<p>It’s kind of like the college football rankings poll. Imagine that you’re trying to rank Cal football, and one week they beat Oregon (#2 in the country) and the next week they lose to Arizona (unranked). Well, which team are they? Are they better than Oregon? Probably not. Are they worse than Arizona? Probably not either.</p>
<p>So how do you rank them? Well – the answer is, you have to keep both games in mind. Sometimes they’re good enough to beat Oregon. Sometimes they’re bad enough to lose to Arizona.</p>
<p>he 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>I can’t imagine that the University of Mississippi will care much that you went to Tulane. University of Mississippi’s class seems to have relatively lower grades and MCAT scores.</p>
<p>My D mentioned she got an “R” in writing, which, till yesterday I wasn’t even aware was a component, but she seemed to feel that it was not of much consequence, good, bad, or ugly. Is this an accurate statement?</p>
<p>I tend not to force my kids to do (or not do) things based on my opinion, especially if I’m not well informed. The only thing I asked her to do was to consider the opinions from a variety of sources who had knowledge of this process (I cut and pasted much of your comments), look at any other considerations (such as what her pre-test practice scores were, her time commitments, etc.), and make a decision hopefully more rational than emotional. </p>
<p>She talked with a few staff members at her school, NU, who had knowledge or responsibility in this area, and apparently one strong message to her was not to apply this year, but do so for admission after a gap year of research (she’ll graduate after next spring). Her friends in med school, or about to enter, apparently overwhelmingly suggested she take a second MCAT by May - I asked her to weigh their opinion with the facts - did any of them have a similar experience, is there a reason to believe a test taken in the near future has a good potential for a better score, and the consequences if not, etc. and decide which way she wants to go.</p>
<p>For all your suggestions, BDM, Mom2, Kristin, and the rest of you that I havent acknowledged individually, many thanks.</p>
<p>Update: DD decided to take the MCAT again in May and her scores came out today: her January score was 30:8R/10/12 for Verbal, Phy, Bio and the current one is 32: 11R/10/11.</p>
<p>She plans to apply to many PA schools skipping the likes of Penn and U Pitt. Any thoughts on OOS schools? She’s eyeing a few DO schools but hasn’t identified any OOS MD programs yet. Some have advised her to look at programs that start in the Caribbean and finish with two years in the US, but I don’t believe she’s looked at any of those yet.</p>
<p>^^^ I am currently in the process of studying for the MCATs, and I was wondering how she improved the Verbal score? If you know of any strategies, or anything, they would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>Hard to say how she’ll be treated. She might be treated as an 8 (which is bad) or a 32 (which is good), or somewhere in between. I recommended a year off, then an MCAT retake. What that would have done is allow her to push the 8 farther back in her application and make it less of a big deal. Of course, that would have required pushing back by a year and many are reluctant to do that for a variety of (often legitimate) reasons.</p>
<p>Anyway, what’s done is done.</p>
<p>If she can pick 12 sensible programs to apply to (low MCAT scores AND high admissions percentages), then I think she’s got somewhat-better-than-even-odds of admission into some MD program somewhere, almost certainly in PA. Adding some DO schools in there as well is very sensible. International programs are not a good option (ever). Far better to be an allied health professional (e.g. Physician Assistant, which is an excellent career).</p>
<p>Sorry I forgot to mention that I also had a 9 on verbal on the kaplan diag. and would be happy with a 11 on verbal on the real mcats. So if you know of what your D did to bump that verbal score up 3 points in 3 months, it can really help me out.</p>
<p>Colleges,
“Sorry I forgot to mention that I also had a 9 on verbal on the kaplan diag. and would be happy with a 11 on verbal on the real mcats.”</p>
<p>-Funny - it is exactly what has happened to my D. She could not improve her Verbal in practice tests. The Kaplan diag. was 9 and it was bouncing 9 - 11 all the way until real exam, but she got very lucky to get her highest practice score of 11 on her real exam. Nothing has helped, no Economist or anything else. Pure luck. However, others here praised Examcrackers for Verbal section. D. did not have time for that. She took her only MCAT couple weeks after junior year spring finals, which was very good strategy, since couple classes were very fresh in her mind. Actually she said that she should have scheduled it right after finals, 2 weeks were waste of her time.</p>
<p>My plan is to spend 6 weeks doing all the content review, and spending 6 weeks on practice material. I have already spent 6 weeks doing all the content review. For the next 6 weeks, I am going to do at least 1 full-length verbal section test everyday and read the economist/Time magazine everyday for an hour. The rest of my time will be spent doing practice section tests for other sections and taking full-length practice tests (3 a week). I am going to be done going through the Examcrackers verbal book by the end of this week. Hopefully it works out in the end.</p>
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<p>I think waiting 2 weeks was probably the best strat, I am usually burned out after finals. </p>
<p>After taking the Kaplan exam, an adviser told me to ignore the V portion and put all my time into the P and B in order to make the most efficient use of my time and for maximum gain. Does this sound like a good strategy? </p>
<p>Verbal is just as important as the other 2 sections. I think your adviser was telling you that its the easiest to improve on P and B than on V. If you have little time to study for the mcats (which should never be the case, because this exam shouldn’t be taken lightly) then your best bet would be to prep for P and B. You should strive to do well on all the sections.</p>
<p>Colleges,
" full-length verbal section test everyday " - Do not do this. it takes about 5.5 hours. Way too exaustive, no reason for it. Review some and take test once / week and not every week either. Finals are not as tiresome as taking MCAT. Ifr exams burn you out, your plan will do more.</p>
<p>colleges is talking about doing a verbal section test each day, not the full blown thing. i wouldnt do one everyday though. maybe every other day on the days you dont take a full length. you dont want to use up all your materials too quickly (ek and tpr are the only good verbal practice materials).</p>
<p>This is what she said:
verbal- try doing sections without timing yourself and figure out how to answer the questions. once you’re able to answer 90% of the verbal passages right this way then start timing yourself. your score will drop because of the time but at that point you just need to keep practicing.</p>
<p>I personally think another factor was her priorities. She’s always been a bit shaky in Physics, and Orgo concerned her too, but since her SAT reading and writing scores were great, I suspect she didn’t spend as much time as she should have in V.</p>
<p>Good luck to you.</p>
<p>Also BDM, I understand some of the issues and obstacles with foreign degrees; however at a party last weekend, someone was extolling the virtues of some Caribbean program where the student spends two years there, and two years in a US college, ending up with a degree from the US institution. So far we haven’t pursued this to see if it is an option, but I am curious.</p>