Is it worth to postpone MCAT from 5/15 to 5/23 or 5/31 but decrease primary writing time?

[User05252022]

I took FL4 and got a 517 (128 CP/130 CARS/128 BB/131 PS), under test conditions

I'm an international student (URM, but I feel that doesn't really count for international students). My ECs are fairly solid (~2k research, ~1k volunteering, ~500 clinical with MA gap year job starting soon, tons of leadership), but my GPA is pretty mediocre for an international student (3.6x so I'm also applying DO), but I feel I *need* at least 520 to have an above 0% chance at MDs

The thing is, I have done basically 0 orgo/gen chem/physics review so far, so that would take most of the next 10 days. I'm afraid that if I take it on 5/15 I will have no time for practice questions and anki.

I believe that I can get a 520+ with a bit more time to study for CP and BB (I got 130-132 on CARS and PS my last two FLs), but that would cut down the time I have to actually write my primary application

I'm planning on applying for a throway school and going from there once I have my score back.

So I'm debating:

• Exclusively focusing on MCAT until 5/15 and take it then, then write primary, try to submit it within first week of june
• Postpone it to 5/23, then write primary, try to submit it within first 1-2 week weeks of june
• Postpone it to 5/31, start writing rought draft of primary, submitting it likely mid june

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[Goro]

Take the exam when you are 100% ready for it,.

 

[LizzyM]

MCAT score matter much more than timing of the application as long as you have the primary in by July 4th. Please focus 100% on MCAT prep and delay taking the test as long as possible. Prepare the application after you've taken the MCAT -- check and double check because there is no option to correct errors and every year we hear from people who made a silly mistake with hours, omitting something important, or with grammar and spelling. Take your time.

 

[polymerization]

You're already within standard error of a 520, which is usually +/- 3 points or so. If you're scoring an average of 517 on official FLs, that's not a content problem, even if you insist that it is.

Ultimately it's only a handful of questions wrong throughout the entire test, and as you climb in score, even hypothetically, the burden of improvement only grows exponentially in comparison. I think it's easy to improve to a 500, for example, but it was incredibly demanding for me to keep climbing after hitting >510 consistently because of the scaling. It becomes more about a "bad" passage, timing issues, learning to approach and navigate the test, low-yield topics, and honestly, a little luck. I've missed 2 questions on a section before and each question cost me a full section point. Makes you want to throw your laptop out the window.

The problem is that science is an abyss and you can theoretically spend the rest of your life studying the same material from different angles. Why spend 8 hours trying to wrap your mind around Diels-Alder cyclization (despite its importance) if it never shows up on your exam, medical school, or practice? And to start something like Anki 10 days before the test virtually guarantees you won't retain anything—but you seem to know Ebbinghaus even better than me based on your P/S score, so, I'm sure you know that. Remember you will have the same 24 hours in those last 10 days you've always had, and the same mental capacity you've always had.

All of this to say, I don't know that delaying will necessarily improve your score. However, I do know I've been writing my personal statement for well over a year, and it has seen well over 100 evolutions. Looking at some early versions I can absolutely see that while being articulate and well-read is necessary for creating something semi-coherent, the reflection the application requires is not just a recommendation, it's a requirement. That takes more time than you think. Writing is the easy part; bracing for feedback is something else entirely.

Figuring out who you are and why you would find this job gratifying in an authentic and unique way is a seriously tall order to ask someone to do on a time-crunch, and especially under pressure to ensure a favorable outcome that affects the rest of your life. Unless you have that aspect down pat, I'd reconsider.

 

[ChairWallington]

tbf, couldn't those extra points still be a content issue? Just bc you avg a 517, doesn't mean you really know the content that well. They basically give you all the answers in the passages. You could get a 517 just by being a good reader even if you don't know much of the science without context

 

[polymerization]

tbf, couldn't those extra points still be a content issue? Just bc you avg a 517, doesn't mean you really know the content that well. They basically give you all the answers in the passages. You could get a 517 just by being a good reader even if you don't know much of the science without context

I disagree wholeheartedly. A 517 is a 94th percentile score. The difference between a 517 and 520 can literally be 3 questions across the entire exam. To extend into the esoteric for the sake of having a fuller understanding is normally something I'd advise and indulge in, but not necessarily for the purposes of this test.

