Hi everyone. I totally screw up my PCAT.... My composite is 33%. It was my first time taking the PCAT on October. I know that there is only one month for me to study if I decided to retake it. I don't know if I can pull the score up. Did any of you score higher given that you only have one month to study for it???? I already applied to the pharmacy schools already. My GPA is 3.35, and I had many extracurriculars, volunteer work, and pharmacy experience. Do you guys think I should retake the test on January??? thanks for the advices!!!
Your GPA and extras seem fine, so it's just the PCAT holding you back. Please consider these questions:
1. How did you prepare for October's PCAT?
If you took the PCAT cold (that is, without preparing), it will definitely help you to go over all the material being tested. Now that you know the format of the PCAT, you should have a better idea of what is being asked of you. If you know the general concepts being tested, but just need to review details, one month is probably enough and you could retake in January.
2a. Are any of your subscores much weaker than the others, and that is what brought your score down?
If you have solid scores in all but one or two subtests, you could study those sections in detail for the next month and still have a shot at taking January's test. It wouldn't be easy to raise your score by a lot in that short an amount of time, but it might be possible.
2b. Are all of your subtest scores uniformly on the low side (0-40)?
If you haven't taken the pre-requisites like biology, chemistry, organic chemistry, and calculus --or if you took them, but didn't really understand the material-- you should finish them and/or try to find tutoring, or perhaps use a test prep course or book. This would probably mean applying for fall 2009 instead of 2008 because of the volume of material that you'd need to cover.
3. Did you apply to any schools that don't require the PCAT?
If a school doesn't require the PCAT, they might not bother looking at the score you received. You still need to know the material! But this is helpful if your score is low because you don't take tests well or something.
Best of luck to you, whether you retake it in January or not.
