PS was a killer for me. I wish I remember what the passages and questions were so I could study those. I can't even seem to remember most of it. I think it was my nerves and just I felt like it was coming out of left field. I know that I got 2 questions wrong for sure. I would have preferred to have more conceptual physics problems. I dunno. I didn't think verbal and bio were that bad but I was feeling very rushed and pressed for time (I skimmed the last passages for both of those sections). Plus, I had issues with the actual exam itself, like the going back function... I couldn't figure out that you needed to actually double click on the "Question #"... I wasted time flipping through passages in order to go back... it sucked. :-( My top choice is University of Maryland but I am okay with DO schools (but I heard that they can be JUST as competitive as MD schools). My big thing is that I want to stay in the North East, Maryland region.
My GPA is 3.78 Biochemistry major, psychology minor. I graduated in 2007 and have been working mostly research since. I currently work at the National Institutes of Health.
I also think you need to have shadowed DOs and have a LOR from a DO. I had one 5 years ago when I applied but we have not kept in touch at all. :-/ What about you?
If you score a balanced 24 on the mcat you will get in one of the new DO schools. However, with your GPA, a balanced 26 will get you in all DO schools that don't have regional bias. For MD, you need above 30, I think.
I had the same issue regarding the double click function when you review your questions. I couldn't get it to go straight to the marked questions and had to start from passage one and hit next.
I finished the PS with 6 mins to spare, but got so frustratd with the "double click" function and ended up not being able to revisit those questions I wanted to have another look at.
Verbal was OK, but the two last passages along with one detailed passage in the middle threw me off balance.
BS was a total BS. I couldn't have anticipated those passages from what we were exposed to in AAMC FL's. The last ochem passage was very long and took a considerable amount of time to do. I thought I was doing good on timing until I arrived to the final bio passage with only 15 mins left. I skipped it, did the discrete page and returned to it. By the time I was done with it, I had less than 3 mins left. I reviewed my answers to make sure that I didn't leave anything unanswered, but again got frustrated that I couldn't double click and go directly to the marked questions, so I ended up revisiting one random bio passage, did nothing, and submitted my test.
I'm irritated by this test. Bio is my strongest subject and my ass was handed to me on this test. It wasn't that the passages were hard to read as much as it were the way they worded some questions and how many questions had two very possible, equally plausible answers.
Bio was just another verbal test.
I'm applying only DO. My GPA is on the lower end 3.35, so I figured I need 25+ to get me in
somewhere. That's 3 points lower than my average on the last 3 AAMC exams.
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