The way the MCAT was written was so that 500 represented that the student was academically ready. A score above and beyond that is not technically necessary. Now, in a hypercompetitive admissions landscape, people want and often do score much higher... but I think there are diminishing returns when comparing students at the right tail of that spread.

If everyone above 500 "passed" the MCAT, then what good is it to compare a 517 and 520 if either student could have scored the opposite score given a different version of the exam (as they are within either's standard error)? Does the 520 know more? Statistically, no.

More broadly, if the correlations the MCAT were based on hold for all scores >500, then why numerically compare applicants at all? Even if we can say definitively that the 520 "knows more" than the 501, it does not necessarily mean the 501 is less likely to pass boards. So, by reaching for an ever-higher score, what are we actually reaching for? In other words, what is the value of that knowledge—and is it necessary to practice medicine safely, or is it an ego-stroke for students/schools/residency programs?

I really do think, in hindsight, that some of this process is theatrical and not actually steered to garner more insightful applicants. In many ways, it exists to reward those with the resources to professionally prepare and polish applications with careers that essentially guarantee continued sociopolitical (read: paternalist) legitimacy and financial solvency. I think the people who truly care about those 3 questions get PhDs instead.

 

[secondariesftw]

I disagree wholeheartedly. A 517 is a 94th percentile score. The difference between a 517 and 520 can literally be 3 questions across the entire exam. To extend into the esoteric for the sake of having a fuller understanding is normally something I'd advise and indulge in, but not necessarily for the purposes of this test.

Yeah, there is no way anyone can get a 517 just by being a good reader and not knowing the science.

The way the MCAT was written was so that 500 represented that the student was academically ready. A score above and beyond that is not technically necessary. Now, in a hypercompetitive admissions landscape, people want and often do score much higher... but I think there are diminishing returns when comparing students at the right tail of that spread.

If everyone above 500 "passed" the MCAT, then what good is it to compare a 517 and 520 if either student could have scored the opposite score given a different version of the exam (as they are within either's standard error)? Does the 520 know more? Statistically, no.

More broadly, if the correlations the MCAT were based on hold for all scores >500, then why numerically compare applicants at all? Even if we can say definitively that the 520 "knows more" than the 501, it does not necessarily mean the 501 is less likely to pass boards. So, by reaching for an ever-higher score, what are we actually reaching for? In other words, what is the value of that knowledge—and is it necessary to practice medicine safely, or is it an ego-stroke for students/schools/residency programs?

I really do think, in hindsight, that some of this process is theatrical and not actually steered to garner more insightful applicants. In many ways, it exists to reward those with the resources to professionally prepare and polish applications with careers that essentially guarantee continued sociopolitical (read: paternalist) legitimacy and financial solvency. I think the people who truly care about those 3 questions get PhDs instead.

As far as MCAT score, it is shown to correlate directly with Step 1 pass rate, Step 2 score as well as pre clerkship and clerkship grades.

Someone with a 500 would most likely barely handle the work. The MCAT is quite easy compared to med school. Not everyone can handle the work, just like not everyone can be a good swimmer or runner. There are limited seats available and schools want to ensure they fill them with people who they are confident can handle the work. Ultimately, you need to pass step 1 if you want to be a doctor. If you can't do that, then no matter how much time effort and money you spend it just won't happen.

So to minimize wasting time and money, they do want to ensure incoming students can handle the work load with a decent margin for error. There are many threads year after year in reddit medicalshool about folks being remediated, dropping out etc. No one likes this. It's not good for the student and it's not good for the school.

As far as why anyone cares about a 520+ over a 517. It probably won't predict anything different, however once you can rank something, suddenly it's a metric to look at and use, just like T10 vs T20, etc for medical school rankings. Likewise, if you have 100-150 seats to fill and you have 5000 applicants with a 520+ and 3.9, all with good ECs, etc. etc. How do you meaningfully differentiate?

It's a competitive process with too many applicants, so just being baseline isn't good enough.

 

[polymerization]

As far as MCAT score, it is shown to correlate directly with Step 1 pass rate, Step 2 score as well as pre clerkship and clerkship grades.

Someone with a 500 would most likely barely handle the work. The MCAT is quite easy compared to med school. Not everyone can handle the work, just like not everyone can be a good swimmer or runner. There are limited seats available and schools want to ensure they fill them with people who they are confident can handle the work. Ultimately, you need to pass step 1 if you want to be a doctor. If you can't do that, then no matter how much time effort and money you spend it just won't happen.

