<p>My D (Asian) is a Junior with a 3.66 GPA and took the MCAT (first time) in January and received her score today: 30 - 12 in Bio, 10 in Phy Sci, and 8 in Verbal. What would you suggest is the best strategy between now and application time? She's leaning towards taking spring term off (quarter system at her U) and focusing on the exam and making up the credits next year. What are your thoughts, and what would be the best approach to boost her scores in this timeframe, and what are her chances with her credentials as they are now?</p>
<p>She’s leaning towards taking spring term off (quarter system at her U) and focusing on the exam</p>
<p>???</p>
<p>Are you saying that she’s going to take the MCAT again? </p>
<p>If so, some here would say that med schools don’t like that.</p>
<p>What is her science GPA?</p>
<p>What is her home state?</p>
<p>Mom2,
Thanks for your response; clearly you’re better aware of this process than me. I personally haven’t done any research myself in any of this - have relied on D to work out things for herself.</p>
<p>What she wants to do is to take a light courseload in spring - 3 courses, and nothing intensive, and retake the MCATs. Don’t know what her science GPA is - I believe she got B+ in the two main year-long science courses - Orgo and Bio.
Home state is PA.</p>
<p>I hadn’t heard about the issue about retaking the MCATs - is this different from HSers taking SATs a few times?</p>
<p>If she was getting significantly higher on her practice tests (33 or above with good verbal scores), it’s probably not a bad idea for her to retake the MCAT given her low verbal score. But, she definitely shouldn’t take any time off from school just to study for the MCAT.</p>
<p>Otherwise, she can probably get into a medical school with her GPA and MCAT score as long as she doesn’t have any other red flags with her app.</p>
<p>*I hadn’t heard about the issue about retaking the MCATs - is this different from HSers taking SATs a few times? *</p>
<p>According to the experts who post on this board… yes…med schools view taking the MCAT multiple times VERY DIFFERENTLY (negatively) than undergrads do with the SAT. </p>
<p>Hopefully, those who know much more than I do will comment. :)</p>
<p>It’s not so much that multiple retakes are very negative – they’re somewhat negative, but not a major disaster in and of itself. The big problem is that the old score doesn’t get erased. She has a V8, which is the major problem. A retake doesn’t solve that.</p>
<p>NCG is probably right. Coming out of Northwestern with a 3.65 and a 12/10/8, she has a reasonable chance at getting into some medical school somewhere if she applies broadly – but there’s also a reasonable chance of no admissions at all.</p>
<p>Light loads, however, are a major red flag in and of themselves, if you think a medical school will be able to discern that from an application. I recommend taking a normal number of courses, and lightening her courseload by picking easy courses.</p>
<p>In fact, what I really recommend is postponing her medical school applications by a year and taking the exam in August. She’ll have to find something to do with her year off, of course, but that’s what I’d do. She has to make sure to get her MCAT score up and put some distance between herself and that 8.</p>
<p>The big thing we need to know to properly advise you is what her home state is. That’s either going to be her best friend or her worst enemy in this game.</p>
<p>^^ Its PA</p>
<p>What concerns me is the MCAT score. Usually students who are bright enough to get into NU, and do relatively well there (3.65) should be able to pull off higher mcat scores. Did you D not prepare well enough for the mcats? The only reason I am saying this, because in order for a student to get into NU, doing well on standardized tests is usually important (2100+). As a result, I am assuming your D is good at taking tests. Which makes me wonder if your D really prepped for the mcats.</p>
<p>Hm. I don’t know much about PA. It looks to me like PSU is pretty reasonable? Drexel, Jefferson, Temple all seem to tilt towards in-staters. Even Penn and Pitt show a little favoritism, although not too much.</p>
<p>Not a bad setup. Yeah, apply to every single school in the state and I think she’s likely to get at least one admission.</p>
<p>its so hard to raise the verbal score, so if she will retake, she needs to work really hard. most times, retakers only improve by 1-2 points, which doesnt affect your app that much. she has to do something drastic to raise that score up by a lot</p>
<p>Light loads, however, are a major red flag in and of themselves</p>
<p>What constitutes a “light load”? </p>
<p>If someone takes a lightish load during the fall of their senior year to accomodate med school interviews, what constititues “too light” of a load that would cause a red flag? 12 credits? 14 credits? 10 credits? </p>
<p>If you take 15 credits, but 3+ of those credits are an easy elective(s), is that a problem? </p>
<p>*It’s not so much that multiple retakes are very negative – they’re somewhat negative, but not a major disaster in and of itself. The big problem is that the old score doesn’t get erased. She has a V8, which is the major problem. A retake doesn’t solve that.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Someone here (I don’t remember who) said that med schools will “average” multiple MCAT scores…is that true?</p>
<p>For instance, if someone has a 34 and a 30…it will be similar to a 32. </p>
<p>Of course, there’s always the risk that the second test can be worse, right?</p>
<p>What has been the experience of students here who’ve taken the MCAT more than once? the only person on here that I know of who took the MCAT 2-3 times was able to get accepted to a D.O. school. I don’t know if that one example is indicative of anything.</p>
<p>You guys don’t know how helpful your comments are. Not being much of a helicopter for my older D now, I wasn’t aware of some of the nuances - what wonderful suggestions such as BDM’s “take the same load but easier courses…” etc.</p>
<p>Re some of the other questions - I don’t honestly know how much she practised - she was talking about scores in the 32-34 range. Colleges00701’s remark on SAT scores are accurate - she was upper 2100s non-superscored with about 750 in verbal. The irony is we always thought that it was her strong point - she has been so interested in literature that she even was able to get one of her short stories published in one of the “Chicken soup for the Soul” series books.</p>
<p>Again, thank you all</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>**** that concerns me, because I had a 750 on verbal and a 2200 overall. I hope I don’t end up in the same situation (8 on verbal)</p>
