485 on MCAT after 4 months of Kaplan & Examkrackers

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unrulytreasure

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No words can express the pain I feel right now, after spending May through August preparing for this brutal exam. I cannot imagine going into this exam a second time, I put my all into the exam, studying 6 hours a day, and up to 10 hours a day the last month prior to the exam, I've used all the AAMC, Kaplan and Examkrackers material and reviewed each question. At this point I feel like mentally I cannot score any higher. I deleted all my social media, I wish I could just have everyone in the world forget I even exist because I am so embarrassed by my performance. Everyone always says I am the hardest working person they know but my best is never good enough, things like this always happen to me. Everyone else life seems so much easier than mine. I feel depression creeping, I don't know what to do. I prayed twice a day, every day before and after exam. I've already submitted my primary application to MD/DO, at this point I just want to crawl in a hole. No medical school is going to accept me with this score..I feel like something is mentally wrong with me, I look at others scores online and wonder how they do so well. I will feel confident during the test and weeping when I see my score.


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Generally, I don't wander into the DO forum but I saw your post.

I'm so sorry the score you received is making you feel like it is and wish something I could say would ease the sorrow. As you are a new poster, I don't know your background so can't help with where to go from here; and honestly, today wouldn't be that point in time to do so anyway.

The taste of failure does diminish with time. Personally, I don't look at your score as failure as much as I look at it as baseline. Baseline as to where to go from it; where to focus and put your energy.

For now, there have to be people in your life who care about you the person, not you who got a score today. For now, there have to be people who will love you no matter what and support you no matter your decisions.

Today, is not the day to think about retaking the exam, or think about NOT retaking the exam. It's just a day to let things sit.

Tomorrow may feel like that as well, and the next day as well. Take the time you need to let it all settle. Make no rash decisions about the exam, med school, or future. If you find yourself wandering down the path thinking about all you gave up to get to today, stop and think about something else. Hobbies? Friends? Family? Volunteering?

When life has handed me a @#$ fest of drama, I found giving to others who have nothing - no hope, no life, no future, no nothing - lifted me up as much as I lifted them. My problems seemed so much less significant in helping others.

My concern with your post is the suicidal tendencies in it. Please know that there are people at the site I'm listing below who can help you:

National Suicide Prevention Hotline
1-800-273-8255


Again, I'm so sorry your score is not where you need/want it to be. Remember it does not define you.
 
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If you need someone to talk to feel free to message me, no judgement here just here to offer help.
 
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First of all, your MCAT score does not define you. Don't let a test dictate how you feel, I understand you put in all the work, but know the exam in and of itself is a beast.

You have to take an honest look at how you're studying for the MCAT. How did you do in your practice FL's? What did your studying consist of? You had the work ethic, but perhaps the execution could have been pulled off better.

Also feel free to message me as well, maybe I can listen or try to help.
 
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No words can express the pain I feel right now, after spending May through August preparing for this brutal exam. I cannot imagine going into this exam a second time, I put my all into the exam, studying 6 hours a day, and up to 10 hours a day the last month prior to the exam, I've used all the AAMC, Kaplan and Examkrackers material and reviewed each question. At this point I feel like mentally I cannot score any higher. I deleted all my social media, I wish I could just have everyone in the world forget I even exist because I am so embarrassed by my performance. Everyone always says I am the hardest working person they know but my best is never good enough, things like this always happen to me. Everyone else life seems so much easier than mine. I feel depression creeping, I don't know what to do. I prayed twice a day, every day before and after exam. I've already submitted my primary application to MD/DO, at this point I just want to crawl in a hole. No medical school is going to accept me with this score..I feel like something is mentally wrong with me, I look at others scores online and wonder how they do so well. I will feel confident during the test and weeping when I see my score.

Hey look man this is ultimately just some stupid test. Seriously, it's one day in your life. I'm sorry it's set back your goals, but you CAN regroup and move forward. I just hope you can have some perspective on this, the MCAT is not the end all be all of our existence.
 
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Sorry for the lower than wanted score. The MCAT is a beast and there is a reason it is a notoriously challenging exam. That being said, give it a week, and get ready for the next round. 26% of matriculants took the MCAT twice in 2016 (Q8 https://www.aamc.org/download/474258/data/msq2016report.pdf), so you retaking is nothing to feel embarrassed about. If you truly want to be a doctor, this is a minor bump in the decade long process.

