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Retaking the MCAT?
- Thread starter TrailMixedd
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They look at all of your scores, and generally place emphasis on most recent score.
Some schools value CARS very highly, others Bio. I read somewhere on SDN that CARS, alongside Bio is considered the best predictor of success in medical school and Step 1, rather than the other 2 sections. Other schools have certain requirements, like "no single section below 125/126/127."
Life in California is hard for pre-med. Honestly, had I known what I know now, I would have gone out of state for college and establish residency there to expand my options.
I suggest you get a subscription to the MSAR to get detailed information on medical schools (both CA and OOS) but I will post some quick stats of median GPA/MCAT:
UCDavis: 3.72/509
Loma Linda: 3.86/508
UC Irvine: 3.82/512
UC Riverside: 3.74/508
UCLA: 3.79/508
The remaining schools are higher.
As you can see, your GPA is at the median, at best (and generally lower). Your MCAT is above median, but unbalanced (50%ile in CARS). This is not to say it is unachievable. Remember, median is the middle, there are equal amounts of students above and below.
I hesitate to offer any hard advice, but with a 125 in any subject, it's like a 7 or below in a subsection in the old MCAT. Considering how tough it is in California, I would recommend a retake where you aim for 127/128/128/129: 512. I expect you can easily get the 129 in P/S. You will probable even get higher than that. But you definitely want to improve your CARS by at least 2-3, and place a little extra work in Bio to try to get another point there too.
I also recommend you broaden your school selection to include a wide variety of OOS schools.
Some schools value CARS very highly, others Bio. I read somewhere on SDN that CARS, alongside Bio is considered the best predictor of success in medical school and Step 1, rather than the other 2 sections. Other schools have certain requirements, like "no single section below 125/126/127."
Life in California is hard for pre-med. Honestly, had I known what I know now, I would have gone out of state for college and establish residency there to expand my options.
I suggest you get a subscription to the MSAR to get detailed information on medical schools (both CA and OOS) but I will post some quick stats of median GPA/MCAT:
UCDavis: 3.72/509
Loma Linda: 3.86/508
UC Irvine: 3.82/512
UC Riverside: 3.74/508
UCLA: 3.79/508
The remaining schools are higher.
As you can see, your GPA is at the median, at best (and generally lower). Your MCAT is above median, but unbalanced (50%ile in CARS). This is not to say it is unachievable. Remember, median is the middle, there are equal amounts of students above and below.
I hesitate to offer any hard advice, but with a 125 in any subject, it's like a 7 or below in a subsection in the old MCAT. Considering how tough it is in California, I would recommend a retake where you aim for 127/128/128/129: 512. I expect you can easily get the 129 in P/S. You will probable even get higher than that. But you definitely want to improve your CARS by at least 2-3, and place a little extra work in Bio to try to get another point there too.
I also recommend you broaden your school selection to include a wide variety of OOS schools.
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be careful with advice on here....look at the facts instead....a 125CARS is currently 61%tile, a 7VR was 37%tile.....the above poster said a 125=7, thats just not true. A 8VR was 52%tile and 9VR was 67%tile therefore a 125CARS is very close to a 9VR.
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There is no way you should retake a 127/125/128/131. Think about it like this...(511) 15% of all testers scored higher than you and only 1% scored higher is P/S. There is so much variability as you get higher up in the percentiles...that your P/S score is more than likely to decrease...so lets say it drops by two points...your cars goes up by two points (similar to your practice tests), and your sciences each fluctuate by a point or two....best case scenario, you have a +4 differential leading you to a 515 where now only 7% of all testers scored higher than you.....do you really think an adcom cares that now your most recent score shows that 8% less people will beat your score? My opinion would be completely different if your cars score was a 124...but you met all the standard cut offs and won't get screened out based on just your mcat.
What were all your scores?Yes I didThe best I did was 510 but the highest CARS score was 127.
If you've scored above all your FLs, I don't expect you to repeat your performance. Use your current score for the apps, and hope that Cali schools don't autoscreen your 125 (aka probably shouldn't apply to Keck).
So you were performing around your average for CARS and Bio, slightly underperformed for C/P, and highly overperformed in Psych.
Don't retake, but do look at some OOS and broaden your applications beyond just Cali.
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I'm in a similar place... I took the mcat in 2016 and got 510 (127/126/128/129), 3.61 GPA I was expecting Chem/Physics to be my lowest section but it ended up being CARs which was frustrating, I knew I shoulda done better... applied last cycle didn't get any II's but reflecting on my application, I realized my personal statement was total ass and I just didn't have a good understanding of how to present it
this cycle I felt better about my PS and secondaries but still haven't received any II which is concerning me especially cause my application was complete early on; the schools I applied to were in my score range, no reach schools, so far I've only heard back from Albany and VCU and got rejected from both. I dont have any research experience but good extracurriculars. I'm starting an Americorps position next week at a local health care center so I'll be doing that mostly during my gap year and for the summer of 2018, I may work at a summer camp for kids with serious illnesses in a leadership position, I've worked at this camp for 2 summers already
so I'm debating whether I should retake mcat so i can improve all aspects of my application but I'm afraid of scoring less or only improving the score by 1 or 2 points. also working full time while studying isn't the best scenario... any advice?
also I added a DO school in early September but next cycle I'll def apply to a few more DO schools.
this cycle I felt better about my PS and secondaries but still haven't received any II which is concerning me especially cause my application was complete early on; the schools I applied to were in my score range, no reach schools, so far I've only heard back from Albany and VCU and got rejected from both. I dont have any research experience but good extracurriculars. I'm starting an Americorps position next week at a local health care center so I'll be doing that mostly during my gap year and for the summer of 2018, I may work at a summer camp for kids with serious illnesses in a leadership position, I've worked at this camp for 2 summers already
so I'm debating whether I should retake mcat so i can improve all aspects of my application but I'm afraid of scoring less or only improving the score by 1 or 2 points. also working full time while studying isn't the best scenario... any advice?
also I added a DO school in early September but next cycle I'll def apply to a few more DO schools.
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It is not your mcat score that is holding you back. I would not retake a well balanced 510. Is there a LOR you might be worried about? Sounds like a red flag is somewhere.
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I got a committee letter from my pre med commitee at my school, the individual letters that they used to comprise the committe letter should all be good... like i said the first time i applied my personal statement was definitely poor but this time around, I'm not sure... tryna be optimistic that something might happen soon as the cycle is still going on...
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What are your ECs like?
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good work experience, have had a part time job first 2 years of college, volunteered for 300 hours with Jumpstart sophomore year where i basically tutored preschool kids then the following 2 years volunteered with America Reads which is essentially the same thing but less of a time committment. did an internship following freshman year at a hospital in NYC, gained clinical shadowing experience, got like a good picture of medicine cause we had shifts in various areas, ED, surgery, social work, ambulance ride along, urgent care, interviewed patients for clinical research, etc. we were basically patient advocates so our main duty was just to talk to patients in the ED, ask questions to doctors on their behalf, transport them, bring them food and all that stuff. but between all that, we had chances to shadow residents/physicians and stuff so basically all my clinical experience comes from that internship which was for the whole summer... then worked at the summer camp for kids with serious illnesses for 2 summers now and as i said before I'd like to do one more summer there where I take on a more of a leadership role... i think that's something missing from my app, i never had like a leadership position at a club at school or anything... and I'm gonna be working with Americorps next week at a local health care center for 1700 hours over a 10 month period... I feel like my ECs are decent enough to at least get me an II... maybe I just need to work on my essays more :/
