mcat score came back -- advice needed

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rasta

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Hi all,

Last year I took the mcat and got 11V 9PS 7BS (27).

I interviewed at one school, but didn't get accepted. The dean of the school told me the 7 in BS was my downfall.

I restudied for it this summer and took it about a month ago. I was scoring really well in my practice tests 30+, and was expecting to get 30+ after taking it.

My new score just came out and I'm disappointed/confused about what to do. I got a 28 (9V 9PS 10BS). Better BS, but my V suffered which is weird because i felt like that was my best section.

Not sure if I should reapply now (to the same school). I'm also going to apply to DO. I'm really bummed about this score and do not want to study for the test a third time. Any thoughts and suggestions welcomed.

Thanks
 
It might not look like it, but I think your new score actually is better in more ways than one. First it DID improve. Second, and most importantly, it is much more balanced. I've heard that some schools screen out scores where any one section is less than an 8, so that should help you quite a bit.

A 28 isn't a bad score, it depends what state you are in, but without knowing more about you, I'd say there's no reason why you shouldn't apply MD. You mention that you don't know if you should reapply to the same "school" (hopefully that doesn't mean you applied to just ONE last round), so as always though, you should apply broadly in MD (including the one you applied to last round) and also apply to DO schools. I would advise you against taking the MCAT a 3rd time, this current score shouldn't hinder your acceptance at this point, and I'm doubtful a third time around would bring that much improvement.
 
It might not look like it, but I think your new score actually is better in more ways than one. First it DID improve. Second, and most importantly, it is much more balanced. I've heard that some schools screen out scores where any one section is less than an 8, so that should help you quite a bit.

A 28 isn't a bad score, it depends what state you are in, but without knowing more about you, I'd say there's no reason why you shouldn't apply MD. You mention that you don't know if you should reapply to the same "school" (hopefully that doesn't mean you applied to just ONE last round), so as always though, you should apply broadly in MD (including the one you applied to last round) and also apply to DO schools. I would advise you against taking the MCAT a 3rd time, this current score shouldn't hinder your acceptance at this point, and I'm doubtful a third time around would bring that much improvement.
Thanks for the supportive comment about my score. Hopefully with this info you provide some more insight.

I applied to 12 schools last time and I suspect I was screened out from most based off that 7 -- like you said. Hoping the more balanced score helps that.

I'm from Washington State, and my interview last year was with my state school. I haven't sent off my current application yet because I'm in the process of finishing my new personal statement, but the rest of my application is complete. I'm going to apply to UW again, but I'm not sure if it's too late for other schools (Upenn, VCU, Rush, Rosa, etc).
 
Your MCAT won't be the reason if you don't get into UW now. I agree that a balanced 28 is much better than a 27 with a BS 7.

But there may be other reasons you don't get into UW, such as that it's September. By the time you have your app complete you'll be 4 months behind your competition and your best hope is the waitlist.

If there's anything else that's fixable about your app, then you should skip this app year, fix it, and be ready (READY) on June 1 next year.

Another MCAT retake would not be out of the question, if you've learned your lesson now. Practice tests are not predictive. You can't learn the MCAT by taking practice tests. If you want to break 30 you have to master the content. And you might need to spend money.

Best of luck to you.
 
I would hold off on applying this cycle. It's really late now and even if you submit today, the 4-6 week verification delay will bring you to the middle/end of October. I know some schools actually have secondaries due then, so they may not even consider your application.
 
Looks like you've reached your plateau. A 7Bio is definitely close to lethal for MD schools, and you've probably had some knowledge decay.

I beleive your chances at MD schools are finished, but you're fine for any DO program.

Hi all,

Last year I took the mcat and got 11V 9PS 7BS (27).

I interviewed at one school, but didn't get accepted. The dean of the school told me the 7 in BS was my downfall.

I restudied for it this summer and took it about a month ago. I was scoring really well in my practice tests 30+, and was expecting to get 30+ after taking it.

My new score just came out and I'm disappointed/confused about what to do. I got a 28 (9V 9PS 10BS). Better BS, but my V suffered which is weird because i felt like that was my best section.

