Is it likely MCAT seats will be filled up a month before the exam?

[TheBiologist]

How quickly do seats fill up? if I am in the "gold" time zone is it more than likely I"ll get a spot

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[lexswift]

All the seats definitely could be gone or you may get lucky as many drop the several weeks before their planned date. If you have a preferred date/location I would suggest booking the test now. AAMC didn't tell us what time they were opening registration and all the January test locations were gone in CA. The competition is real there...

 

[TheBiologist]

All the seats definitely could be gone or you may get lucky as many drop the several weeks before their planned date. If you have a preferred date/location I would suggest booking the test now. AAMC didn't tell us what time they were opening registration and all the January test locations were gone in CA. The competition is real there...

all of the January seats in CA are gone?

 

[kay815]

Depends on your location and the time of year you want to take it. I live in a city where apparently the MCAT is very popular, and I tried to sign up for one of the most popular times (April, to get scoree back by May). I signed up in January, about three months out, and all the spots were filled. However, there were plenty of spots in neighboring cities.

 

[lexswift]

all of the January seats in CA are gone?

When registration first opened yes. From time to time I'll see someone on reddit post that there's a few seats open which I guess is because people tend to reschedule/cancel closer to the exam.

 

[JoeCaputo]

I was able to reschedule about a month before the reschedule date. But I am lucky to live in Los Angeles and there are tons of testing centers nearby.

 

[TheBiologist]

When registration first opened yes. From time to time I'll see someone on reddit post that there's a few seats open which I guess is because people tend to reschedule/cancel closer to the exam.

oh my god i am genuinely ****ed there are no spots even in april

wtf do i do? what are the odds someone cancels, and how do I know/how do I take the seat? can you be put on a waitlist?

 

[lexswift]

oh my god i am genuinely ****ed there are no spots even in april

wtf do i do? what are the odds someone cancels, and how do I know/how do I take the seat? can you be put on a waitlist?

So sorry to hear that. A lot of CA people I know picked a testing center in a nearby state (which would require additional hotel/flight costs). Is that an option for you? If not what about May? You can still be early for next cycle with a May test date. Don't lose hope though, people definitely drop closer to the exam. I would keep checking if I were you.

 

[Fancy_Feast]

How quickly do seats fill up? if I am in the "gold" time zone is it more than likely I"ll get a spot

It all depends on where you live. When I was living in Utah, all the seats for my month filled up in one day and the closest open location was Montana

 

[Noxy]

Ugh I tried this..and the only spots left in my state were either 4+ hours away or 12. These spots in my town were filled over 2 months before my actual test date (more or less) and I thought eh, I had time.. lol (nope). I ended up traveling and made a road trip out of it because I was not rescheduling my date. It wasn't terrible now in hindsight after getting my score back, but if I did worse, I might have literally had a heart attack from spending the extra money on the entire thing lol.