I’m planning to apply to med school in 2010 for admission in 2011 and still trying to figure out the best time to take the MCAT.
I’m dedicating most of the summer to studying for it, including sitting in on organic chem lectures because I know this is a weak point for me. My original thought was to take the MCAT in august or september, but this will be right in the middle of driving back across the country (will be working in PA this summer, but am attending school in AZ) and I’m not sure it will be the best time.
There’s also likely going to be an opportunity for small group MCAT study at my university next semester, and I am hoping to re-take 2nd semester organic in the spring, so next april or may would also be a good consideration. Of course, at that time, I will be working on wrapping up my MPH degree, so again I’m not sure if it will be the best.
Any thoughts from anyone? As far as I understand, if I registered to take it this sept, I would NOT be able to re-schedule into next year, but please correct me if this is wrong.
Many thanks to anyone who read my babbles! 
Please take this post with a grain of salt -
I have heard that the MCAT is concentrating less on testing OChem proficiency as they move forward.
I was pretty wary of that tidbit myself but this was borne out from my experience - first off, an OChem question surprisingly appeared at the end of the physical sciences section and second, there was VERY little of it in the biological section. In fact I hardly remember any OChem being in the BS section since I kept looking for it as I went through the bio questions.
If I were you I’d concentrate on the Physics and Verbal since those two tend to bite people fairly more frequently.
Yeah, I just took a mock MCAT and there were only a few organic questions on it. I did well on the “easy” physics questions and decent on the medium, but bombed the hard ones… so yes that’s a definite place I need to foucs on! Luckily my verbal skills are consistently pretty good… I got a 12 on my mock MCAT.
Thanks for responding!
12 VR? that’s pretty good
The verbal was good… the science stuff I need to brush up on - I got a 7 and an 8. But that’s why I did the practice, to see what I remembered and where I needed to focus my studying! =)
I know what you mean, I got a 8PS, 11VR, 13BS on my last practice test. I am studying chemistry and physics like mad! Good Luck, Jaysun
- Jaysun0373 Said:
Jaysun!
Do not fall in the same trap I did.
On my practice exams I tended doing much better on BS part of the exam than other two, and I ended up spending a lot of time studying physics and chemistry. On the real exam I did awesome in PS and ... just OK in BS - surely not as good as I did during the practice exams. None of these exams is testing everything you know in biology or organics... you might just get lucky during your practice tests and get asked the things you know, and get the wrong message that you don't need to study biology any more, while the truth is that you might still need to brush up on other topics.
Anyway, you're the best one to judge what your strengths and weaknesses are. Good luck with your MCAT.
Kasia
I know exactly what you mean, I have taken two kaplan tests and scored dramatically different results. A 24 (6PS,11VR,7BS) and a 36 (10PS,13VR,13BS). It seemed to depend greatly on what I was being tested on. Thank you for all of you advice…Jaysun