So to minimize wasting time and money, they do want to ensure incoming students can handle the work load with a decent margin for error. There are many threads year after year in reddit medicalshool about folks being remediated, dropping out etc. No one likes this. It's not good for the student and it's not good for the school.

As far as why anyone cares about a 520+ over a 517. It probably won't predict anything different, however once you can rank something, suddenly it's a metric to look at and use, just like T10 vs T20, etc for medical school rankings. Likewise, if you have 100-150 seats to fill and you have 5000 applicants with a 520+ and 3.9, all with good ECs, etc. etc. How do you meaningfully differentiate?

It's a competitive process with too many applicants, so just being baseline isn't good enough.

I think you and I can meaningfully agree in a few places. I think selecting applicants for medical school is hard, primarily because what I think should drive progression in your chosen career should be personal desire and willingness to do the work—at least in theory/principle. However, that is a quantity that isn't easily assessed.

My argument stems from the idea that the proxies we use to quantify those qualities—things like GPA and MCAT scores—have historically stratified across certain demographic lines that have only led to exclusion of, often, entire groups of people for whom higher education was not permitted at all; or historically discouraged. The evolution of selecting physicians has only further taken the shape of the people already within those institutions—so of course the bar bounds ever higher toward master's degrees and beyond, making it less and less likely those that don't already have the means for an elite education can get one.

It has been a problem for a long time, we are not just discovering it now, and the divides are only getting wider. But, instead of making metrics, those proxies, those "measuring sticks" of sorts more fair—approximating those desirable qualities more closely—often the argument insists that our current system already optimally selects for the best candidate, when we know objectively that can't be statistically true. And it shows in your insistence that anyone cares about a 520 over a 517. A 94th percentile score, by definition, means you're already in the top 6% of applicants. Is it meaningful, or just vain to push to be the top 2%? 1%? More than one person scores 528 every year. It turns out it isn't lonely, even at the top. What then?

The idea of what is considered fair and how students are sorted have historically taken the image of the people writing the rules, not necessarily intelligence. If that were the case, we would just carry out compulsory and proprietary IQ testing which is supposed to be content/language-independent, abstract, uncoachable, and a measure of raw, fluid intelligence irrespective of structural factors so only the best and brightest attend medical school, but you probably wouldn't find that fair either.

Every correlation you mention is just that, a correlation. Some of them are pretty weak. It should not theoretically be possible for high-MCAT students to also have poor GPAs by your logic that high MCAT scores = ability to "handle the work." By that same logic, the students with high MCAT scores who were already admitted to schools and then drop out/remediate also shouldn't be possible. Just because you happen to perform at a specific point in time does not necessarily imply that it was a reliable performance. There are a lot of intervening factors—tutoring, academic quality, native language, and, yes—crucially—those immutable factors that would never end up in a research study. Whether you had to beg, steal, and borrow just to make it to the testing center, for example. And yet, there is this logic regarding the waste of time and money despite the application fees charged to students pay for the administrators reviewing them—in your mind, because they deserve financial punishment on top of rejection for trying, I guess?

Just because there are numbers to compare doesn't necessarily mean they are valid and reliable numbers, or that it is just to compare them. Correlation does not equal causation. Education, like medicine, and especially its intersection—has never been neutral. That said, it doesn't mean it intends to be malicious. That's why we talk about these things and make attempts to improve them. It is less helpful to continue the same selection heuristics endlessly and assuming that there just aren't any smart ones with X skin color, for example.

This has always been a game of shifting the goalposts, for some.

 

[secondariesftw]

Just because there are numbers to compare doesn't necessarily mean they are valid and reliable numbers, or that it is just to compare them. Correlation does not equal causation. Education, like medicine, and especially its intersection—has never been neutral. That said, it doesn't mean it intends to be malicious. That's why we talk about these things and make attempts to improve them. It is less helpful to continue the same selection heuristics endlessly and assuming that there just aren't any smart ones with X skin color, for example.

This has always been a game of shifting the goalposts, for some.

I don't disagree, however, there needs to be some reasonable process and mechanism for selecting proper/the best applicants. The entire med school application process became this way many years ago (probably before even the current ad coms were born) when they found that folks getting accepted, weren't capable of handling the rigors of medical school. This was way before it was even remotely competitive like today. Yet they still needed some way to weed out folks who couldn't handle medical school.

