I will be taking the MCAT in January for the very first time. I do not want to take the 2015 MCAT thus my options are limited. My question is if I take the MCAT in January but do not feel confident about how I did on that particular day can I take it again that same month?
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MCAT in January?
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Depends on what date you signed up for and if there are available spots remaining for that month in your area.
If you sign up for Jan 15th now, it will be too late to register for Jan 23rd in case you don't feel confident. This is because you have 2 buffering days after Jan 15th before you can sign up for additional dates, which makes it Jan 17th, and that date is past the bronze zone deadline for Jan 23rd's MCAT.
Latest date to sign up for MCAT in order to re-register for the Jan 23rd one is Jan 13th. This is assuming there are still spots available in your area, which I highly doubt because a lot of people will be rushing to take it on the last date.
Hope this makes sense.
Theoretically yes. You could sign up for the earliest and latest January date (you'll have to look at the deadlines closely). You'd have to first sit for the early Jan date then wait for two days and then sign up for the last date. However, this strategy does not make sense. Here is the problem: not feeling confident about how you did DOES NOT EQUAL not doing well. Also, feeling confident DOES NOT EQUAL a good score.
I know two people that sat for the MCAT in the last few months. One was super confident going in, sat for it, said it was the worst test she ever took. Anticipated scoring a sub-30 and ended up with a 38 (two pts higher than she scored on any AAMC practice test). The other person, was ok going in, felt super great about the test and got killed with a 6 in verbal (9/6/9).
If you end up scoring both tests and end up with two very divergent scores, people are going to questions. If you do worse on the second go than the first, it's going to look bad. If you do similarly on both (likely outcome) it won't hurt or help your case. I'd suggest preparing and walking in with absolute confidence into an early January date. If your computer crashes or something totally unanticipated then try to re-take, but post test feelings mean nothing.
I know two people that sat for the MCAT in the last few months. One was super confident going in, sat for it, said it was the worst test she ever took. Anticipated scoring a sub-30 and ended up with a 38 (two pts higher than she scored on any AAMC practice test). The other person, was ok going in, felt super great about the test and got killed with a 6 in verbal (9/6/9).
If you end up scoring both tests and end up with two very divergent scores, people are going to questions. If you do worse on the second go than the first, it's going to look bad. If you do similarly on both (likely outcome) it won't hurt or help your case. I'd suggest preparing and walking in with absolute confidence into an early January date. If your computer crashes or something totally unanticipated then try to re-take, but post test feelings mean nothing.
