Full-Time student, when should I take the MCAT in 2020? Rescheduled

[Bearmanbear]

I'm a full-time student (spring semester 2020), taking two upper-level courses next semester w/ labs. I was scheduled to sit for the exam on June 1st, but was reading that it may impact my odds of getting in based on how quickly my scores come out and so on. Then I read somewhere that those who took the exam later in the summer scored significantly higher on the exam (15-20% higher in August then in May, etc). Short story long, I ended up getting cold feet and rescheduled it to June 27th- thinking it was a good middle ground, as I've only just begun truly reviewing the Kaplan books and I know I need to dedicate at least a month to just doing FLs and running through questions. I've got literally 6 months to study, 4 of which I'll be studying alongside with my courses (meaning I'll have slightly less than a month dedicated to solid review/study). As I said, I just begun reviewing the Kaplan books and I'm astonished how long it takes to read the chapters, and just to make a simple outline (easily 4-5 hours to read each chapter and create an outline).

Some relative background:
-Full time student
-I understand the chronological order of when things are due, and the overall deadlines as well as "loopholes" for applications
-No job, but 3-4 hours a week of volunteer work
-Can probably devote 16-24 hours a week this next semester to study for the Exam, w/ additional hours a few weeks
-I'm very slow at studying, i.e. takes me awhile to grasp material, but once its in there, its usually in there good
-I'm an "A" student in all of the MCAT relative courses

Do you think my rescheduling was a solid idea, based on the information I've provided?
Should I push the date even further? Thoughts?
Whats the latest I could reschedule to [likely] receive a better score? (without looking "bad" for having my score so late)
Do you think with the time I'm left, along with my other commitments, this is enough time to perform decently (>510) on the Exam?

Again, I know the relative deadlines of everything, I just can't get a solid answer one way or another. Any other additional thoughts or advise would be welcomed. Thank you

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[Saturday’s Child]

#1 piece of advice = take the MCAT when you are READY for it. People score well because they take it when they are ready, not because they took it in August instead of May. The higher scores in late summer are likely due to people having all summer to focus on just the MCAT and not worrying about a course load.

Taking the MCAT later will not necessarily impact your odds of getting in anywhere, as long as you ultimately have your secondaries submitted by Labor Day of the year you’re applying. Med schools DO NOT care when you took your test, so later test dates will not “look bad” to them. I would caution against delaying the test any further, as you may experience a regression by studying for more than 6 full months. You want to give yourself time, but you don’t want to drag it out for so long that you get burnt out and/or start forgetting things you learned in month #1.

ALSO, you need to think about the time you’ll have to spend on your personal statement and primary app. In a perfect world, you would dedicate 100% of your effort to the MCAT and 100% effort to those essays. But effort and time are limited in the real world, and it is difficult to serve 2 masters. The longer you delay your test, the longer you may be delaying your ability to focus solely on those essays.

You can take the MCAT pretty much anytime during the summer, but the main gamble with that is you won’t know your score until later. Taking the test later in the summer diminishes the possibility of a retake in the event your score is not good. Knowing your score is crucial for determining what schools you are competitive for. Knowing what schools you can apply to is necessary for being able to pre-write secondary answers before you receive the actual secondary applications. Pre-writing responses will help tremendously when trying to submit all apps in a timely manner (<2 weeks).

I’m kind of rambling at this point, but oh well! I had a similar plan as your initial one, and it worked for me. The caveat though is that I was not full-time that semester, so I studied on avg 20-40 hrs a week, then around 50/week during May. Started studying in mid-January, took test on June 1st. Had been working on personal statement starting in February. Started amcas app and finished PS after taking MCAT, submitted primary in mid June. Got score back in early July. Had all secondaries complete by early August. I’ve had a successful cycle thus far.

Sorry for the rant, PM if you have questions!

