Medical Should I Retake the MCAT or apply next cycle?

[Goro]

Hello,
I'm currently a senior biology major at UC Irvine with a sGPA of 3.6 and cGPA of 3.7. I took the MCAT a couple weeks ago and scored a 512 (85th percentile). I started undergraduate research 3 months before the pandemic hit so I have limited hours in research but plan to continue if I am ever allowed back into the lab. I have about 300 hours in clinical volunteering at a hospital in an underserved community (my city) and have worked part time all of college. My jobs include working in parks and recreation of my city and working with adults with developmental disabilities at a nearby day program. I don't have any shadowing hours as I planned to do that all of my senior year but since the pandemic hit I don't know how many hours I will get by next application cycle. I am aiming for MD but wouldn't mind going to DO programs as I don't think I want to do anything extraordinarily competitive such as surgery. Will I be able to apply next cycle with my stats and have a decent chance of getting into an allopathic school or should I retake the MCAT after I graduate? Thanks

A 512 score is a point above the median for MD acceptees. It's a fine score. Do NOT retake.
Here are the schools you're competitive for:


Rochester (maybe)
UCF (maybe)
U ILL
NYU-LI
Hofstra
Dartmouth
U CO
Emory
U WI
U VM
Miami
St. Louis
Albany
Rush
Rosy Franklin
Wayne State
MCW
NYMC
VCU
EVMS
Wake Forest
Jefferson
Temple
Tufts
Drexel
Creighton
George Washington
Georgetown
Tulane
Loyola
Netter
Oakland-B
Western MI
Seton Hall
Your state school(s).
Nova MD
Kaiser if you’re from CA
TCU/UNT
Uniformed Services University/Hebert (just be aware of the military service commitment)
Any DO program. Include UNECOM if you’re from the NE, OSUCOM if you’re from the Plains states and PacNW if you’re from that region. I can't recommend Nova, BCOM, ICOM and LUCOM, for different reasons. MSUCOM? Read up on Larry Nasser and you decide. LMU has an accreditation warning, which concerns me. CUHS is too new and appears to be too limited in rotations sites. UIW refuses to post their Boards scores, which is fishy.

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[TheBoneDoctah]

Do not retake the MCAT!

On your point about DO schools and getting into competitive residencies...you can still get into surgery as a DO...

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

Oh okay, I was just told that it is a lot harder to match into competitive residencies as a DO especially where I live, I'll definitely look into DO

Harder, yes. But surgical specialties are hard to get into regardless. If you go into medical school, do well and make some connections, you can do general surgery and ortho. NSG has less much less DOs.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

Oh okay that's encouraging to hear because general surgery sounds really cool as a specialty.

Definitely can match into GS.