So when a process requires an investment of 4-8 years to complete, you would rather err on the side of being too cautious yet still having a few folks who get remediated or fail out, than being like the Caribbean schools where 75% fail out.

So short of some newly created test that does a better job, the MCAT along with GPA are the only reliable ways to predict performance in medical school.

Having to apply to 20+ schools, even with a high MCAT, etc. isn't exactly good either. Schools interviewing 1000+ applicants for 150 seats is pure madness. It would be far better if folks could apply to 5 schools and not have to take up acceptance spots on 10+ schools. Sadly, the "holistic" process and whatever black magic is used, means someone even with a 528 a 4.0 and a great application, might not even get an interview if they only applied to 5 schools.

If you had to design the process from scratch, how would you do it?

 

[polymerization]

I don't disagree, however, there needs to be some reasonable process and mechanism for selecting proper/the best applicants. The entire med school application process became this way many years ago (probably before even the current ad coms were born) when they found that folks getting accepted, weren't capable of handling the rigors of medical school. This was way before it was even remotely competitive like today. Yet they still needed some way to weed out folks who couldn't handle medical school.

So when a process requires an investment of 4-8 years to complete, you would rather err on the side of being too cautious yet still having a few folks who get remediated or fail out, than being like the Caribbean schools where 75% fail out.

So short of some newly created test that does a better job, the MCAT along with GPA are the only reliable ways to predict performance in medical school.

Having to apply to 20+ schools, even with a high MCAT, etc. isn't exactly good either. Schools interviewing 1000+ applicants for 150 seats is pure madness. It would be far better if folks could apply to 5 schools and not have to take up acceptance spots on 10+ schools. Sadly, the "holistic" process and whatever black magic is used, means someone even with a 528 a 4.0 and a great application, might not even get an interview if they only applied to 5 schools.

If you had to design the process from scratch, how would you do it?

To avoid getting too off-topic, the idea that selection aspires for "the best" or even "proper" is already presumptuous, right? Because the only thing a 528 makes you the best at is taking the MCAT on your test date, given your test version. You would still be very far from being "the best" at any of its content. This fetishization of a test score to serve as the ultimate test of both academic and non-academic qualities (like reliability over time) is an intellectual stretch verging on dishonesty.

I never claimed to have all the answers, but I can say that the incrementalism of the remedy only breeds resentment from both sides: the majority will feel progressively cheated of their dominance; and the growing minority will feel each step is twice—thrice more deserved than the individual they replaced. And honestly, they would be right: to even compete at this level while belonging to certain groups, even getting an education verges on a political act. The kinds of things a person is capable of doing just to receive an education (and the things that can be enacted on them in prevention of that outcome) is truly staggering.

The subtext of this entire conversation is really: Who deserves to be socioeconomically protected from (gestures broadly) all of this, happening out in the world, right now? Physicians, with high compensation and job security, receive substantial investment from institutions to train them, and through their extended education, social capital, and prestige—do, at least through licensure, protect themselves from ever being in any reasonable risk of poverty ever again. Conversely, if you have two doctor parents, your chances increase both directly and indirectly: directly, because they will assist with their knowledge of the process, connections, and professional experiences; and indirectly because their extended education already demonstrates that they value academic quality and are therefore more likely to cultivate those qualities in their children.

I mean, a trucker is not going to teach his kid that they should really care about IUPAC nomenclature; and a doctor is not going to teach his kid to stare directly at the sun for long periods of time while focusing a magnifying glass to their retinas. It's a really "duh" concept but it bears repeating.

Because of that, medicine, like many other lucrative fields, attract students from diverse populations—importantly, students from populations that really do not have life circumstances conducive with the protracted academic timeline of physicians, but whom, through sheer persistence, sacrifice (and usually their better judgment), insist on putting forth an application. When history has been this tilted and unfair, of course scores will reflect that generational heritage.

But you're right, it's getting more competitive, it's becoming undeniable that the people on the margins are no less intelligent, meritorious, or deserving. And you're right again, that once you max out, once enough people are able to max out the scale, it might not be feasible to depend on the current system and still insist that those who have success deserve it. That is why you can insist on "the best" and still agree that the competition is not fair if you can be the best and still not have a guarantee.