 

[TheDataKing]

Take it when you're scoring on AAMC practice exams +/- 2 of your goal score. Don't feel rushed to take it - take it when you're going to be best prepared. While June is fairly late if you're applying MD only because you won't get your score back until late July, if you pre-write your secondaries and get them in, that should be fine. You'll want to apply to one school on AMCAS as a throw-away before you get your score back, too. Personally, I'd try to take it in April/May but if the difference between April/May and June is going to be significant, take it then. Just realize, if you don't do as well as you'd hoped, you may have to take a gap year. Also, I'm not sure where you read that people who take it in the summer score higher, but the exam is scaled the same throughout the year

 

[Bearmanbear]

#1 piece of advice = take the MCAT when you are READY for it. People score well because they take it when they are ready, not because they took it in August instead of May. The higher scores in late summer are likely due to people having all summer to focus on just the MCAT and not worrying about a course load.

Taking the MCAT later will not necessarily impact your odds of getting in anywhere, as long as you ultimately have your secondaries submitted by Labor Day of the year you’re applying. Med schools DO NOT care when you took your test, so later test dates will not “look bad” to them. I would caution against delaying the test any further, as you may experience a regression by studying for more than 6 full months. You want to give yourself time, but you don’t want to drag it out for so long that you get burnt out and/or start forgetting things you learned in month #1.

ALSO, you need to think about the time you’ll have to spend on your personal statement and primary app. In a perfect world, you would dedicate 100% of your effort to the MCAT and 100% effort to those essays. But effort and time are limited in the real world, and it is difficult to serve 2 masters. The longer you delay your test, the longer you may be delaying your ability to focus solely on those essays.

You can take the MCAT pretty much anytime during the summer, but the main gamble with that is you won’t know your score until later. Taking the test later in the summer diminishes the possibility of a retake in the event your score is not good. Knowing your score is crucial for determining what schools you are competitive for. Knowing what schools you can apply to is necessary for being able to pre-write secondary answers before you receive the actual secondary applications. Pre-writing responses will help tremendously when trying to submit all apps in a timely manner (<2 weeks).

I’m kind of rambling at this point, but oh well! I had a similar plan as your initial one, and it worked for me. The caveat though is that I was not full-time that semester, so I studied on avg 20-40 hrs a week, then around 50/week during May. Started studying in mid-January, took test on June 1st. Had been working on personal statement starting in February. Started amcas app and finished PS after taking MCAT, submitted primary in mid June. Got score back in early July. Had all secondaries complete by early August. I’ve had a successful cycle thus far.

Sorry for the rant, PM if you have questions!

No rant unappreciated! Thank you for your words and advice. I'm sure I'll have compiled a decent number of secondaries by the beginning of July- I've committed to writing at least one a day and hopefully gives me a head start on some of those. As for the primary, we'll see! I know it can be a lengthy process, but I won't know until I'm in it in May. I've already written my personal statement thankfully- though it is a very rough draft, and needs to be edited- hopefully before Winter break is over! If everything goes as planned (famous last words) I should be writing preemptive secondaries and waiting for my score in late July/Early August and have everything ready to start hammering away at secondaries. Awesome success story as well, thank you again!

 

[Bearmanbear]

Take it when you're scoring on AAMC practice exams +/- 2 of your goal score. Don't feel rushed to take it - take it when you're going to be best prepared. While June is fairly late if you're applying MD only because you won't get your score back until late July, if you pre-write your secondaries and get them in, that should be fine. You'll want to apply to one school on AMCAS as a throw-away before you get your score back, too. Personally, I'd try to take it in April/May but if the difference between April/May and June is going to be significant, take it then. Just realize, if you don't do as well as you'd hoped, you may have to take a gap year. Also, I'm not sure where you read that people who take it in the summer score higher, but the exam is scaled the same throughout the year

Knowing myself, that extra month is going to come in real handy, and I think it will mean all the difference. If I had to rush to take it right after the semester ends, I could probably do it of course, but would not be anywhere near as confident, plus my schoolwork would probably take a beating realistically. This way I can focus on school and buildup studying for the exam rather than cramming FLs and review. Hopefully its enough, thank you for your advice.

This is actually where I read that originally I believe, though now I'm realizing it was from an MCAT-prep company, so, how reliable is it? Probably not very, but not sure where lying would benefit there sales?

What is the MCAT? Get unique insights into the MCAT test today!

What is the MCAT test? Who can take the MCAT exam? Get answers from this unique guide plus resources to help you stay on track.

www.mcat-prep.com

Anyway, thank you again.