Not sure if I should reapply now (to the same school). I'm also going to apply to DO. I'm really bummed about this score and do not want to study for the test a third time. Any thoughts and suggestions welcomed.

Thanks
 
I beleive your chances at MD schools are finished, but you're fine for any DO program.

Not with a public school like UWash, which is wide open with the stats of their students and how the numbers are crunched. Average MCAT for accepted students is 27-28.

Cost of attendance alone should be a powerful motivator to fight hard to get into UW. All other options are going to be $100k to $300k more expensive. PNWU over the Cascades is $75k/yr vs. UW $50k.

This OP should study the UW FAQ, go to UW admissions open houses, talk to UW med students, and compete for a seat.

No I'm not giving you links, OP. I have them because I went after the info like I needed it. If you want this, get to work. Your competition is doing their homework while you wring your hands over what to do.

Best of luck to you.
 
While public schools definitely favor the home team, the OPs MCAT was vastly below the schools avg MCAT of 31. <10 of the accepted students had a Bio7. Peiople like that who get accepted usually have either some really compelling story, are lrelated to the deans or faculty, or have a large donation check in their hands.

If OP is set upon the MD degree, then he'll need to boost that MCAT, but s/he has some deficits to fix first.

I'd pay a higher tuition if it meant the difference between not being a doctor or being a doctor.

Not with a public school like UWash, which is wide open with the stats of their students and how the numbers are crunched. Average MCAT for accepted students is 27-28.

Cost of attendance alone should be a powerful motivator to fight hard to get into UW. All other options are going to be $100k to $300k more expensive. PNWU over the Cascades is $75k/yr vs. UW $50k.

This OP should study the UW FAQ, go to UW admissions open houses, talk to UW med students, and compete for a seat.

No I'm not giving you links, OP. I have them because I went after the info like I needed it. If you want this, get to work. Your competition is doing their homework while you wring your hands over what to do.

Best of luck to you.
 
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While public schools definitely favor the home team, the OPs MCAT was vastly below the schools avg MCAT of 31.
Incorrect for UWash.

The average MCAT for UW is 27-28.
<10 of the accepted students had a Bio7.
Irrelevant since the MCAT retake threw a BS 10.

Honestly, look at the UW admission FAQ. There is a table mapping acceptee MCAT and GPA with full information on the weighting of GPA.

The political/personal details for UW are entirely different from schools in other locations. UW is the med school for 5 states, 27% of the US land mass, and 3% of its population. An average premed from Seattle is at a disadvantage vs. an average premed from Montana or Alaska. But an average premed from Seattle still has a substantial advantage at UW vs. other med schools.
I'd pay a higher tuition if it meant the difference between not being a doctor or being a doctor.
That sentiment made sense when med school debt was under $100k. These days the issue is whether to fight for "only" $150k debt vs being in a big fat hurry to accumulate $250k or $350k or $500k debt. It is entirely foolish to disregard the impact of that additional debt.

I'm speaking as a former Washington state resident, former UW student, and many-times-burned 47 year old med student at a ridiculously expensive MD school outside Washington. I believe you are a DO school adcom. With respect I suggest my perspective carries some weight here.

Best of luck to you.
 
Your MCAT won't be the reason if you don't get into UW now. I agree that a balanced 28 is much better than a 27 with a BS 7.

But there may be other reasons you don't get into UW, such as that it's September. By the time you have your app complete you'll be 4 months behind your competition and your best hope is the waitlist.

If there's anything else that's fixable about your app, then you should skip this app year, fix it, and be ready (READY) on June 1 next year.

Another MCAT retake would not be out of the question, if you've learned your lesson now. Practice tests are not predictive. You can't learn the MCAT by taking practice tests. If you want to break 30 you have to master the content. And you might need to spend money.

Best of luck to you.

Can you please explain what you meant by the comment above.:idea:

I am a newbie to posting, but not a newbie to the SDN. I have been reading for months. I am taking the MCAT for the second time next March.
 