Once ready for training, you need to evaluate study methods. 4 months isn't that long, I put in around 9 and spread it out over more time. I also personally know people who took the Kaplan course and did worse than average, so these courses guarantee nothing in practice. You need to diversify study techniques, use the MCAT forums for guides, and just keep practice testing until you are at a range you are happy with. GL! keep us updated or PM for ?s
 
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The MCAT is just an exam, it definitely does not define you. I understand you feel devastated, of course you would since you put in so much time studying. Honestly, I feel like your exam score might have been due to test day anxiety, maybe you were distracted, or exhausted, or a million other reasons.

I also studied my butt off for 3 months (devoted 100% of effort) and my exam score was much much lower than the scores on my practice exams. Dunno what happened on test day. I felt like a failure too when I saw my score. It was super embarrassing too because all of my family and relatives knew how hard I was studying, and that my score low. I took a few days off from all pre med stuff, cried the first day, watched a bunch of funny movies, listened to a lot of metal, ate a lot of junk food. Talked with my sisters, who pointed out all the stuff that I had done well/accomplished (talking with people that are on your team helps!). Then I got back into it. Reminded myself that I am, in fact, awesome and the MCAT can go to hell lol

I think the most important thing for you to do now is just to practice some self care. Do things to relax, things that you enjoy. This feeling of awfulness will pass, that horrible feeling in your stomach will get better. You'll get past this! Don't do pre med stuff while you're still feeling so down, it might make you feel worse.

Keep in mind too that you're pursuing one of the most challenging and competitive career paths. Do you know how many people don't even make it through college to this point? How many quit the pre med track after that first o-chem class? How many people don't motivate themselves enough to even study and then take the MCAT? A BUNCH! A WHOLE BUNCH OF PEOPLE! It's a very challenging path, you are not dumb. The fact that you're trying to go into medicine shows that you have a great work ethic and lots of brains!

When you feel better, consider if you would be up for trying again when it comes to this exam. If not, you have plenty of other options. PA school, dental school. Nursing school- Nurse practitioners have similar responsibilities as primary care doctors. There are sooo many possibilities! Ones that you might enjoy even more if you actually consider them seriously.

It may seem like it's the end of the world now, but it's not! You still have so much time and countless options! Surround yourself with people that care about you, try to remember that you're a rockstar, and just go from there :)




Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile
 
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Very sorry about your score. Listen, MCAT is just a stupid exam. My score told me nothing about who I am, and likewise your score doesn't reflect anything about you. In med school, nobody cares about your numbers.

This is tough, but don't even think about the MCAT, med school, your future, etc for a good week or two. Surround yourself with loved ones who'll support you; please, please don't isolate yourself. Afterwards, don't just jump back into the books. Spend some time to reflect what could have been the issue (ex: were you taking practice exams in exact test conditions?), and plan a schedule accordingly. Don't hesitate to seek out help, either on SDN or an advisor/counselor or perhaps investing in a third party test prep. It's not a race to get into med school; myself and many of my classmates took several years off. So take as much time as you need. The night is darkest just before the dawn. And I promise you, the dawn is coming.
 
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I'm sorry about your score.

Please consider talking to someone like a counselor or psychologist. If you are still in school your university probably has a counseling service. If not, ask your PCP or just Google some places. I've felt many of the feelings you are describing and I had to ask for help. It is not a good place to be making big life decisions or studying for an important test.

Focus on yourself for a few months. Then decide if you want to give the MCAT another go.
 
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...the MCAT can go to hell ...

Your entire post has me :bow::soexcited::bow::nod::nod::nod::bow::bow::soexcited: So spot on, so honest. :highfive:

The night is darkest just before the dawn. And I promise you, the dawn is coming.


Exactly!

Please consider talking to someone like a counselor or psychologist. I've felt many of the feelings you are describing and I had to ask for help. It is not a good place to be making big life decisions or studying for an important test.


That darkness is horrific. I'm sorry you went through it and thankful you got help when you needed it.
 
