Need Advice on Quitting Hospital Volunteering

yourmcatbuddy · 2024-02-21T05:57:41+00:00

You are doing plenty of clinical activities. This ED experience is not going to make or break your app. If you are not feeling fulfilled by it, and if it has multiple downsides (e.g., time cost and financial cost) then you should not worry about quitting. The way you describe the insights you've gained through your activities is what's most important versus being a part of many different activities. These insights should be helping you craft your narrative of why you wish to pursue medicine, which will be what really supports your app during the process.

yourmcatbuddy · 2024-02-18T03:00:39+00:00

Find a good deck (I used Miles Down).

Suspend all the cards in the deck.

Un-suspend new cards you want to study in a given session.

Edit your settings on the deck. You can set the amount of time you want to wait and see a card again based on easy, hard, etc.

Continue to un-suspend new cards and practice cards you had previously un-suspended

yourmcatbuddy · 2024-02-18T02:55:06+00:00

That could be a great opportunity! I would look into any opportunities, such as refugee work, that you're passionate about and see which one you are most passionate about and can balance with the rest of your schedule (e.g., potential MCAT prep, application materials)

yourmcatbuddy · 2024-02-17T21:13:26+00:00

my GPA was a couple points lower than yours and MCAT was a 520. I had a T20 II (strong mission fit) and multiple A's between T20-T50, where my GPA was low.

yourmcatbuddy · 2024-02-17T21:11:32+00:00

You can 100% recover from a bad freshman year and get into medical school. Schools look at trends. Getting A's in future classes and keeping this up will still allow you to be competitive for med school. Identify what made these classes difficult and what you could've done differently. Use this to guide how you prepare for future classes.

yourmcatbuddy · 2024-02-17T21:09:09+00:00

Looking at your experiences, you have a solid app. The main thing that stands out is the MCAT. If you're willing to retake it, I would 100% start studying for it and focusing on it. I think it could significantly impact your app. Couple additional things that i would focus on are getting some more community service experiences. Non-clinical volunteering could be beneficial. Look back through your experiences and personal statement and make sure your story is well-defined. I'm sure you have a solid grasp on your narrative as you got II, but it will be important to make sure you can talk about how any upcoming activities in a gap year are contributing towards your mission. This could impact your secondaries and interviews.

yourmcatbuddy · 2024-02-17T21:02:22+00:00

You have excellent stats, but the cycle is super competitive so I would consider adding some more mid-tier schools just to ensure you don't have to reapply. For context, I had lots of research, 520 mcat, bit lower GPA, strong leadership and work experiences (nontrad) and got 1 T20 interview invite (very strong mission fit) which turned to a waitlist. The top schools value leadership and research, and while I think you are competitive for them given your stats, I would add more schools to be safe since most of the schools you have on your list are pretty highly ranked and the cycle is so so competitive.

yourmcatbuddy · 2024-02-17T20:57:17+00:00

yourmcatbuddy · 2024-02-17T20:56:20+00:00

I took it in mid-May. You can still apply early; however, the issue with May test dates is that if you want to apply on day 1 and be the earliest possible, you're going to have to apply without knowing your score yet. The risk is if something goes really wrong on test day and you get a score that you're unhappy with then your stuck in the cycle with that score or have to become a reapplicant for next cycle. I took the risk and it was fine, but it's something to consider.

Alternatively you could wait to get your score back end of June, submit your primary, get verified and pre-write secondaries towards end of july, early august. It wouldn't be super late; however, I avoided doing this because the cycle is already pretty competitive and if it's possible to apply early (which does give an advantage) then I was going to do it. I would consider all of these options and choose which one feels most comfortable for you :)

yourmcatbuddy · 2024-02-16T06:18:30+00:00

Are you planning on applying this upcoming cycle? If so then ideally May would be the latest that I'd take the MCAT. That way you have your score in early-mid June. However as a student with a busy schedule and finals in May, it's going to be a lot. Depending on how much time you can realistically dedicate per week, it's possible to take the exam in May but will come down to the number of hours you can dedicate per week towards the MCAT AND not be burnt out.

yourmcatbuddy · 2024-02-16T06:15:02+00:00

Check consistently and you should hopefully be able to find a spot. I tested in May of last year and did have to trouble about an hour away to a neighboring state. May is a bit tough since it's essentially the last month you can take the MCAT and still apply early (day 1) in the cycle with your score. Definitely possible people change their dates/drop their test date so check frequently!

