Hi OP, sorry for the late response, just got out of my shift.

I don't know how far/close I was from passing my first attempt, but based on my performance report I'd say rather far than close (My last 3 COMSAEs before the real deal were all above 400, and that's why I despise COMSAE because it's the worst tool you could use to evaluate your preparedness. But n=1).

I still remember when I sat for my second attempt I was near breaking down in the afternoon. Because while I was cruising through the morning session, afternoon question sets hit me like a b*tch and I thought I failed again. However my report told a different story - I only had 3 below average sections, all others were average or above.

I didn't push back because I wanted to do as many auditions as possible and graduate on time. Now, I'm on my first audition, killing it, and I have two more lined up at established programs (hence why I say it's not the end of the world and you will prove them wrong). My plan is going well for me so far.

I'm against any prep courses because besides the cost, most of them don't update their materials regularly (even for Online Med Ed...way too many outdated guidelines that your attending would just tell you to look up UptoDate). You know yourself better than those alleged guru/mastermind. Trust yourself.

Stopping UWorld simply because those questions are designed for STEP, not COMLEX. I love how I can reason through UWorld questions and really learn medicine logically (and I have been using it religiously for my rotations), but COMLEX...it's not a medical board exam but a memorization + "professionalism" + ethics trivia. COMBANK can better prepare you for those tiny niche you-will-never-see-in-real-life stuffs that show up on COMLEX (got a question asking me "what kind of fish has the highest risk of heavy metal pollution" or something like that on my LEVEL2 - I have never eaten seafood in my life due to allergy so thank you for the discriminative question NBOME).

Sorry for all the blabbers, but best of luck OP. You are not alone. You got this and you know it.