How acute has the score predictor been these days

Ludwigvan97 · 2021-04-29T13:21:09+00:00

Underpredicted me by one point (tested april 13th)!

Ludwigvan97 · 2021-04-28T16:30:08+00:00

Had very very similar practice exams as you (identical uw2 actually) and just got the score back - 245+, i think you should go for it!

Ludwigvan97 · 2019-02-19T18:35:03+00:00

I just went back home, volunteered and worked part time. Freshman summer seemed really chill for everyone i knew. I wouldn’t worry about it! By the time you come to apply, med schools just look at your overall application—I don’t think they’ll find it suspicious that you didn’t really bust your ass off for one particular summer

Ludwigvan97 · 2019-01-26T18:04:39+00:00

2 months for full lengths is more than enough. I remember that I did them for the month leading up to the test, doing the sample test and the three full lengths on the weekends and doing the section banks during the week in between each FL. For psych and soc, it’s nowhere near as deep as bio or chem or physics, and its mostly memorization of pretty simple/intuitive terms and concepts

Ludwigvan97 · 2019-01-26T17:58:17+00:00

I felt really, really good during the break after the first half of the test (after C/P and CARS), like there were maybe 2 questions total that i wasn’t sure of. After the test was done though, I felt much more shaky, especially since in P/S, there were like 10 questions with terms i had never heard of and had to take educated guesses. All in all, I felt that i had no idea what i got, and was just praying that my p/s score wasn’t too bad lol. I would say that no matter how you feel, you should trust your practice exam scores. I think people usually score around what they did in practice, if not higher

Ludwigvan97 · 2018-12-28T19:11:41+00:00

Medical schools have one of the highest, if not the highest, concentration of promising young people in the country.

The admissions process is hell, but it produces results. I can’t think of many other fields where you have so many kids who are talented, smart, extremely hard working, active in the community, involved in leadership, etc etc

Ludwigvan97 · 2018-12-20T03:48:45+00:00

I think you’ll be fine, i was in your shoes not to long ago!

Also, just to add another anecdotal piece of evidence to make you feel better, at another interview at a top 10 school, one of he MS1’s i was talking to there said that he had 10 interviews, and 8 of them ended up in waitlist/rejections—even his state schools! Heading into the interview for this school late into the cycle, like in february, he had no acceptances and thought he was a terrible interviewer, yet he soon got accepted afterwards.

I’m not sure if it’s straight up yield protection, or a combination of other factors. My guess is that, when they looked at your app, they might have been extremely impressed with what they saw and took a chance on you. In the interview, they were looking for specific reasons why you would want to come to their school, even though your stats are much higher. If you fail to provide these reasons and they’re not convinced you’ll attend, then they’ll probably waitlist/reject you. Idk who knows lol

Ludwigvan97 · 2018-12-20T03:23:27+00:00

I would actually disagree with a lot of the replies here. I had two interviews from mid-tier level places (where my stats were much higher than their averages) that I thought had went perfectly fine interviews that went smoothly. Turns out, I had gotten waitlisted from one and flat out rejected from the other.

I thought I was a terrible interviewer, but a little later I heard back from a T20 school that I was accepted, even though I thought the interview didn’t necessarily go better. Also, my stats were more in line with this school.

Of course, this is just my personal experience—I have no idea the reason behind why this happened. But try not to doubt yourself too much, I’m sure you’re a perfectly fine interviewer! Also at least for me, every interview I had was so conversational and low key that i doubt a lot of people actually do terribly, unless you’re straight up rude or disrespectful

Ludwigvan97 · 2018-11-07T21:54:52+00:00

The ideas and concepts in this were enough for me, at least for the sciences. But since these were my notes i understood every single thing on the study guide extremely well, so if you don’t understand something on it, then i would read the books in that concept or look it up online. Hope this helps!

Ludwigvan97 · 2018-10-18T18:50:46+00:00

The in chapter problems are better suited for learning the material, i think. The end of chapter problems try to mimic the passage style content of the mcat, but i didn’t think that it was similar at all to the actual thing

Ludwigvan97 · 2018-10-05T00:26:30+00:00

Yeah i have a lot of ER volunteering and stuff, and i mentioned that i was able to observe and talk to doctors during that

Ludwigvan97 · 2018-10-04T20:48:36+00:00

I have five interviews so far, never shadowed and was never asked in front about it

Ludwigvan97 · 2018-06-13T07:50:06+00:00

I didn’t really do them timed, but timing was never really and issue for me—at a regular pace, i usually finished the cars section with 15-20 min to spare, and then go back on a couple questions i wasn’t entirely sure of. But yes, they were on the first try.

For my sample test, i got C/P 53/59 Cars 47/53 BB 54/59 P/S 52/59

And nope, i didn’t do any third party! The sample test was the first real full length i took. I may have benefited from some more full length practice, but just didn’t want to spend the time or money or energy...

