Taking the MCAT Multiple times

[jujuh001]

Does anyone have any information regarding the down sides of the MCAT multiple times? Do some med schools look at you differently according to the amount of times it took to get your desired score?

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[oxeye]

It depends a lot on the school but in general it is not a good idea to take the MCAT repeatedly until you get a score you are happy with. If you take it once and know you can do better (ie were scoring better on practice tests so it must have been a fluke or didn't study as much as you should have) then by all means retake but obviously it is better to just score well the first time.

I think most schools look at your most recent score as the most important but will still take previous scores into consideration.

There are some good tables on the AAMC website that show the odds of improving or not based on your current score. That can be a good resource for helping someone decide if it is in their favor to retake.

 

[Kateb4]

The schools will be able to see all of your scores (from the past 3 years I think). Some will take an average of them, some will factor in all scores individually and some will take the most recent. Best thing is to talk to the schools that you are interested in about how they look at multiple scores. The truth is that as long as you don't re-take too many times, and your scores increase when you do retake it I don't really see any harm. If your scores decrease, that is a problem, so only retake if you are fairly confident can better your score (and not waste the money also).