Not much progress... should I postpone?

[Pauline916]

Hi everyone,

I'm an incoming 3rd year scheduled for the Sept 10th MCAT and am feeling discouraged right now after my last FL practice. I had summer school and work this past month but reviewed for the MCAT throughout, so I figured I'd be doing better now that I don't have those obligations.

Unfortunately, my trend isn't too great:
AAMC FL scored (w/o content review): 502
Next Step 1 FL: 509
Next Step 3 FL: 508
Next Step diagnostic: 514
Next Step 4 FL: 504

To top it off, I'm not done with my content review. I'm using EK 2016 and have been missing about a third of the questions on each. I'm thinking of postponing until January so I have more time to finish content, practice test-taking, and ultimately get my scores up. I'm scared though since I'd also have classes, an internship, a job and extracurriculars I'm just wondering if I should suck it up and work my absolute hardest these next four weeks and go through a ton of practice tests in the hope of getting a consistently high score? (513+) Or if I shouldn't risk it this month, keep working as if I'll take it, and then reschedule for January.

My gpa is fine, +3.8, but I'm a CA resident trying to stay in CA so I know it's an uphill battle and a bad MCAT could ruin me

Thanks to everybody in advance and I know I must sound a little neurotic :/ I'm just looking for advice and maybe others in the same boat. Thanks again!

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[bobeanie95]

You won't have enough time in four weeks, especially since you haven't finished content review. You want to make sure you have around 1-2 months of pure practice problems and practice exams. If I were you I'd probably push it back to January. You want to take it only when you are ready.

 

[UncertaintyPrinciple]

There are pros and cons to each test date. Ultimately, you should take it when you know you'll be ready. You're the best judge of that.
You still have a month before the September date. You'll have to determine if that's enough time for you to learn the material. Your practice tests aren't bad except for that last one. What happened there? Can you attribute it to having a bad day or did you honestly not know the material?

A potential pitfall of the January test date is that it is so far away. Are you really going to remember everything you've learned over the summer in 5 months? You'll end up having to spend a lot of time reviewing stuff you're learning right now. Also, it sounds like you are going to be pretty busy this upcoming semester, so how much time are you going to be able to commit to studying for the MCAT?

The good thing is that you are early! You are ahead of many of your classmates, so don't feel like you have to rush.

 

[Pauline916]

There are pros and cons to each test date. Ultimately, you should take it when you know you'll be ready. You're the best judge of that.
You still have a month before the September date. You'll have to determine if that's enough time for you to learn the material. Your practice tests aren't bad except for that last one. What happened there? Can you attribute it to having a bad day or did you honestly not know the material?

A potential pitfall of the January test date is that it is so far away. Are you really going to remember everything you've learned over the summer in 5 months? You'll end up having to spend a lot of time reviewing stuff you're learning right now. Also, it sounds like you are going to be pretty busy this upcoming semester, so how much time are you going to be able to commit to studying for the MCAT?

The good thing is that you are early! You are ahead of many of your classmates, so don't feel like you have to rush.

It could have been just a bad day, I'd just gotten home from summer school and likely felt more relaxed, plus I took the exam at home instead of a library or other study area. Still, when I looked back at what I got wrong I realized that it tested me on pretty much everything I haven't reviewed yet and I made a lot of other dumb mistakes. It got me thinking that I haven't finished my content review and that maybe my test taking skills need more work too

But yeah, the main pitfall is that the material won't be freshly learned :/ but I'm going to try and make the best of it and see it as more time to review the things I've learned rather than rushing to learn the things I need to. I think I'll spend the rest of the summer preparing as I have been and get the content review completely done while still doing some FL's. Do you have any advice on how else I could structure my summer/upcoming quarter? Thank you for the reply!

 

[Pauline916]

You won't have enough time in four weeks, especially since you haven't finished content review. You want to make sure you have around 1-2 months of pure practice problems and practice exams. If I were you I'd probably push it back to January. You want to take it only when you are ready.

Thanks for the advice! I think I'll follow it. There's no reason for me to take it this early besides getting it out of the way, but it's not worth it if I don't think I can get the score I want