What I'm saying is that the majority can only have a corner on this for so long, until that threshold is met and parity in proportion to our actual population is achieved. When that happens (and considering aspiring medical students must have 5 years of curing cancer prior to applying these days), everyone, not just the minorities, will start raising pitchforks.

That's why I think we should fight against this 517 vs 520 discourse and really talk about why this idea that we can have a medical school student population composed singularly of students with perfect metrics is not only statistically impossible, but also sort of defeats the purpose of having metrics at all. We are just making things so rigid that unless you have a personal assistant, tutor, and consultant to manage and guide your experiences, only one kind of person could really aspire to reach for the profession de facto, not necessarily by policy (although very that, too).

 

[Dragonite7]

As someone who got a 525 on the MCAT, there is definitely still content to learn if you're scoring 517. You're just getting into lower-yield material where it takes longer to study to gain points. Personally, I think you are likely to gain more from investing time into the MCAT than the primary. I agree with LizzyM on the timeline.

 

[Dragonite7]

Also, in regards to the hyperbole and preaching above: A 517 vs 520 is not going to destroy anyone's application. But scoring 520 instead of 501 does indicate that a student was either able to work harder and/or master knowledge better. Ultimately, you will need to study a lot of science material in med school so demonstrating success in that is a good characteristic for an applicant. Especially in the post-covid world where school grades are inflated so it's harder to distinguish academic ability based on them. Personally, as someone with no connections or background in medicine, I found the MCAT to be the most meritocratic part of the process, and unable to be faked or exaggerated. Review books are relatively cheap and everything you need is easily available online.
It's always been fashionable to deride standardized testing but ultimately every other aspect you try to use to distinguish applicants suffers from the same flaws, if not more so. I would note that most med schools are quite vocal about holistic review and treating the MCAT as just one component of the application, so they're kind of already on the same page.

 

[User05252022]

I think you and I can meaningfully agree in a few places. I think selecting applicants for medical school is hard, primarily because what I think should drive progression in your chosen career should be personal desire and willingness to do the work—at least in theory/principle. However, that is a quantity that isn't easily assessed.

My argument stems from the idea that the proxies we use to quantify those qualities—things like GPA and MCAT scores—have historically stratified across certain demographic lines that have only led to exclusion of, often, entire groups of people for whom higher education was not permitted at all; or historically discouraged. The evolution of selecting physicians has only further taken the shape of the people already within those institutions—so of course the bar bounds ever higher toward master's degrees and beyond, making it less and less likely those that don't already have the means for an elite education can get one.

It has been a problem for a long time, we are not just discovering it now, and the divides are only getting wider. But, instead of making metrics, those proxies, those "measuring sticks" of sorts more fair—approximating those desirable qualities more closely—often the argument insists that our current system already optimally selects for the best candidate, when we know objectively that can't be statistically true. And it shows in your insistence that anyone cares about a 520 over a 517. A 94th percentile score, by definition, means you're already in the top 6% of applicants. Is it meaningful, or just vain to push to be the top 2%? 1%? More than one person scores 528 every year. It turns out it isn't lonely, even at the top. What then?

The idea of what is considered fair and how students are sorted have historically taken the image of the people writing the rules, not necessarily intelligence. If that were the case, we would just carry out compulsory and proprietary IQ testing which is supposed to be content/language-independent, abstract, uncoachable, and a measure of raw, fluid intelligence irrespective of structural factors so only the best and brightest attend medical school, but you probably wouldn't find that fair either.

Every correlation you mention is just that, a correlation. Some of them are pretty weak. It should not theoretically be possible for high-MCAT students to also have poor GPAs by your logic that high MCAT scores = ability to "handle the work." By that same logic, the students with high MCAT scores who were already admitted to schools and then drop out/remediate also shouldn't be possible. Just because you happen to perform at a specific point in time does not necessarily imply that it was a reliable performance. There are a lot of intervening factors—tutoring, academic quality, native language, and, yes—crucially—those immutable factors that would never end up in a research study. Whether you had to beg, steal, and borrow just to make it to the testing center, for example. And yet, there is this logic regarding the waste of time and money despite the application fees charged to students pay for the administrators reviewing them—in your mind, because they deserve financial punishment on top of rejection for trying, I guess?

Just because there are numbers to compare doesn't necessarily mean they are valid and reliable numbers, or that it is just to compare them. Correlation does not equal causation. Education, like medicine, and especially its intersection—has never been neutral. That said, it doesn't mean it intends to be malicious. That's why we talk about these things and make attempts to improve them. It is less helpful to continue the same selection heuristics endlessly and assuming that there just aren't any smart ones with X skin color, for example.

