I am signed up for the mcat on aug. 20th i do not feel prepared at all… does anyone have an resources as far as what med schools look at? is it better to wait? or is better to take it once, not do well, then take it again?
This question comes up all the time. Everybody feels somewhat unprepared at MCAT time, but if you KNOW that you are really not ready, then wait! Getting into and through medical school is a marathon, not a sprint. Take your time getting prepared for the MCAT so that you won’t have a bad MCAT score to overcome.
Good luck. Be honest with yourself and then go with your gut feeling.
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I am signed up for the mcat on aug. 20th i do not feel prepared at all… does anyone have an resources as far as what med schools look at? is it better to wait? or is better to take it once, not do well, then take it again?
Hi there,
It is better to take the MCAT one time and do well. Even if you do not report your scores, the schools get a print out of the number of times that you take this test in addition to any scores that you report. You DO NOT want to be in the position of doing “damage control” of a poor MCAT score.
Try to figure out if you are just not ready or having a case of the “pre-test jitters”. If it is the latter, then you will be fine once you start answering questions on the test. If it is the former, postpone the test and be prepared the next time.
Only you can figure out what you need to do. The one thing I can assure you is that you do not want to be trying to overcome a poor MCAT score if you are just not ready. The MCAT is not a practice test to be taken multiple times but a test of how you can use the materials from your pre-med coursework. Make sure that you are ready before you take this test.
Good luck!
Natalie
If you aren’t prepared, don’t take it. Also, unless you invalidate the test as you walk out the door, you can no longer choose to not report earlier scores. They go on your AMCAS application.
Cheers,
Judy
… and if you do invalidate your test on the way out the door, it is invalidated right then and there, it is NOT scored, and you will have no idea how you did.
ONLY take it when you’re sure you want it to count!
Mary
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I am signed up for the mcat on aug. 20th i do not feel prepared at all… does anyone have an resources as far as what med schools look at? is it better to wait? or is better to take it once, not do well, then take it again?
I think a good indicator of how well prepared you are is to take one of MCAT’s full length practice tests under timed conditions. (This is assuming that you haven’t already taken all of the available ones multiple times for practice)
It will give you a reasonable idea of what you might score on the real thing and then you can decide if you are prepared or not. It is not fool-proof, though. I scored 9’s on every section of my practice test and ended up with 2 10’s and an 11. My friend who was scoring 7’s and 8’s ended up with 6’s on every section.
As others have said - you need to decide if you are truly unprepared or just a little panicky (which is normal).
Good luck!