retake MCAT? the 100th time(sorry)

[Sachiel]

My situation:
Major: Foreign Language and Culture

Minor: CHemistry
BCPM: 3.8
GPA:3.79
MCAT 29Q 10, 10, 9

Stuff I did before I applied this cycle:
Researched in Zoology department for 3 years, and some amount of publications.

Volunteered in a hospital intermediate care unit for 2 years.

founder/coordinator of a charity event at a convention, raised a record amount of money for a children's hospital.

Shadowing of a gynecologist oncologist for two summers

Went to China to shadow a urology hospital for a month. Lived in hospital . Observed many surgeries and procedures. Taught English in the afternoon.

Researched in humanities, publication. Received two awards for the project later became senior thesis which was received for highest honors.

Other awards include that stuff you expect from GPA munching.

Stuff I've done since:
Hospice Patient volunteering: 10 hours a week.
Shadowed an ER doctor since feb. 4 hours a week.
Begin (hopefully) shadowing neurosurgery in another hospital in may.
Push out another publication for zoology, hopefully submitted in June.
Study for MCAT.

Ok, i know i am in that border of where there is a chance that i can fall and the chances of improvement are relatively small (big improvements).

So, my question is; should i retake it?

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[olemissbabydoc]

have you talked to adcoms at schools you are interested in that didn't get into? was your mcat score what kept you out, or something else? do you feel CONFIDENT that you could make a several point improvement?

ask around to some "important" people before you go through the mcat hell again... your ec's rock

 

[EpiPEN]

Take it again unless you really don't want to deal with studying for it.

Everything else in your apps seems pretty good (although from the language of how you worded some of the EC's, it sounds kind of embossed, but that's up to reader opinion I supposed) and it would raise the question as to why your GPA was so high but not your MCAT score. I mean that's just what I think I would ask if I was on adcom, again, personal opinion. I'd say take it because if there's a chance it's hurting you, there's no reason why you shouldn't improve and remove any doubt that pepole can have about your knowledge/ability. I know it is a well known fact that not everyone are great test takers, but you did pretty well in college, why not rock the test too?

Did you look into your LOR's? who wrote them? how confident are you that they wrote steller letters?

 

[Sachiel]

Take it again unless you really don't want to deal with studying for it.

Everything else in your apps seems pretty good (although from the language of how you worded some of the EC's, it sounds kind of embossed, but that's up to reader opinion I supposed) and it would raise the question as to why your GPA was so high but not your MCAT score. I mean that's just what I think I would ask if I was on adcom, again, personal opinion. I'd say take it because if there's a chance it's hurting you, there's no reason why you shouldn't improve and remove any doubt that pepole can have about your knowledge/ability. I know it is a well known fact that not everyone are great test takers, but you did pretty well in college, why not rock the test too?

Did you look into your LOR's? who wrote them? how confident are you that they wrote steller letters?

My apologies if they do, but honestly that's what I have done. I honestly didnt keep that track tightly of my hours. I honestly have seen alot more ECs that are more interesting and original. I put in the hours because someone from the admin office one day asked why there werent more hours attached. But i'll retool it definitely.

Thank you both for the advice so far.

 

[gman33]

Where did you apply this time?
Your MCAT is a little low, but you have a good GPA.
Unless you had a bum LOR or something, I would have thought you would have had some luck unless you applied to all reach schools.

I'd say to retake the MCAT because that is one thing you can control. It will take a lot of work to improve significantly, so make sure you are prepared to do the work if you are going to retake. If you can get to 32+, then you will have a much better chance at most schools. You need to get started soon on the prep if you are going to retake for this cycle. If you are not working, I'd say just study full time for May and June and retake it in July.

I'm sure you don't feel like studying for this test again, but don't let one stupid test get in the way of your goals.
Also, make sure you get some feedback from the schools that rejected you. You want to make sure there is nothing else holding you back.

 

[EpiPEN]

My apologies if they do, but honestly that's what I have done. I honestly didnt keep that track tightly of my hours. I honestly have seen alot more ECs that are more interesting and original. I put in the hours because someone from the admin office one day asked why there werent more hours attached. But i'll retool it definitely.

Thank you both for the advice so far.

Yeah it's not what you did that made me feel like it was a little embossed, it's more of the wording. But retooling would seem like a good idea imo. But then again, you'll have a lot more space on the actual application to write in details what you did and learned in each of these activities, so that'll probably improve it too. You can try posting this in the pre-med section. You'd get more responses there.