Olivia

My First List

• At the end of July take the official test. If you're still not happy, it's time for tutoring to have someone sit down and help you polish. Take the last test mid-late August. If you didn't hit the goal score that is OK, you'd be surprised how many fantastic medical schools are not world-famous. It's about the "best fit" program. You'll become a great doctor in a program where you respond to the faculty and get plenty of experience in rotation working with the type of patients you're think might be your area of interest. Remember this is a SUGGESTED strategy, it's ok to customize based on your timeline, resources, goals, learning style, etc.
• Take the official test in the March/April of your Junior year. If you're happy with your score, great, if not, still great! You know how you performed on the real test, and what the course of action is going to be for the summer. A significant amount of students improve their score by taking the test more than once. If you're prepping in the summer, do it like a full time job. I had a friend spend an entire year post-college prepping for the MCAT, she's now an ENT surgeon. My father spent exactly 8 hours every day, 9-5 in a room with no windows or other people/sound, studying for the test for 12 weeks. He scored the equivalent of a 524 and has been practicing medicine for 35 years.
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Olivia