What do I do now?

[anon y mous]

So I scored even lower than my diagnostic after 5 solid months of studying. I honestly have no idea where I went wrong, so how do I improve? Please don't tell me that maybe medicine isn't for me. Otherwise my gpa and application was competitive. Now what?

I know i mistyped the title but it won't let me edit it.

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[BloodySurgeon]

I understand that you are disappointed with your score and you feel cheated and lost, but you have to remember that this one score cant stop you from your future goals. What if some of our greatest leaders gave up in the sight of sudden failure? Would we have some of our greatest accomplishments? Thomas Edison failed more than a 1000 times before he invented some of his greatest inventions, maybe it takes you two or three times. Many people don't even have the opportunity to correct their mistakes or have to spend many years correcting them such as low undergraduate gpa.

At this point, I don't think you should reconsider your dreams and aspirations but may be some time to plan how your going to whoop the mcats butt would be more productive. It is unfortunate that you feel like you did not know what you were doing wrong, since that could be the first step into honing into correcting your past mistakes. However, taking the MCAT is quite common and you should not be ashamed of it. Most people find their light second time around and with a new attitude and confidence, they really nail the test. Maybe this is you. Spend this week to grief and recuperate, but once you are done and you have accepted the fact that a re-take is in order... plan a new strategy that you think will work. Maybe you didnt do enough content or maybe there weren't enough practice tests.

Try browsing around SDN and look what others have done to improve their scores. Since I have no information about you, I cannot suggest much but I can reassure you ANYONE can improve on the MCAT.

*I also took the liberty to correct the spelling on your title, I hope that is ok.

 

[anon y mous]

I understand that you are disappointed with your score and you feel cheated and lost, but you have to remember that this one score cant stop you from your future goals. What if some of our greatest leaders gave up in the sight of sudden failure? Would we have some of our greatest accomplishments? Thomas Edison failed more than a 1000 times before he invented some of his greatest inventions, maybe it takes you two or three times. Many people don't even have the opportunity to correct their mistakes or have to spend many years correcting them such as low undergraduate gpa.

At this point, I don't think you should reconsider your dreams and aspirations but may be some time to plan how your going to whoop the mcats butt would be more productive. It is unfortunate that you feel like you did not know what you were doing wrong, since that could be the first step into honing into correcting your past mistakes. However, taking the MCAT is quite common and you should not be ashamed of it. Most people find their light, second time around and with a new attitude and confidence, they really nail the test. Maybe this is you. Spend this week to grief and recuperate, but once you are done and you have accepted the fact that a re-take is in order... plan a new strategy that you think will work. Maybe you didnt do enough content or maybe there weren't enough practice tests.

Try browsing around SDN and look what others have done to improve their scores. Since I have no information about you, I cannot suggest much but I can reassure you ANYONE can improve on the MCAT.

*I also took the liberty to correct the spelling on your title, I hope that is ok.

Thank you!! You almost made me cry by your kind response. I wasn't ready to give up since i want this too badly. Maybe I can quote your comment about the greatest leaders when I have to explain my shortcomings. My plan is only to apply DO since I think they will be more forgiving of a low MCAT score. What scores are even acceptable for DO?

And thanks for correcting my title.

 

[Dr.Jay]

You can call aamc and ask them to regrade the exam just to make sure. I had a friend do that and went up 7 points. Give it a shot.

 

[anon y mous]

You can call aamc and ask them to regrade the exam just to make sure. I had a friend do that and went up 7 points. Give it a shot.

Wow!! But it was a computerized exam; what's the chance of it being wrong? it's not like i've been scoring tremendously higher on my practice tests, but my recent scores were 5 points higher. How much does that cost?

 

[Chuckwalla]

You can call aamc and ask them to regrade the exam just to make sure. I had a friend do that and went up 7 points. Give it a shot.

That is downright scary if true.

 

[NontradICUdoc]

first thing, is to take a deep breath and relax.

I would advise you to think long and hard about why you want to apply to a DO school. The MCAT averages for DO schools have steadily gone up and the quality of applicant has increased significantly. Also, if you are using DO as a fallback for MD, they know about this and can see right through it. I am not discouraging you from applying, just think about it.

Next, I would advise you to review the entire MCAT day from start to finish. Is there something that stood out in your mind? Are you normally a coffee drinker and did not have your coffee that morning so you had a headache? Did you drink a lot of Gatorade and were then very uncomfortable because your had to pee a lot? Did you have enough time to finish the exam? Etc.

