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Discover Your Odds of Getting into Medical School
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First off, extremely sorry the loss of your father. I would highly recommend NOT taking the MCAT on May 13th and focusing on supporting your family/making sure your mental health is okay before you proceed. The worst thing you could do is take a high stakes exam when you are no where near ready to go. You know your Pops would hate for this to adversely affect your future career. It may suck right now, but you will grow from this. Your application clock is not ending. This is a never ending rat race, one extra year (even if on top of other years) does not matter in the scheme of life.

To answer your TL;DR:
If I push ahead and take the MCAT and score a low grade, say 480, but retake and score higher, say 500, would my application get passed over because my first grade looks like I didn't care enough to prepare?
-You would have a high chance of getting passed up if you got a score that low. There is no way around it.

What are the downsides to this?
-Downsides would be getting a terrible score and ruining your medical career before it even begins

Potential upsides?
-Nothing besides getting the test done. Cons >>>>>>> Pros in this case

Should I take it as another full-length practice and void?
This is an option, but if you go in thinking you are going to void it DONT YOU DARE EVEN THINK ABOUT SCORING IT AT THE END. I don't care if you thought it was "Easier". If you go in with the mindset of voiding it, make sure you 100% void it.

With talks about scoring a 500, it seems like you are interested in DO schools? If that is the case, you can push your MCAT date much more into the summer as the timing of the DO cycle lasts much longer. You can apply ~August and still be fine for MD and even run into September/October for DO! I was complete around mid/late August for MD and my cycle worked out okay.

Good luck OP, I went through a similar situation before my app cycke and would be open to talking to you about how I overcame it/proceeded with my application cycle. Feel free to PM me.
 
I would say postpone in your situation just to make sure you have a clear head. It's not worth the risk.

My mom died last year about a week before my MCAT but I wasn't that close with her and didn't feel like it affected me much during my test. Coincidentally, there was a passage based on alcoholism which definitely caused me to lose focus for a few minutes but that was it.

Good luck going forward though.
 
I'm deeply sorry for your loss OP. Please please please postpone the exam when you are ready and confident to do well on the exam. You need time for yourself. Medical schools are not going anywhere and more schools will be open when you apply.
 
Very, very sorry to hear of your loss.

I strongly recommend NOT to take the MCAT. You're not on your best game now; you need time to grieve, and frankly, trying to bulldoze your way through this will draw your judgment into question. You have plenty of time to take the exam and apply.

I want to add upon the wise gyngyn's comments: the MCAT is a high stakes, career deciding exam!

Take the exam in July. That's still early in the process. Even early August is OK.

kilonineralpha said:
Hello everyone. Sorry for the crappy thread, but I really need some advice.

I was signed up for the May 13th MCAT. My father just passed on April 23rd, 3 days before my birthday, after a brutal year of battling small cell lung cancer. After his diagnosis, he began to have afib, nph, severe dementia, and multiple strokes. It was a cruel death for such a great man but I was honored to be with him in his last hours.

I am having a hard time deciding whether I should push ahead with the MCAT, or postpone it. I'm having a hard time pushing through this so soon, but it's too late for a refund. If I take it much later, I won't be in the earliest admissions sent out on June 30, which I feel is crucial for my chances for acceptance. However, I just don't know how well I'll perform, as this last month has been very hard mentally. I've lost a lot of study time driving the 2 hours back and forth for doctor visits and ICU visitation in his final weeks.

I REALLY don't want to put off medical school for another year, which is essentially what will happen if I postpone. I'm already a non-traditional student and I feel like my "acceptance clock" is close to ticking down.

TL;DR - If I push ahead and take the MCAT and score a low grade, say 480, but retake and score higher, say 500, would my application get passed over because my first grade looks like I didn't care enough to prepare? What are the downsides to this? Potential upsides? Should I take it as another full-length practice and void?

I consider myself very strong mentally, but I am struggling with which decision to make. I would very much appreciate any advice or insight.
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I am so sorry for your loss. I know how the sense of grief can be so overwhelming that it comes over you like a giant wave, but I promise you that it will subside over time. I hope you take time to take care of yourself and reach out to your friends/family for support.

Something similar happened to me while I was studying for the MCAT, I decided to take it and scored poorly. Because of my poor score I had to take another year off to restudy and to reapply. So you might want to take another year off, in doing so you could potentially save yourself from another 2-3 years off. Because of my first score, it crushed my confidence and I had a lot of anxiety trying to do the exam a second time around.

Since you already paid for the exam, just sit through it so that you can get a better feel of what the exam is like, then void it. See if you can get the timing down and treat it like another diagnostic exam.
 
I am so so sorry for your loss. Having a parent taken from you is difficult.

I just recently lost my mom and even though I'm only a freshman I could not imagine taking such an important test so soon, even now two months since her passing I am nervous about taking my NREMT to be an emt basic...
 
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