAT and GPA.

A 29 will not keep you out of medical school if you apply smartly. There is no difference between a 29 and a 30. I said shoot for a 34+ average because usually people score within +/- 3 points of their AAMC average. So if you're averaging a 32, you're more likely to end up back at a 29 than if you're averaging a 34. At this point you're taking the MCAT in a couple weeks so there's not much you can do.

Retaking the AAMC practice exams would give you a biased result, so you cannot use that to gauge your readiness the second time around unless you have some AAMC's you haven't taken yet.

What's your GPA? What's your MCAT breakdown? You might be doing this all in vain...maybe the rest of your app is great and in that case, the MCAT score won't hold you back if you apply to the right schools. Maybe the rest of your app isn't so great, and bumping up your MCAT score 1 or 2 points won't do anything for it.
Click to expand...

3.62 gpa (which is average, i have strong improvement trend and i was sitting on 3.59999 the quarter before). mcat breakdown is 9/11/9 which is a surprising break down (mainly because that's my highest score in verbal ever and i thought i got a 13 in bio) and I have really good e.c.s (lots of research (plant bio, environmental science), non-profit work, shadowing a few diff doctors, working as a scribe for a total of 500 hrs which im in the process of, 2 jobs, tutoring for free in multiple subjects, also assisted a cosmetic dentist for ages). My mcat score was a point higher than my average on the AAMCs practice tests too.
 
mrh125 said:
3.62 gpa (which is average, i have strong improvement trend and i was sitting on 3.59999 the quarter before). mcat breakdown is 9/11/9 which is a surprising break down (mainly because that's my highest score in verbal ever and i thought i got a 13 in bio) and I have really good e.c.s (lots of research (plant bio, environmental science), non-profit work, shadowing a few diff doctors, working as a scribe for a total of 500 hrs which im in the process of, 2 jobs, tutoring for free in multiple subjects, also assisted a cosmetic dentist for ages). My mcat score was a point higher than my average on the AAMCs practice tests too.
Click to expand...

So you had an AAMC average of 28 and you thought you were going to score at least 2 points higher than that on the real thing? The 29 you got was very much expected.

With a 3.62 and 29, going by that chart, it's an 81.9% acceptance rate. If I were you, I wouldn't even take the MCAT again. You're not going to be getting into top-tier schools, but if you apply broadly and if there are no red flags on your app, I don't see why you should have a problem getting into an MD school. Just my 2 cents.
 
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If I use this chart my odds are more like a 49.8% currently and go up to a 72.7% with a 30-32
 
mrh125 said:
first of all, does it matter that I'm in CA and will negatively impact my chances of getting into schools in other states (i'm not focusing on schools in CA bc they're super competitive) and would applying early improve my chances significantly?
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Applying early is the easiest thing you can do to improve your chances at getting into medical school. I've heard from numerous admissions members that I've interviewed for the podcast that they wish some late applicants would have applied earlier so they could have offered them an interview.

Your residency has zero effect on private schools. State school on the other hand will lean very far towards accepting only students from their state. Applying to a state school that has a VERY low acceptance rate for a non-resident is a wasted application. Do your homework and apply smartly.

As for shooting for the "magical" 30 - your 29 is fine if you apply to the right schools. Remember, your MCAT and GPA are only a portion of your application, not the whole thing.
 
mrh125 said:
If I use this chart my odds are more like a 49.8% currently and go up to a 72.7% with a 30-32
Click to expand...
the problem w/ that chart is each section is a range. I'd like to see what the difference is between a 29 and 30 specifically. Not 27-29 and 30-32 - the 27's could be weighing down the 29's and the 32's could be boosting the 30's!
 
Doc Gray said:
the problem w/ that chart is each section is a range. I'd like to see what the difference is between a 29 and 30 specifically. Not 27-29 and 30-32 - the 27's could be weighing down the 29's and the 32's could be boosting the 30's!
Click to expand...

makes sense. Yea, i wish there were more informative stats that showed those numbers for 29s and 32s, do you know if there are anywhere?
 
if you feel like you need to void your test, you shouldn't have taken it to begin with; you weren't ready
 
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