Think about what may have thrown you off. Was it nerves about the exam? Is it your attitude towards the MCAT, calling it a beast? Sometimes just changing your attitude can help a lot. If you think about the MCAT as the key to the door of medical school, you will see that you will retain more information than if you had negative thoughts about it.

Good luck.

 

[tncekm]

You can call aamc and ask them to regrade the exam just to make sure. I had a friend do that and went up 7 points. Give it a shot.

Was this on the paper based test? I can see that happening on the paper based test where there are bubbling errors, etc, but the CBT? I don't know about that...

 

[anon y mous]

first thing, is to take a deep breath and relax.

I would advise you to think long and hard about why you want to apply to a DO school. The MCAT averages for DO schools have steadily gone up and the quality of applicant has increased significantly. Also, if you are using DO as a fallback for MD, they know about this and can see right through it. I am not discouraging you from applying, just think about it.

Next, I would advise you to review the entire MCAT day from start to finish. Is there something that stood out in your mind? Are you normally a coffee drinker and did not have your coffee that morning so you had a headache? Did you drink a lot of Gatorade and were then very uncomfortable because your had to pee a lot? Did you have enough time to finish the exam? Etc.

Think about what may have thrown you off. Was it nerves about the exam? Is it your attitude towards the MCAT, calling it a beast? Sometimes just changing your attitude can help a lot. If you think about the MCAT as the key to the door of medical school, you will see that you will retain more information than if you had negative thoughts about it.

Good luck.

The problem is there was nothing really out of the ordinary. I tried to think this all out ahead of time. I weaned myself off coffee a month before the test so I would not have the bathroom problem and also so I wasn't craving it. I surprisingly wasn't nervous. Nothing seemed really different than the practice tests. I almost didn't finish some sections but at least filled in answers and that had happened on practice tests also. The only thing I can think of is that I hardly slept at all the night before (just like last night), even though I was weaning myself towards an earlier bedtime and earlier getting up time. Next do I try sleeping pills and get used to them before the test so I'll be able to sleep the night before without feeling groggy in the morning. The few times I took sleeping pills, they really didn't help me sleep either.

 

[engineeredout]

Sleeping pills are a bad idea the night before a test. When I take them, even if I get a solid 12 hours of sleep, I still feel tired the rest of the day and my mind is shut down.

Best test taking advice: Make sure you use the bathroom before sitting for an exam. nothing worse than having 50 more questions to do but having to pee at the same time.

 

[olemissbabydoc]

By all means, retake! Don't let that one day and one bad score kill your dreams. Study harder, put more in than you ever thought possible, and do it until you absolutely cannot any longer.

You can do it!

 

[pianola]

Definitely don't take sleeping pills. Apart from leaving you groggy the next day, they somehow prevent you from getting REM sleep, which is important for your cognitive and problem-solving abilities.

 

[nontrdgsbuiucmd]

So I scored even lower than my diagnostic after 5 solid months of studying. I honestly have no idea where I went wrong, so how do I improve? Please don't tell me that maybe medicine isn't for me. Otherwise my gpa and application was competitive. Now what?

I know i mistyped the title but it won't let me edit it.

What were your section scores? If any were 6, probably not worth applying to US MD. If all were 8 or above, I'd go for it and apply to schools, some will consider you if ECs and other areas are strong, particularly your instate state school(s). I'd call each school to see if they would seriously consider someone with your MCAT prior to sending in secondary fees, however.

 

[Gold 5]

The problem is there was nothing really out of the ordinary. I tried to think this all out ahead of time. I weaned myself off coffee a month before the test so I would not have the bathroom problem and also so I wasn't craving it. I surprisingly wasn't nervous. Nothing seemed really different than the practice tests. I almost didn't finish some sections but at least filled in answers and that had happened on practice tests also. The only thing I can think of is that I hardly slept at all the night before (just like last night), even though I was weaning myself towards an earlier bedtime and earlier getting up time. Next do I try sleeping pills and get used to them before the test so I'll be able to sleep the night before without feeling groggy in the morning. The few times I took sleeping pills, they really didn't help me sleep either.

Anon,
1. Relax, it is not the end of the world, if this is what you want you can make it work. Things make take just a little longer to get to your goal, thats all

2. If you don't mind me asking, how did you study for the exam? Did you take a class?