Thanks for the supportive comment about my score. Hopefully with this info you provide some more insight.

I applied to 12 schools last time and I suspect I was screened out from most based off that 7 -- like you said. Hoping the more balanced score helps that.

I'm from Washington State, and my interview last year was with my state school. I haven't sent off my current application yet because I'm in the process of finishing my new personal statement, but the rest of my application is complete. I'm going to apply to UW again, but I'm not sure if it's too late for other schools (Upenn, VCU, Rush, Rosa, etc).

Definitely apply to UW again as soon as possible, they must have liked something enough to grant you an interview last year. Hopefully this year your new MCAT score can put you over the top. Reflect on your interview experience last year as well, things you did well, things you didn't do well. When you go in for your interview you want to kill it.

As far as other schools to apply to, as others said, it is a bit late in the game. Your best bets will probably be any other schools in states you have a tie to (maybe you lived there before, or family there or something), private schools (probably ones that get a smaller number of applicants), and schools that don't have rolling admissions (many times you can find out if they have rolling admissions from their website or by contacting their admissions department).
 
Disagree.

Apply, but do it knowing that you are likely behind and may not get anything. The alternative is that you are surprised and will get an invite. Not doing anything is the worst thing you could ever do.

Why do people give such horrible advice?
Because it's good advice. You should approach applying to med school with the one shot, one kill, mindset. In other words, you don't want to be doing this again next year because you didn't get all your ducks in a row the first time around. Applying as a reapplicant puts you at a disadvantage in many cases, and may even result in some schools not considering your app at all as they limit the number of attempts applicants can make. Also, it's expensive and time-consuming to apply, and getting rejection after rejection is discouraging and beats people down emotionally. So with all due respect, the advice the person you quoted gave was actually very good advice, and the OP would do well to follow his/her advice rather than yours. As would you.
 
What disadvantage is there to reapplying? You are saying that it is some kind of failure? If you have a 40 MCAT and 4.0GPA and you applied too late and didn't get in you are suddenly a failure? Come on. Even with this guy's stats, that is a stretch to make that statement. If he was sitting on a 27 MCAT, I'd be on board with waiting so he could retake first.

I strongly disagree with your viewpoint, of telling someone to give up because of "possible emotional distress", and the likelihood that they will get rejected this time around. That is a stupid reason not to apply.

Applying this cycle represents no risk to OP, but you are making it out to be like putting his career on the line. The only loss to OP would be some money for secondaries, and the time he probably already put in to AMCAS. The alternative is getting accepted and not burning a year of his life.

Some schools actually look MORE favorably at re-applicants, but you didn't mention that either.

Seek medical help please. You are delusional.
 
Schools do know if someone is a re-applicant and in what prior cycles applications were made. Someone who doesn't get in on two previous tries is going to be looked upon with some distain... why did no one want this applicant in two previous cycles? One unsuccessful cycle is understandable... too late, too low a Bio score, too little experience, poorly chosen list of schools, etc. Failing to correct those deficiencies, or correcting them but adding new deficiencies (like being too late), is not going to end well.

The OP should sit out this cycle and apply on Day 1 of the next cycle.

This process is too costly in money, time and mental effort to do it more times than necessary.
 
Schools do know if someone is a re-applicant and in what prior cycles applications were made. Someone who doesn't get in on two previous tries is going to be looked upon with some distain... why did no one want this applicant in two previous cycles? One unsuccessful cycle is understandable... too late, too low a Bio score, too little experience, poorly chosen list of schools, etc. Failing to correct those deficiencies, or correcting them but adding new deficiencies (like being too late), is not going to end well.

The OP should sit out this cycle and apply on Day 1 of the next cycle.

This process is too costly in money, time and mental effort to do it more times than necessary.

n=1 but I'm now in the midst of M1 at a "top 20" school after being a third time applicant. Then again, I got better every cycle...too bad it took me three times to realize what to do.
 
n=1 but I'm now in the midst of M1 at a "top 20" school after being a third time applicant. Then again, I got better every cycle...too bad it took me three times to realize what to do.

