<p>D is a rising Junior at her top LAC and has finished all her pre-med requirements except for 2nd physics. The original plan was for her to take physics 2nd semester this upcoming year and take the May MCAT. Looking at her 1st semester courses, it may be prudent for her to study for the MCAT 1st semester and take it December or January (I have no idea of the testing schedule.) Physics is not her strong suit, so is taking the MCAT before Physics II a problem?</p>
<p>It’s possible to test in January.</p>
<p>1) Will she take a prep class? If she does, they’ll cover the material of physics 2 in that class–but instead of a review, it would be her first shot at learning the material. Do you think this would be problematic? (I’m not a physics kid either, and learning physics at my Kaplan class would have been problematic…reviewing it there, however, was GREAT).</p>
<p>2) Could she add a class she was waiting to take in the spring to her light fall load? This might open up some time for her to prepare during the spring, when physics is fresh in her mind.</p>
<p>3) How far did physics 1 go for her? What would physics 2 cover? Do you have access to any of the syllabi or course documents? You could compare those with the published list of topics on the physics section of the MCAT. If you find that most topics from her physics 2 class will be on the MCAT, then it might be better for her to wait. </p>
<p>4) If she ends up taking the MCAT in the spring and “just” has an easy time this fall, she could use fall of junior year for some kind of meaningful experiences–shadowing? volunteering? researching? Those are the typical ones. I had a pretty light semester spring of sophomore year and decided to shadow 2 different docs once a week each (about 5h/week) for that semester and beyond–the long term exposure was great (I actually still shadow both of them about 3x/month and love it!) because I got to know them better and got to know both their clinics and their specialities much more thoroughly than had I only gone a few times.</p>