Need encouragement/opinions

[Crookshanks]

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Hi all,

Sorry, don't know what to title this, I just want some feedback, and some hope.

I'm taking Physics I this summer and I failed my first test. This really shook me and I am trying to get myself together. There's no way I can get an A in this class now, but a B is still realistic.

This F on the test has really made me doubt myself, however. I want to apply for the class entering Fall 2009. I can't take the MCAT until August 2008...is my application going to be "late"? Late enough that I should consider waiting until the following application cycle? And with my prediction of an overall 3.3 GPA and 3.5 science GPA...what MCAT score do I need in order to apply "late" and still get accepted?

The DO schools I'm interested in are LECOM-bradenton and NSUCOM.

Thanks in advance.

 

[jathan007]

Don't worry about applying late for DO schools. I know some students who applied in jan. and feb. of their marticulating year and still got in. It can be done. However, theses were good students with great stats (no offense). Its always a plus to apply early but in your case i would suggest to turn in your application early without taking your MCATs, and then once your MCATs arrive, send them right away to the colleges you applied to. PM if you have an questions.

 

[DocBR]

I was a late applicant (submitted my primary apps in early december) and it did not hurt me at all.
I doubt you will be all that late. I think the CBT MCAT has a turn around of just a few weeks, so if you fill out your primary apps over the summer and then submit your MCAT scores when they come in you will be in good shape.

As for physics, don't beat yourself up. Physics requires people to think in new ways and everyone responds to that differently. Do as many practice problems as you can and you will adapt. When I took physics I did tons of practice problems, by the time each test rolled around I had done each question type multiple times - so there were never any surprises.

 

[Crookshanks]

Thank you so much for responding.

Can I actually submit my application before taking the MCAT? If so, before I decide to submit an application, what practice MCAT score should I be looking for?

 

[DocBR]

Thank you so much for responding.

Can I actually submit my application before taking the MCAT? If so, before I decide to submit an application, what practice MCAT score should I be looking for?

I think you can submit it with scores pending, it just will not be complete until the scores are received. I think it is still a good idea because it gives you time to wrap up all the loose ends like LORs, transcripts and even some secondaries.

Aim for your best on the MCAT, generally a 27+ is pretty competitive score.

 

[JaggerPlate]

Yeah ... Physics can murder. My advice, if you really need to take this class (ie. will be behind/not graduate or apply on time because of it) then take it, work super hard, and pull a B. No harm done. If you don't want to do this or think you're too far deep, just drop the class and dominate it at a later time. Either way, you'll be fine.

 

[Depakote]

Physics was the bane of my existence.

My advice would be to:
1.) find someone that can explain the material in a way you understand it and study with them... (I had so much trouble grasping the material the way my professor taught it that I basically had to re-learn it with Kaplan prior to the MCAT, grasped it then though)
2.) as said before... work problems. Lots of them. Make sure you've attacked the concept from every angle before the test b/c a teacher rarely gives you a straight-forward question on the test.

As for your application. Taking the MCAT late will hurt, but it won't kill you. If you have your primary submitted, reviewed and waiting for your scores, you'll be in good shape. The CBT MCAT is a lot faster than the old paper MCAT when we had to wait months for our scores to come back so an Aug MCAT won't put you as far behind the curve as it used to.

That said, speaking through experience... an extra year before applying is not always a bad thing. I had an extra couple of years before starting school and they turned out to be a blessing. I have had a job, I've had more time to mature and I've realized that there were a lot of experiences that have shaped the doctor I will become. If you wind up delaying a year, use it to your advantage.

 

[boodthedog]

Thank you so much for responding.

Can I actually submit my application before taking the MCAT? If so, before I decide to submit an application, what practice MCAT score should I be looking for?

I won't get my MCAT scores until next week and aacomas mailed my application to schools on Monday. I will update with my scores as soon as I have them. I plan on releasing scores both to aacomas and directly to schools. I had entered when I took the MCAT, but without scores I had entered as planned to take, so yes, you can submit first.

 

[EEL08]

I'm assuming you can't replace your lowest test grade. That's what saved me in Physics 2.

 

[coolcats]

hey good luck with physics it just simply takes practice.

as for the encouragement part Ive been in need of some myself lately. I am studying to the mcat right now, ive already taken it once and made a 27, and have a 3.43 gpa, which makes me a run of the mill applicant i guess (if that), but I have three weeks left til the mcat and I am no where near ready. So I kinda just want to quit and apply and see how well I do, I know it sounds kinda pathetic, and usually Im the last one to think like this but the odd of me going up to a 33-34 seem rather low right now...any ideas?

 

[EEL08]

hey good luck with physics it just simply takes practice.

as for the encouragement part Ive been in need of some myself lately. I am studying to the mcat right now, ive already taken it once and made a 27, and have a 3.43 gpa, which makes me a run of the mill applicant i guess (if that), but I have three weeks left til the mcat and I am no where near ready. So I kinda just want to quit and apply and see how well I do, I know it sounds kinda pathetic, and usually Im the last one to think like this but the odd of me going up to a 33-34 seem rather low right now...any ideas?

Honestly, if I were you I wouldn't retake. If you're really not sure you could score higher than a 27 then I wouldn't take the chance that you might score lower. I feel completely unready to take the MCAT in less than a month and it's my first time taking it. At this point I would love to have your 27.

 

[nlax30]

Hi all,

Sorry, don't know what to title this, I just want some feedback, and some hope.

I'm taking Physics I this summer and I failed my first test. This really shook me and I am trying to get myself together. There's no way I can get an A in this class now, but a B is still realistic.

This F on the test has really made me doubt myself, however. I want to apply for the class entering Fall 2009. I can't take the MCAT until August 2008...is my application going to be "late"? Late enough that I should consider waiting until the following application cycle? And with my prediction of an overall 3.3 GPA and 3.5 science GPA...what MCAT score do I need in order to apply "late" and still get accepted?

The DO schools I'm interested in are LECOM-bradenton and NSUCOM.

Thanks in advance.

I think you'd be fine. I had a similar GPA (3.3) with a good MCAT, and applied extremely late (yeah.....extremely late), but it worked out for LECOM-Br this year. I don' think the extra month or 2 months is going to make or break you. Definitely focus on doing really well on the MCAT now that it's still far enough out there. It's not like you need a 38 or something, but when I took it I knew that with my GPA at the time I needed a good MCAT to bump up my app.

Good luck on the rest of the physics course. From what I've seen physics is one of those courses where it really helps to have a professor who can teach well. My physics classes were basically a waste of time here, could barely understand the professor and all he did was right out sample problems from the book, didn't "explain" anything. So I spent a lot of time with other resources to learn the material.

But, at least when I took it on paper, the physics on the MCAT was very manageable in that you pretty much knew what sorts of questions there were going to ask, and as long as knew the basics of how to solve a few key types of physics problems, then you'd do fine on that section. For example, I went through a little MCAT prep course (not Kaplan or Princeton review) and the physics instructor was incredible. Aside from the fact that he could teach really well, he told us to approach that section by learning how to solve say, a spring constant problem, a F=ma type of problem, a pressure problem, a gravitation problem, etc....

So instead of trying to sludge through a year of physics material I just spent some time solving word problems in each major phsyics "subject" and then on the test it was a matter of seeing which type of problem it was, ignoring any extraneous info in the word problem, and then simply plugging numbers into one of the simple generic formulas that they expect you to know. (I had about one or two pages of most of the basic/general physics formulas that I memorized for that part).