I'm sure you realize that the point here is not to identify anecdotes that counter the experience of SDN's most reputable adcom, but to advise on the best plan for a student of completely unknown competitiveness.

Surely you're not recommending the experience of 3 app cycles. Hurray for not quitting, but try to remember the pain of receiving all those rejections. Would you advise your premed self to do things exactly the same way? I doubt it.
 
What disadvantage is there to reapplying? You are saying that it is some kind of failure? If you have a 40 MCAT and 4.0GPA and you applied too late and didn't get in you are suddenly a failure? Come on. Even with this guy's stats, that is a stretch to make that statement. If he was sitting on a 27 MCAT, I'd be on board with waiting so he could retake first.
Holy reading random things I never said into my post, batman! Having to reapply is not a "failure," except in the sense that it's a waste of time and money to reapply when a more strategic and stronger first app would have gotten the person accepted on the first try. I wasn't making a value judgment on the OP's worth as a human being!

I strongly disagree with your viewpoint, of telling someone to give up because of "possible emotional distress", and the likelihood that they will get rejected this time around. That is a stupid reason not to apply.
I didn't say that either. Telling someone to *postpone* submitting their app is not the same as telling them to give up altogether. The problem with applying late is that most med schools give out II's on a rolling basis, and many also give out acceptances on a rolling basis. So a person who applies in June or July has better odds of getting an II just because there are more II's left to give out at that point. In contrast, a person who applies right before the school's deadline may be perfectly competitive and wind up on hold/waitlisted because there just isn't room to have them come interview or be accepted to the class.

FWIW, I postponed my own app by a year because I got my MCAT score back in October. My MCAT score was a 43 with a 4.0 GPA for my PhD. (I didn't have an UG GPA since I attended a P/F college.) I think no one would argue that my stats were an issue. But instead of being a late applicant that year, I applied on June 1 the following year and was one of the first completed applicants. Could I have still gotten in if I had applied in mid-October of the year I took the MCAT? Maybe. But you know, I wound up having more and better options by postponing my app by a year, because I applied so early that I was well before the deadline of every school. In the end, I went to my top choice med school on a full ride. (FWIW, scholarship offers are also often made on a rolling basis.)

Applying this cycle represents no risk to OP, but you are making it out to be like putting his career on the line. The only loss to OP would be some money for secondaries, and the time he probably already put in to AMCAS. The alternative is getting accepted and not burning a year of his life.
See what I said above and also Lizzy's post for what some of the risks are. And again, I think you underestimate the demoralizing effect of being rejected everywhere, especially when it seems like all of your fellow applicants are trying to decide which med school to attend while you're left gearing up for another app attempt. Premeds, med students, and physicians are type A people for the most part, accustomed to success and expecting success in proportion to the effort they put into something. So spectacularly failing to get an acceptance anywhere is a pretty hefty ego hit to many people.

Some schools actually look MORE favorably at re-applicants, but you didn't mention that either.
That's because they're the exception that proves the rule. In fact, offhand, I don't know of any med school that looks more favorably at reapplicants versus first-time applicants. I can tell you that the high power research schools I was applying to, as well as my unranked state schools, definitely didn't hold that viewpoint. Their admissions folks were the ones telling me to sit out for a year so I could apply earlier in the app season. :shrug:

Obviously, if you don't get in the first time you apply for whatever reason, then yes, you have to reapply. But hopefully you learn something from your first go-round failure, and you avoid failing again. That includes correcting any identified deficiencies in your app, but it also includes having a good app strategy, including applying broadly enough and also early enough.
 
No I'm not giving you links, OP. I have them because I went after the info like I needed it. If you want this, get to work. Your competition is doing their homework while you wring your hands over what to do.

Best of luck to you.

My favorite post so far on SDN
 
No I'm not giving you links, OP. I have them because I went after the info like I needed it. If you want this, get to work. Your competition is doing their homework while you wring your hands over what to do.

Best of luck to you.

Agree! 👍👍👍
 
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