 

[KnightDoc]

Knowing myself, that extra month is going to come in real handy, and I think it will mean all the difference. If I had to rush to take it right after the semester ends, I could probably do it of course, but would not be anywhere near as confident, plus my schoolwork would probably take a beating realistically. This way I can focus on school and buildup studying for the exam rather than cramming FLs and review. Hopefully its enough, thank you for your advice.

This is actually where I read that originally I believe, though now I'm realizing it was from an MCAT-prep company, so, how reliable is it? Probably not very, but not sure where lying would benefit there sales?

What is the MCAT? Get unique insights into the MCAT test today!

What is the MCAT test? Who can take the MCAT exam? Get answers from this unique guide plus resources to help you stay on track.

www.mcat-prep.com

Anyway, thank you again.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics! That link doesn't say anything about August test takers scoring high than those in May, nor could it unless AAMC published such data, which it doesn't. All that link said is that the majority of Hopkins UGs who scored at the 90%ile or above took the test in August-September, according to a self-reported survey conducted four years ago. Very small slice of self selective data. Worthless!!

I'll bet the pie looked exactly the same for Hopkins UGs who scored below the 90%ile, probably because Hopkins premed advising tells the students to take the test then. Not sure why the company felt the need to publish that chart. On the other hand, that's not a company anyone on SDN ever references, so who knows?

 

[EdgeTrimmer]

I'm a full-time student (spring semester 2020), taking two upper-level courses next semester w/ labs. I was scheduled to sit for the exam on June 1st, but was reading that it may impact my odds of getting in based on how quickly my scores come out and so on. Then I read somewhere that those who took the exam later in the summer scored significantly higher on the exam (15-20% higher in August then in May, etc). Short story long, I ended up getting cold feet and rescheduled it to June 27th- thinking it was a good middle ground, as I've only just begun truly reviewing the Kaplan books and I know I need to dedicate at least a month to just doing FLs and running through questions. I've got literally 6 months to study, 4 of which I'll be studying alongside with my courses (meaning I'll have slightly less than a month dedicated to solid review/study). As I said, I just begun reviewing the Kaplan books and I'm astonished how long it takes to read the chapters, and just to make a simple outline (easily 4-5 hours to read each chapter and create an outline).

Some relative background:
-Full time student
-I understand the chronological order of when things are due, and the overall deadlines as well as "loopholes" for applications
-No job, but 3-4 hours a week of volunteer work
-Can probably devote 16-24 hours a week this next semester to study for the Exam, w/ additional hours a few weeks
-I'm very slow at studying, i.e. takes me awhile to grasp material, but once its in there, its usually in there good
-I'm an "A" student in all of the MCAT relative courses

Do you think my rescheduling was a solid idea, based on the information I've provided?
Should I push the date even further? Thoughts?
Whats the latest I could reschedule to [likely] receive a better score? (without looking "bad" for having my score so late)
Do you think with the time I'm left, along with my other commitments, this is enough time to perform decently (>510) on the Exam?

Again, I know the relative deadlines of everything, I just can't get a solid answer one way or another. Any other additional thoughts or advise would be welcomed. Thank you

When does your spring semester ends?

 

[Bearmanbear]

Lies, damn lies, and statistics! That link doesn't say anything about August test takers scoring high than those in May, nor could it unless AAMC published such data, which it doesn't. All that link said is that the majority of Hopkins UGs who scored at the 90%ile or above took the test in August-September, according to a self-reported survey conducted four years ago. Very small slice of self selective data. Worthless!!

I'll bet the pie looked exactly the same for Hopkins UGs who scored below the 90%ile, probably because Hopkins premed advising tells the students to take the test then. Not sure why the company felt the need to publish that chart. On the other hand, that's not a company anyone on SDN ever references, so who knows?

Yeah, the more I looked at it the more it seemed like BS, trying to sell prep courses or something. Hate how some MCAT sources use scare-tactics to try and sell their product.

 

[Bearmanbear]

When does your spring semester ends?

May 1st

 

[EdgeTrimmer]

May 1st

Study F/T for couple of weeks and then take a FL test and based on that decide. Earlier June may be better if you are applying next cycle.

 

[_Cloud9]

Echoing what others have said - take it when you feel most READY. On this page: When Should I Take the MCAT? they say you should consistently score in the 90th percentile on your mock exams. But you also want to time it so that you have time to retake if you need