<p>White Female
Florida Resident; working towards qualifications for South Carolina residency
Clemson University 2011, BA in Biological Sciences with a minor in Psychology
Cumulative GPA: 3.45
MCAT: 12 VR 8 PS 10 BS = 30Q</p>
<p>Currently employed as an EMT-Basic; will have more than 500 hours work experience by the time applications can be submitted on June 5th. Working on getting LORs from my old professors.</p>
<p>I know my GPA isn't stellar, so I'm not sure if an average MCAT will be enough with my experience to get in. Should I take it again, or take my chances and apply?</p>
<p>Just my opinion. I have no data or anything to back it up.</p>
<p>I applied 2010-2011 to start med school in 2011. I had a 3.8 and a 30S, with a pretty nice set of qualifications outside of my numbers. I applied to 13 schools, had 4 interviews, and exactly 1 acceptance. It was an early acceptance, so when I was accepted, I withdrew from the other schools so I don’t know if they would have produced interviews. The other interviews yielded 2 wait lists, which I got tired of waiting out and eventually withdrew (in like, July). I withdrew after the other interview–didn’t fit the school.</p>
<p>It’s a hell of a process. More than half the people who apply don’t get in anywhere. Given the huge investment of time, money, energy, life, etc that applying requires, I personally would be suuuuuuper hesitant to apply with your statistics. I would want one of those numbers to be significantly better. If the MCAT score was a fluke–and I was normally scoring mid-30s–I would retake and apply next cycle. If the MCAT score was a lucky break–and I had normally been scoring sub-30–I’d consider keeping it but would probably decide to prepare better and take it again in like, January, so my app for next cycle would be plenty early and considerably better. In the meantime, I’d work on making sure the rest of my application was as close to perfect as possible. (And no, there’s no formula for a perfect application.) </p>
<p>I’d rather have 2 MCAT scores than 2 application cycles. I’m sure there are people out there who would rather be brave and give it a go this cycle though. I hope those people contribute!</p>
<p>A MCAT pro needs to speak to this but with that great VR, I’m think you can bump up PS and BS a few points. I believe if the VR score was your 8, I’d be more concerned with a re-take. Did you take a review class? </p>
<p>This may seem like inconsistant advice to what I normally say about re-takes, but that 3.45 needs to be offset with a better than average MCAT.</p>
<p>I don’t have the money for a review course, so I studied out of a Princeton Review book on my own. I have the special physics and organic chemistry editions of it too, which I think I should start going over in earnest if I want to retake this. PS has never been my strong suit. </p>
<p>I really don’t want to wait until the next application cycle to apply. The MCAT scores are from the April 5th test; I took the test early so that I could take another in May if it didn’t pan out. Is it that important to have your application out as soon during June as possible? Because I know I can’t get all my letters of recommendation in by the first - I’ve been out of school for a year, and getting in touch with professors via email to get them has been like pulling teeth.</p>
<p>My BCMP GPA isn’t the best; I had a lot of personal issues come up during sophmore and junior year that really destroyed a lot of my focus and left it in the same neighborhood as my cumulative GPA. The thing I felt when I got this score was less, “this is a good score and I’m happy with it” and more “I can do better than this.” I really feel like I didn’t perform up to my potential at the time.</p>
<p>Logistically AMCAS does not release info to the schools until July1, but it takes them several weeks to verify you. Even if you retake the MCAT, submit your AMCAS and PS & transcripts ASAP so that the verification can proceed.</p>
<p>somemom, do you mean that you can submit your AMCAS application without having chosen an MCAT score yet? I thought that was an integral part of the application.</p>
<p>The first question to ask is if you have reason to expect if you’ll do better a second time. If this score is in-line with your practice test scores, don’t re-take and apply as soon as possible. If you re-take and make essentially the same score, you will have hurt yourself by delaying your application (if someone has a “red flag” on their application, it’s especially important to apply as soon as is reasonably possible). </p>
<p>If, on the other hand, you do have reason to expect that you’ll improve, it might be worth it. Was this 30 completely different from your practice test scores? Do you have a specific reason why your score on this test was lower than you expected? Did you know you were weak in PS and now you’ve studied more and are making higher scores on your practice tests?</p>
<p>Also, have you continued to study in the interim, or would you have to start studying again now? Unless you’re taking time off and going to apply in the next cycle, you don’t want to delay your submission by too much. Are we talking about you already being prepared to take it on the next available test date for which you can get a seat or are we talking about you needing 1-2 months to study before you can re-take?</p>
<p>If you do decide to retake, get everything else into AMCAS so that when your scores come back, you can submit immediately.</p>
<p>IIR, you submit it either with a score or score pending, so you can submit before the score is reported. The critical point is that if a test date is in August or September and you submit score pending, many schools will NOT even review your application until the score comes through.</p>
<p>Since you are talking an earlier enough test date, you should be fine…assuming your score goes up ;)</p>
<p>It’s not that money is everything, but if you don’t have the money for a review course, do you have the money to apply as broadly as someone with your numbers should? You probably should apply to at least 20 schools (and I’d consider 30 or so), and applications are pricey. Not including the travel to interviews, you could easily spend more than $2000 on the applications.</p>
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<p>The worst thing that you could do is put in a subpar application and then not get any acceptances. Re-applying is much harder than the first time around - medical schools will expect to see some sort of significant improvement in your application and they’ll be merciless in judging your application the second time around.</p>
<p>Getting your application in as early as possible is critical, especially to someone with numbers on the low end like yours. Interviews and therefore acceptances are rolling, and your chances are much higher earlier in the season than they are late in the game. The application deadlines published by medical schools on their websites are essentially meaningless - if you put in an application that late, you’ve essentially made a non-tax-deductible donation to the school because you almost certainly won’t get even an interview offer that late in the season because there simply are no slots left.</p>
<p>If you have to call your professors’ secretaries every week, do it. If you have to show up on campus and (politely) barge into people’s labs or offices to get them to finish that letter, do it. Being early is so important.</p>
<p>OP, if you are low income, you could qualify for the FAP (fee assistance program) through AMCAS. IIRC it covers your AMCAS fee plus 16? or so schools (sorry, too tired to look it up.) You would also get fee waivers for secondaries, but as Shades said, that is only the tip of the money drain. My daughter interviewed at 13 schools and the cost was GINORMOUS. Yes, I know that’s not a real word, but that’s what it was.</p>
<p>You should realize up front that the cost of a prep course is just the the start of a very expensive and long application cycle. My daughter could write a book on planes, trains, automobilles, shuttles, taxis and hoofing it from her application cycle. All these were very expensive (thank you grandparents) and need to be anticipated upon applying to medschool.</p>
<p>Don’t forget to add in cost for other necessary things like an interview suit (yes, I said suit. A must-have) and dress shoes. Also meals on the road and lodging.</p>
<p>AMCAS fee assistance is for up tp 14 schools. FAP requires that you provide your parents’ financial data regardless of your age or FAFSA status.</p>