This has always been a game of shifting the goalposts, for some.

I'm a good test taker, hence why I have been getting 130-132 on CARS since the beginning and 130-132 on PS since I did content review for PS

I'm getting decent scores on BB and CP by 1) doing my best to get every single question the answer is in the passage, 2) relying on the biochem review I'm done with

But if a passage requires a memorized formula or memorized physics/gen chem/orgo I'm screwed because I legit have pretty much 0 gen chem/physics formulas memorized

 

[polymerization]

Also, in regards to the hyperbole and preaching above: A 517 vs 520 is not going to destroy anyone's application. But scoring 520 instead of 501 does indicate that a student was either able to work harder and/or master knowledge better. Ultimately, you will need to study a lot of science material in med school so demonstrating success in that is a good characteristic for an applicant. Especially in the post-covid world where school grades are inflated so it's harder to distinguish academic ability based on them. Personally, as someone with no connections or background in medicine, I found the MCAT to be the most meritocratic part of the process, and unable to be faked or exaggerated. Review books are relatively cheap and everything you need is easily available online.
It's always been fashionable to deride standardized testing but ultimately every other aspect you try to use to distinguish applicants suffers from the same flaws, if not more so. I would note that most med schools are quite vocal about holistic review and treating the MCAT as just one component of the application, so they're kind of already on the same page.

I don't deny that; it's obvious—but that doesn't mean it's fair. Your claim that the MCAT is meritocratic based on the fact that it is content-based evades the point. If the MCAT was intended to determine who can succeed in medical school, and sets that threshold at 500, then, at least in theory, anyone scoring above 500 can get through medical school. DO schools regularly take people that don't even score 500, and they become doctors, passing their boards just like the 520 scorers.

When you say the information is freely available, you're right—but that doesn't mean everyone has the ability to access them and genuinely use them as a resource. If you come from a place where public education is simply underfunded, it doesn't matter what public school and college you go to in the area, you will receive an inferior education, and research shows us that results in decreased standardized test scores. This situation disproportionately impacts URM + FGLI populations. It's not just the MCAT, either—for example, at my high school, I learned about the PSAT immediately before sitting for it. My school just didn't expect any of us to go to college and so they didn't tell us we were going to take it. We were told it wouldn't count for anything, so some students even slept through it. None of us knew this could lead to major national scholarships. In their view, we need not apply: those awards weren't for people like us.

Research has shown us most medical students come from the top quintile of households in the country. These are people that care about the quality of their child's education and have had the resources to be able to send their kids to the best schools, tutors, prep programs, etc. in the country. And then they show up to college and it is only more of the same. The MCAT just becomes another test to beat alongside a tutor getting paid beaucoup bucks to ensure they score well. And because this is a majority, all these rich families attempt to one-up each other, making it borderline impossible for those without resources to even compete.

That isn't meritocratic. It's telling a young, clueless LeBron to learn basketball without ever owning one, and then laughing at him because he got dunked on by a professional. It's not that he doesn't have the potential to be great, it's that he wasn't given the opportunity. The kinds of people you're looking down on for getting a 501 can absolutely work harder than someone getting a 520, depending on where they started. It's just that schools can't always discern the starting line. So, no, it's not just about effort or even ability.

Academic pathways will never be fair so long as we, as a society, continue to view education as a commodity to be purchased. There will always be people who are subscribing to the free version, and people who subscribe for EducationMAX+++. Guess which ones are going to medical school?

I'm a good test taker, hence why I have been getting 130-132 on CARS since the beginning and 130-132 on PS since I did content review for PS

I'm getting decent scores on BB and CP by 1) doing my best to get every single question the answer is in the passage, 2) relying on the biochem review I'm done with

But if a passage requires a memorized formula or memorized physics/gen chem/orgo I'm screwed because I legit have pretty much 0 gen chem/physics formulas memorized

Good for you. Identifying your weaknesses is important. That said, I'm not sure you're unprepared by any standard if you're getting FL averages in excess of 515. Nobody can tell you how to feel about it but you... but consider there are many students with high MCAT scores. The difference between a 517 and a 520 applicant probably comes down to the part of the application you're avoiding in order to make up those 3 points.