Any body advices are welcome regarding what to do with MCAT dilemma. I am 42 YO and I have been pharmacist for many years. I completed the premed prerequisite in December with very good GPA. I am planning to take MCAT this June. I have prepared for exam some but not in consistent way. I am taking off from work for 5-6 week to prepare more rigorously for the exam. But like many other applicants to medical school I have anxiety regarding this exam and afraid not to do well in the exam. As most of you know I need to make minimum 30 to have any chance to med school. My other option is to SAVE time and just to apply to Caribbean schools (the big 3) which do not require MCAT or low score is fine. However we know graduate from the Non US/Canadian schools have hard time to get a good residency in US. I would like to know the experience of any non traditional applicant regarding the MCAT problems and applying to school outside US.
Thank you,
Maleki
Welcome to OPM 
If you’re sufficiently anxious about the MCAT to consider shooting for a Caribbean school just to avoid it, it’s possible that your problem is more anxiety-related than MCAT related. Is this the type of thing you’ve had an issue with in the past? Are there other concerns you have - perhaps a language barrier, cold feet about the process, or anything else?
As for your direct question - I don’t know that a Caribbean path would save you time, effort, or money. That’s not to say that they’re a horrid option; I just wouldn’t look at em as a first choice, and certainly not just to avoid the MCAT.
Also keep in mind that yes, the median MCAT score for matriculants is around 30. That means that 50% of those who attend med school got less than that.
Good luck!
I understand your fear, I am going through the same thing. 38 y/o, father of 7. Thinking it might be out of the world to try to start over. But this a dream…deferred and my wife is telling me to quit B*^$%ing and just go do IT!
So I am going to finish this kaplan book and do practice test. I can’t afford to go overseas to Med. School. So hang in there and don’t give up and you will be like the rest of this crew saying you finally did.
You, like many people on OPM, suffer from “FUD” Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. It is one of the major reasons that keeps otherwise well qualified applicants from reaching their goals. For the MCAT, as with many points within the process, focusing on future possibilities and outcomes does nothing but use up limited time and energy in preparing for events. The key to the MCAT is not simply mastering the material, or mastering how to take the exam. It is even beyond focusing on the exam. It is limiting yourself to the here and now for every step of preparation as well as on each and every question during the exam. What I mean by this there is NOTHING but the question in front you at that moment. Not the question or passage that was a page ago, not the question coming up. But only that question which is in front of you. It is akin to playing learning to play an instrument. You don’t even start with a simple musical scale but you start with playing a single note. The discipline to this is not that hard IF every time you practice, you follow the same pattern. You read a passage carefully, you read the question carefully evaluate each answer, eliminate what you can, and choose the best answer within the time limit for each question. If you don’t have the answer within the minute per question, you mark one of your uneliminated ones and you move on. You never leave a question unanswered, even if it is a complete guess Like a puff a smoke, the last question is now gone, completely out of your mind, not to be thought about, not to be mulled over, not to be considered again. My only caveat to this is that within a passage, after you have answered all the questions, you may go back for a minute to a guessed question but again, when the minute is gone, you move on completely to the next passage, leaving the last one without a consideration. This methodology ensures that you will ALWAYS finish the exam. It keeps you from obsessing over one question and then frantically rushing thru many others carelessly. Only after you have completed the entire exam, can you go back. This is true for questions yet to come. I am a firm believer in not looking ahead. I think that jumping around just adds more potential for confusion and anxiety.
You can practice this by first doing questions without timing them. Your purpose here is to simply focus completely on that question. Getting your mindset is as important as the content. Then you start timing the questions (not the overall exam). You should be able to eliminate at least one answer almost immediately (BTW, that is my rule of thumb for preparedness: if you can’t rule out an answer almost immediately, then you are NOT ready take the MCAT)
That is my philosophy for “Zen and Art of MCAT”
Wow, Rich…at first I was thinking, that the OP had written the post months ago, but this is really great advice. So many of us are always looking ahead and then panicking about what we might have missed.
Thanks,
Kris
As someone who routinely suffers from FUD with a whopping dose of text anxiety mixed in, I found this advice to be immeasurably helpful. I always tend to rush through exams, hoping to get done in time (I can take a 2 hour test in 15min)… but then I’m even more afraid of going back and “second guessing” myself - even though the answers were probably junk in the first place.
My first big exam is this Saturday. I’m going to do my best to focus the way you suggested and then see how it goes. I know that I know the material… now it’s just a matter of not panicking.
Fwiw, I have 5 kids… I can’t be looking outside of the US/Canada either (even though I’d love to spend 4 years in the Caribbean!).
gonnif has some great advice here - not just for the MCAT, either. I’m convinced that most of the stuff that keeps me… err, us… up at night is worrying about yesterday, or tomorrow, or whatever.
The times that I’m truly content are when I’m focusing only on the present, whatever I’m doing at the time.
Speaking about looking ahead… I was wondering if anyone knows of a good website for practice MCATS(free preferably)…
I’ve been on studybarn.com, which is actually great - I use it to bone up on my basic knowledge but the tests are “non mcat format” - I’d like to try something a little more exam-like. Any suggestions would be great!
You can take the AAMC #3 for free at www.e-mcat.com, TPR (The Princeton Review) offers a free test on their site as well. Kaplan offers a test on their site, no sure how comprehensive it is. Kaplan also offers a 3-a-day question page through Facebook. The Gold Standard offers a free test as well, never took it so I don’t know the quality. ExamKrackers offer weekly questions at their site, only a few though. If you look on different sites, you will often find older Kaplan materials from 03 to 06, not sure as to the legality of those. Several of the review books come with two full length tests for less that the price of one test bought separately. That being said, EK and AAMC were the materials that helped me the most! Good Luck, Jaysun. PM me if you have any other questions.
Gonnif - great advice. I followed it during my prep and learned to let go of before and after, to just face the question in front of me and I did very well on the MCAT. Now, if I could apply that more broadly! I’m also repeating the advice to others.
You know, I just reread this, and I am finding that it is resonating so much more as I go along this route.
I, for a fact, know that I suffer from FUD, if I didn’t I’m sure I would have been much further along.
Thanks for bringing this back to my attention!
My favorite success story on this subject was a brilliant but FUD-ridden friend from OPM who had her undergraduate degree from Columbia and was doing her Postbacc there in hopes of getting accepted to medical school there as well. However, she could not get out of 27/28 range on practice MCATs. I worked with her for a month on the “zen” version of taking the MCAT and she earned a 34 and will readily admit if she didn’t panic on the first verbal passage, she would have gotten the 36 to win my bet with her. She was accepted to Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons.
- Jaysun0373 Said:
Thanks a lot for those suggestions!!
Maybe I should just do a ZEN and the Art of Overcoming FUD presentation
- gonnif Said:
I think that would be a presentation I would like to see!
- gonnif Said:
The meeting room would be overflowing! This is a great idea. :-)
(With concentration on the MCAT....)
Cheers,
Judy
I need to create a series
“Zen and the Art of Premed” with “Zen and the Art of MCAT” as the next installment. Its getting the sitar music and incense vapors online that is so hard but I will try
- gonnif Said:
I think that's an excellent idea for the next conference!