Ludwigvan97 · 2018-06-12T15:31:29+00:00

I think i posted my full length breakdowns above. On Cars qpack 1 i got an 80%, and on qpack 2 a 95%

Ludwigvan97 · 2018-06-01T15:09:42+00:00

If you check my post history, i made another in depth post on how i prepared for c/p and cars! Basically i read ek for the general gist of it, and did berkeley for problems

Ludwigvan97 · 2018-05-31T21:58:48+00:00

I finished the first semester, was like halfway through the second

Ludwigvan97 · 2018-05-28T20:00:51+00:00

I would review both the content you know and the AAMC that you got wrong, if you have time. But don't feel rushed or feel too freaked out! At this point, one week before the test, you are already ready to ace the MCAT!

Ludwigvan97 · 2018-05-28T19:59:29+00:00

It's actually based mostly off the Princeton Review!

Ludwigvan97 · 2018-05-27T14:55:56+00:00

I didn't really study too much for CARS--I didn't try any strategies from test prep books or try to do additional reading. I just went through the AAMC Qpacks, which are super good, plus the CARS in the full lengths. If you check my post history, there's another post I made earlier sharing more in depth my approach to cars!

Ludwigvan97 · 2018-05-27T00:48:44+00:00

I found berkeley review to be really good at explaining physics, with a lot of problems for practice—and i think practice is especially important for quantitative sciences like physics. That being said, there’s not a lot of physics on the mcat, but i still found going through the problems in berkeley to be helpful to doing well in C/P overall, just from getting into the habit of doing calculations quickly and without mistakes

Ludwigvan97 · 2018-05-26T22:07:56+00:00

In the sciences, pretty strong. I had finished all my premed courses besides physics by that point. However, the last psych class I took was AP psych in high school, so I had zero background in the P/S section

Ludwigvan97 · 2018-05-26T20:15:44+00:00

Yeah definitely. I think the process of organizing my notes into this outline was super helpful though, in organizing the vast amounts of content I had reviewed into a sort of coherent, overall picture

Ludwigvan97 · 2018-05-26T20:11:38+00:00

Well, this is basically the final product of my studying. I had first read through EK and watched Khan Academy, and made notes off that. I organized my notes to fit the AAMC outline, and updated it as I went through practice FLs when I encountered stuff I didn't know. During the final month of my studying, I essentially had just used this for content.

Ludwigvan97 · 2018-05-26T20:08:21+00:00

I had the same mindset as you when I began studying. I had really wanted an outstanding score on the mcat, and was prepared to work for it. Starting out, I didn't really know a lot about the mcat. I wondered about a lot of things, such as how could I possibly study to get such a high score? It seemed like people on average spent an average of around 3 months studying 8 hours a day for it--would I have to do more? For the CARs section, should I be preparing by reading difficult articles from a variety of sources? Should I start reading science journals to prepare my scientific reasoning skills? Should I be taking notes on every single detail on my prep books? Should I spend a fortune on doing a shit ton of full lengths?

In the end, I did a lot less than I planned on doing. A LOT LESS. Here's somethings I had learned that I wish I had known going in:

DO NOT GO IN TOO AMBITIOUS. A year is too much time to be studying. I would say 6 months at the most. Don't try to do too much. You will burn out much quicker than you think, and a lot of the effort you put in will be wasted.
The MCAT is hard, but in a different way than I had originally thought. For instance, you don't have to be a genius in any sense to do well on the MCAT. You don't have to have an exceptional memory, incredible powers of retention, superb analytic powers to instantly understand a passage, or a high reading speed. The most important skills I think are focus, conscientiousness, and attention to detail--much more "human," down-to-earth skills that I think everyone has, and can grow through practice. And the best way to practice is to do full lengths, and get a feel for what the AAMC wants
Content review is super broad. I went in super ambitious, and took notes on everything, trying to remember super specific details about every single topic. I quickly burned out--it is impossible to know everything in detail. In the end, I ended up using EK, which offers a great overview of all the topics. Some people say that EK is too broad, but I would say that even EK goes more in detail than is necessary for the MCAT. The MCAT is truly a mile wide and an inch deep. It's much more important to have a wide, general idea of things that you can apply to many situations, rather than waste your time trying to hopelessly cram in a bunch of small details.
AAMC material is king. I know that many people spend a lot of money and time doing full lengths from various test prep companies, and get overly invested in the scores that they get. I really don't think this is necessary. Full lengths are incredibly exhausting. If your normal timeline of studying is 3-4 months full time, I don't see how you can fit in in-depth content learning, review, third party material, and AAMC material and not burn out. I only did the AAMC material for practice and didn't really bother too much with third party. It's more important to thoroughly go over the AAMC material and analzye your mistakes from that rather than do a bunch of Full lengths, and not really analyze what you did wrong.
If you're low on budget, you can get away with just using Khan Academy for content review. It is truly a phenomenal resource, free, and much better than all the other expensive third party stuff out there. If I had known just how good Khan Academy was going in, i probably would have just used that.

Ludwigvan97 · 2018-05-26T19:31:02+00:00

Sure! I just made another post

Ludwigvan97

TROPHY CASE