When to take MCAT/Apply 2012?

[TriagePreMed]

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I want to apply for med in 2012, but I wanted to know when it's wisest to take the MCAT and apply? I'm a non-traditional and will be finishing my last requirement (Organic Chemistry II) on Fall 2011. I understand if it will be necessary to take the MCAT/apply without having taken that class yet. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

 

[quidam]

i have the same question. i'll be finishing orgo II either in the summer or the fall but would like to take the MCAT prior to completing it, if possible, thereby allowing me to apply next year vs pushing me out till 2012. is this wise?

 

[mspeedwagon]

I decided against this personally, but there are a lot of people on here (and on mdapps) that have done this successfully. I noticed a pattern among those people:
1) they all said they felt extremely comfortable with orgo I. They were the kind of people that could do orgo I problems in their sleep. They understood concepts so well that they could extrapolate concepts to guess what would happen with reactions they had never seen.
2) they used books to fill in gaps in knowledge. EK, BR, whatever was needed and didn't really need the classroom to learn the concepts.
3) their MCAT scores in other sections were high too. This leads me to believe they are generally good test-takers.

As to why I decided against it personally: I'm not great at organic chemistry and I'm definitely not one to be able to fill gaps in knowledge by just reading up on them, when it comes to organic chemistry especially. I very much need the instructor there (part of the reason I also decided to sign up for a PR course). I have difficulty with reactions I have seen before, let alone tackling reactions I have not. I had a few more classes I wanted to take, and figured it was better to apply later with a strong score than a year earlier with a poor one. Also, my biology knowledge is not strong (I took intro to biology in 2002 and though I have a bio degree, almost all my bio courses were in neuroscience which isn't useful for the MCAT) and didn't think I could count on doing well on the biology questions.

Hope that helps.

 

[RnVt]

I'm kind of in the same boat...I'll have everything done by spring 2011 except for Bio 2, which I plan to take over the summer. I feel much stronger in bio and would probably die of stress trying to do what you're doing! Still trying to figure out if this is realistic for me though...I guess my goal is med school sooner vs. crazy high MCAT...so I've decided that I'm just going to go ahead an apply...not sure if I'll be at a disadvantage though, not having all prereqs done.

 

[mspeedwagon]

If your course is split like most biology courses, wit the second part being plant biology and ecology, you will be at absolutely no disadvantage. The items covered in most bio 2 classes are not within the scope of the MCAT.

I'm kind of in the same boat...I'll have everything done by spring 2011 except for Bio 2, which I plan to take over the summer. I feel much stronger in bio and would probably die of stress trying to do what you're doing! Still trying to figure out if this is realistic for me though...I guess my goal is med school sooner vs. crazy high MCAT...so I've decided that I'm just going to go ahead an apply...not sure if I'll be at a disadvantage though, not having all prereqs done.