No words can express the pain I feel right now, after spending May through August preparing for this brutal exam. I cannot imagine going into this exam a second time, I put my all into the exam, studying 6 hours a day, and up to 10 hours a day the last month prior to the exam, I've used all the AAMC, Kaplan and Examkrackers material and reviewed each question. At this point I feel like mentally I cannot score any higher. I deleted all my social media, I wish I could just have everyone in the world forget I even exist because I am so embarrassed by my performance. Everyone always says I am the hardest working person they know but my best is never good enough, things like this always happen to me. Everyone else life seems so much easier than mine. I feel depression creeping, I don't know what to do. I prayed twice a day, every day before and after exam. I've already submitted my primary application to MD/DO, at this point I just want to crawl in a hole. No medical school is going to accept me with this score..I feel like something is mentally wrong with me, I look at others scores online and wonder how they do so well. I will feel confident during the test and weeping when I see my score.
IF you have test taking anxiety, that can be fixed.

All the same, go see a therapist. Your score does not define you as a person.
 
OP,

I failed my MCAT too. I believe what is more important is your GPA. What is it? If you have a GPA resembling anything above a 3.0, look into podiatry schools, as some of the lower tiered ones have accepted scores a few points higher than yours (though the people they accepted had like super awesome GPAs and or special things about them). I think the lowest I have personally seen MCATwise on the new test and someone get in was a 489, and that was at Kent State. There is a MSAR for pod schools that shows the GPA and MCAT ranges floating around on SDN, look into that.

What kept me going is saying to myself "I am not some statistic for the AAMC to spout off how difficult this MCAT exam is"

If you wanna go down this pod route, i recommend retaking the MCAT while the concepts are still fresh in your mind. If you can break the 490 mark this next time, apply to ALL pod schools and don't look back. You are about 5 points from being "competitive" at pod schools, and honestly like 3 points from a low tiered pod school taking a chance on you. 3 points higher is just a couple more questions on each section right.

You don't have to give up on your dream of medicine/being a doctor. Your dream of medicine might change though into another form. Embrace it! It actually might be the best thing ever that happened to you to bomb the MCAT and pursue another avenue. For me, this is the case, as it is making me work three times as hard.

Also look at dentistry, especially if your GPA is above the 3.6 mark. The DAT is lightyears easier than the MCAT. Some Pharmacy schools doesn't even require the PCAT. Physical therapy is also very cool for those who like the Muscle-skeletal interaction.

You have worth as a person. Go show the world what you are worth.
 
Just to throw in my 2 cents of support and advice.

I took the MCAT a while back and earned a pretty mediocre score as well. I did all of EK and some practice tests. In my personal opinion, the MCAT is such a unique test and you either 'get it' or you don't, but you can learn it with enough time and practice. One of my friends is a reasonably intelligent guy. He studied for literally one week and got a 37 on the MCAT, which was roughly 400x better than I did after 3 months of studying, despite us having comparable performances in the classes we took together. Clearly, he understood the test.

For me, during my reviews, the vast majority of the time I got something wrong, I was asking myself 'how did I get that wrong? I knew that answer...". It became pretty apparent to me that it was less of an issue of understanding the material, and more of an issue of understanding the question and applying my knowledge to it. I bet if you look back at your practice tests, you'll see a good amount of that as well.

What I did was I took the advice of everyone on here and bought the berkeley review books. They are, in a word, sublime. The review is comprehensive, and the practice questions reinforce them in a way that makes it stick. I pretty quickly went through TBR, did the questions, took a few practice tests, and improved my score by 11 points. I did this in about 4 months following my previous attempt, but probably could have done it in 2 if I hadn't been working full-time along with it. Good luck, don't let a bad performance derail your dreams.
 
OP, I understand how you feel right now. Look at it like this: while it's not the best score, it definitely isn't the worse. It is a good baseline. The MCAT varies greatly for every test taker, every test date. Things will work out one way or the other, you just have to believe in yourself. There will be many lows in life, but it is not the situation, rather your response that determines who you are and how far you will go. While easier said than done, get yourself together, take some time off and forget about MCAT altogether for now. When you're ready, come back and you'll find a plethora of information on what to do at that point. Right now you're young, in good health, and have energy to do whatever you want. Theres much more to come in life, don't let this bring you down. DM me if you wanna talk, or if you're local to Houston, allow me to take you out for lunch!

I'm rooting for you!
 
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