<p>other than sophomore summer, what are other recommended times to take the mcat?
is it worth it to postpone taking the mcat so that i can fit 5.13 in before i take it?
melis said 7.06 and 7.20 may be helpful… so should i try to fit those in as well?</p>
<p>and also, i’m interested in md phd programs… and i just read that gre’s may be required for some programs…??? i don’t want to have to take the gre and the mcat…</p>
<p>I don’t really know about MD/PhD, but Mollie does, so : )</p>
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<p>Yes, frosh summer, or junior IAP. I took mine junior IAP, although you must be sure that you’re going to do well on your first try (which you should anyways). If you screw up, there’s no time for you to retake till summer (well, I mean, it is offered Mar Apr and May, but you probably won’t be able to prepare very well because you’ll also be swamped with spring classes), and you don’t want to wait till Jun or Jul assuming you’re applying junior summer (there is a one month lag before getting your scores). In retrospect, I wish I took the MCAT sooner because it was like SUPER STRESSFUL preparing for the exam after the deluge of fall semester classes, and then hoping super hard that I didn’t screw up the MCAT. Thank goodness my score turned out okay.</p>
<p>You really don’t need 5.13. Make sure you take 7.05 though. That helps. 7.06 and 7.20 theoretically helps, but 7.06 usually comes pretty late (you probably won’t get to it till junior fall at the earliest), and the utility you get from taking 7.06 probably isn’t enough to justify your wait. Physiology is de-emphasized in recent MCATs, so you don’t need 7.20 either. If you have 8.01, 8.02, 5.111/2, 5.12, 7.02, 7.03, and 7.05, you’ll have everything you need to take the MCAT.</p>
<p>Of course, if you have an awesome sophomore summer with great internships, you don’t have to take it then, but IMHO in retrospect I wished I worked harder for 2 solid months during my soph summer and got it over with. It would have meant a lot less stress spring semester of junior year for me. =p</p>
<p>so i can retake the mcat as many times as i want? and is mcat like the sat now: you get to hide retake scores?</p>
<p>You can take the MCAT no more than 3 times per year. Voided scores (you’ll have to void before you exit the room) count towards your 3 attempts.</p>
<p>It is generally a bad idea to take the MCAT multiple times (like worse than taking the SAT twice or thrice), since the consensus is that med school committees really like seeing only a single attempt at the exam, which indicates forethought and planning before taking the exam to ensure a good performance. Even retakes are generally cautioned against unless a strong case can be made that you can gain 3+ points with a retake.</p>
<p>And no, you cannot hide any scores, haha. Your scores are valid for 3 years but med schools will see every MCAT score you have since 1991 =p</p>
<p>In any case, the MCAT is a lot more serious than the SAT in terms of how many times you can safely retake it so be sure to take this exam seriously on your first go.</p>
<p>ps. Different med schools have different policies on how they treat multiple MCAT scores. many take just your most recent score, but schools are also known to average the scores of your total attempts. taking just the highest of each section on your attempts (like SAT superscoring) generally doesn’t happen.</p>
<p>oh ok thanks for clarifying!! i guess i’ll just take it sophomore summer… </p>
<p>and another question, do graduate-level electives count as unrestricted electives? i know it doesn’t count as a restricted elective… but what about unrestricted?
and urop for credit is also an unrestricted elective, right?</p>
<p>and is 5.60 necessary for mcat?</p>
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The MD/PhDs in my lab didn’t have to take the GRE, so I don’t think it’s a particularly common requirement.</p>
<p>At any rate, the GRE is easy-peasy compared to the MCAT – it’s significantly easier than the SAT, and PhD programs don’t really care what you get as long as your quantitative score is high (and it will be) and your verbal score is passable. Anybody who’s able to do well on the MCAT would be able to get a high score on the GRE with very little effort.</p>
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For a course 7 degree? Or for graduation requirements more generally?</p>
<p>EDIT, just because I need to vent: I was talking with two guys in my lab today, a Harvard senior who’s applying to MD programs this fall and a Yale alum who’s an MD/PhD student in my lab. We were talking about the Harvard senior’s med school apps, and I (knowing about med school applications only what I read on CC) innocently mentioned that I was under the impression that differential equations was required for Harvard’s HST program. (Okay, I said “18.03”, then corrected myself.) They both looked at me like I had two heads and said, “What is ‘differential equations’? Is that like multivariable calculus?”</p>
<p>Seriously, dudes. This happened.</p>
<p>for the 78 units of unrestricted electives… i think this is under the course 7 requirements though i may be wrong…</p>
<p>and how often do students actually get to do 7.39 (Program of study or research to be arranged with a Department faculty member. Written report required. Consult Biology Education Office.) because a lot of the electives i’m interested in are all in the spring… and i can’t fit all of them in my schedule so can i petition to do some sort of independent study with the lecturer of one of those spring classes in the fall…?</p>
<p>“Unrestricted electives” really just means any classes you want to take to get yourself up to 180 units total outside the GIRs. Anything can count for them.</p>
<p>Don’t worry too much about what classes fit where. Sometimes professors will decide they’d rather teach a course a different semester, and sometimes eight thousand classes you really want to take will all be offered Tuesday/Thursday 9-11 or something. You’ll have to reconfigure your grand plan every semester, most likely. It will all work out in the wash.</p>
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If you haven’t already encountered someone in your lab who DOES, thankfully, know about diff eq (and how it factors into HST admissions)… yes, diff eq is required.</p>
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Yes, they most definitely count. And they will be recorded as “undergraduate level.”</p>
<p>I have never heard of anyone taking 7.39. I didn’t even realize it existed until you brought it up. It sounds like some kind of thesis, which Course 7 doesn’t really have. Project Lab is the course that is most similar to thesis, and it can be just as rigorous as one, and that’s the required (individual research + written report) course everyone takes.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s for people who have already done Project Lab and want the academic motivation to write up another paper on a separate UROP project.</p>
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<p>No, no, and no. All of the courses you “need” for the MCAT I’ve already listed for you before! You only need those and nothing else. Even so all the 7 courses I’ve listed are all overkill for the MCAT. </p>
<p>A med student once told me when I was a frosh that the MCAT is a reading comprehension exam. Not just the verbal section, but the whole test. I really understood why it’s true after taking a crack at it. MCAT really seeks to see how well you can understand unfamiliar passages and apply new knowledge, rather than regurgitating memorized facts. Yes, some fact memorization will be required, but I’ve come to feel that I didn’t really use any of the info I crammed when I was studying for the MCAT on the actual exam at all…</p>