<p>Every school treats MCAT retakes a little bit differently. I don’t know hardly anybody who retook either. My very limited experience suggests that schools treat you according to your worst score – and sometimes your worst subscore. My guess is that it isn’t anything quite so formal as that. But say the OP gets a 11/11/11 or something – in a worst-case scenario, she needs to be prepared to be treated as a V8.</p>
<p>One of my friends scored a 30 (11/10/9, maybe?) and then a 36. He didn’t get into a single school out of seventy-three applications when he had both scores. (He also made a lot of other extremely foolish mistakes.) He waited a year or two, after which the first score expired. He then got into several top-ranked schools.</p>
<hr>
<p>Light courseloads are another one of those very subjective things. The bottom line is that medical schools don’t like to see light courseloads ever, but they aren’t always very good at figuring out what’s light and what’s not. If you’re taking too few units, that’s one obvious giveaway and the game is up. If you’re taking courses with easy-sounding titles, that’s another obvious giveaway.</p>
<p>But there’s always easier professors teaching “core” classes, or peripheral classes which still seem pretty rigorous. Undergrads plugged into the gossip network will know this, and medical schools just don’t have the ability to track that sort of thing.</p>
<p>dadof3, I applied this year with these stats: 30 MCAT (9P, 11V, 10B), 3.8 GPA, what some claim to be an impressive resume, and what are (in my opinion) remarkably well-written and strong recommendation letters. I go to a big state school in the midwest.</p>
<p>I got into med school. I also interviewed at 3 other schools (all top 20s) and am awaiting results from them. So I’m at least one example of getting into med school with a 30, although mine is more balanced than your D’s. </p>
<p>To add an anecdote to Mike’s suggestion that students know how to find light courseloads: this semester’s my last semester. Academically speaking it’s been the easiest of my college career. I have nearly 100% in each of my 4 classes. Does mammalogy (+lab), public health (structure and function of US systems), an upper-level German humanities class, and a part-time internship at the State Capitol sound like a light load to you? I sure hope not–but I’ll let you in on a secret–it definitely is for me! It’s all about strategy.</p>
<p>Good luck to her!</p>
<p>And for what it’s worth, I’d say unless her verbal score ended up considerably lower than she was expecting (ie, she’d scored 11+ [which is 93rd%ile, fyi] on multiple practice section tests from a reliable source like Kaplan or Princeton Review), keep the 30 and focus on other aspects of marketing herself to medical schools. Retaking the MCAT is no walk in the park–on the contrary, actually–and I would know, I watched my best friend suffer through a disappointing score and subsequent retake this summer. I would do everything in my power to avoid retaking the MCAT to save my sanity and energy for other aspects of this crazy process. There is SO MUCH MORE to her application than her MCAT score.</p>
<p>*To add an anecdote to Mike’s suggestion that students know how to find light courseloads: this semester’s my last semester. Academically speaking it’s been the easiest of my college career. *</p>
<p>Kristin…since this is your last semester as an undergrad (hurrah! congrats!), do you think that med schools notice/care what a student takes that last semester? The reason I’m asking is that many students get to that last semester and have few or no more req’ts left to take. Also, when you applied, did you list what you would be taking that last semester? Does anyone check to see if you actually ended up taking what your wrote down? Not that someone would be dishonest, but when one is planning a spring semester in early fall, one may later decide to take other courses for that last semester. </p>
<p>I’m just wondering if the “light load” issue is really more of a concern if it is occurring between semesters 1-7, but not really the final semester.</p>
<p>Some kids are taking additional requirements in last 2 semesters that came up after they have applied and get accepted. My D. is in her last semester and taking Biochem for school that she has been accepted already. But she had lighter load in both Junior (preparing for MCAT) and Senior (had to have filler classes to make full time) years. I would suggest to have lighter schedule to have your brain “warmed” up and connected. My D. would go crazy to have just studying for MCAT for that long. She was filling very annoyed for 2 weeks before MCAT when she was out of school. She wished she would schedule MCAT earlier. But it depends on personality. </p>
<p>While it does not matter when you take class, you cannot matriculate if you did not complete requirements. I understand that it includes people who actually have been accepted.</p>
<p>I did want to remind folks that my friend “Edgar” made a ton of other very stupid mistakes.
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/470818-horror-stories-what-we-can-learn.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/470818-horror-stories-what-we-can-learn.html</a></p>
<p>BDM…all I can say is… Yikes! Now there’s someone who is seriously lacking in “walking around smarts.” (which I would think that med schools would also want their students to have.)</p>
<p>*1.) Don’t retake the MCAT. Or, more accurately, wait until you’re ready before you take it the first time. Edgar’s telling all of his friends he has a 36, but in reality is a combination of a 30 and a 36. So he’s not a 36 at all, and his friends shouldn’t be so horrified that a 36 is getting rejected.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>OK…so, do med schools “average” the scores…or just “discount” the higher one?</p>
<p>
Neither. They’re looking at both scores and keeping them in mind, which I know is not much of an answer at all. It’s an extremely subjective process.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, it seemed to me like Edgar was being handled according to his lowest score. But that’s not by any means an official statement, and that’s not necessarily what would happen to anyone else.</p>
<p>here’s my thoughts on MCAT retakes… BDM and others can comment…</p>
<p>Since the test is supposedly like no other, and perhaps even practice tests don’t perfectly mimic real time testing…</p>
<p>Med schools then assume that nearly everyone would do better on a 2nd/3rd test, therefore the later test results are not relevant when comparing to other applicants who’ve only taken the test once.</p>