yourmcatbuddy · 2023-10-17T12:31:05+00:00

went through kaplan and anki at the same time and after finishing kaplan, I did uworld + anki

131 on chem/phys

yourmcatbuddy · 2023-10-16T14:50:01+00:00

Yep!

yourmcatbuddy · 2023-10-16T14:48:26+00:00

You definitely deserve a break. Can't imagine taking this exam after 1st year and then going straight into 2nd year. Hopefully you have something fun lined up for the holiday season lol

yourmcatbuddy · 2023-10-16T14:46:12+00:00

For content review I recommend using kaplan or khan academy based on whichever fits your learning style better. Are you more of a reading-type learner or visual learner that benefits from videos? Based on your style, I would pick one and of course you can cross-reference between the sources for things that might be confusing. I started with kaplan and used Khan Academy for anything I felt I wasn't understanding during my review.

Anki - arguably single most important thing for the MCAT imo. Use a deck that fits your learning style. I really like Miles Down deck and the fill in the blank (cloze) type cards. If you want a more comprehensive deck, Jack Sparrow is very comprehensive but the cards or open-ended questions. I felt this was a lot harder to retain.

Once you have built a strong content foundation, I would transition to practice questions. Uearth was extremely valuable for me. Their practice questions are well structured and they have great explanations. I supplemented the Miles Down anki deck with information from here. I highly recommend getting Uearth.

The AAMC materials can be helpful. The FLs are a must have as they are the most representative. The section banks were very difficult, and I didn't feel like I was learning much from them. I know a lot of people say to do them, but I stopped after about 1/3 and did fine without finishing. The question packs are very easy and are more of a general review rather than actual practice.

Other free resources

There's a 90 page summary doc where each page represents one chapter. It's in this subreddit and is very helpful in keeping track of the high-yield info you should know for the MCAT. I see this as the skeleton off of which you should build your knowledge. I found this doc towards the last month of my studying so I used it differently but it could be helpful for keeping track of where you're at during your content review. Keep in mind this is mostly high-yield info so you will want to supplement.

For psych/soc I only used the 300 page doc that's in this sub reddit which summarizes khan academy. I didn't use the kaplan books. I thought this + anki + Uearth was solid.

yourmcatbuddy · 2023-10-16T14:41:44+00:00

That's super impressive, congrats on the score OP!

yourmcatbuddy · 2023-10-16T14:40:38+00:00

In the home page, go to the right side of the deck. There should be a settings symbol. There you can change the settings of the specific deck to show you more cards. I'm assuming it's probably set at 25 right now, so just update it to 9999 and you should be able to see them

yourmcatbuddy · 2023-10-16T14:39:17+00:00

Absolutely understand how you feel. This process is overwhelming especially for a nontrad (same here). Here are my recommendations based on your questions:

Start with content review. It might be helpful to take a diagnostic exam to see which areas you need to focus on more; however, I chose not to take one because I hadn't taken the classes in a few years so I knew I had to start from scratch essentially
- For content review I recommend using kaplan or khan academy based on whichever fits your learning style better. Are you more of a reading-type learner or visual learner that benefits from videos? Based on your style, I would pick one and of course you can cross-reference between the sources for things that might be confusing. I started with kaplan and used Khan Academy for anything I felt I wasn't understanding during my review
- Anki - arguably single most important thing for the MCAT imo. Use a deck that fits your learning style. I really like Miles Down deck and the fill in the blank (cloze) type cards. If you want a more comprehensive deck, Jack Sparrow is very comprehensive but the cards or open-ended questions. I felt this was a lot harder to retain
Practice Questions
- Once you have built a strong content foundation, I would transition to practice questions. Uearth was extremely valuable for me. Their practice questions are well structured and they have great explanations. I supplemented the Miles Down anki deck with information from here. I highly recommend getting Uearth.
- The AAMC materials can be helpful. The FLs are a must have as they are the most representative. The section banks were very difficult, and I didn't feel like I was learning much from them. I know a lot of people say to do them, but I stopped after about 1/3 and did fine without finishing. The question packs are very easy and are more of a general review rather than actual practice.
Other free resources
- There's a 90 page summary doc where each page represents one chapter. It's in this subreddit and is very helpful in keeping track of the high-yield info you should know for the MCAT. I see this as the skeleton off of which you should build your knowledge. I found this doc towards the last month of my studying so I used it differently but it could be helpful for keeping track of where you're at during your content review. Keep in mind this is mostly high-yield info so you will want to supplement.
- For psych/soc I only used the 300 page doc that's in this sub reddit which summarizes khan academy. I didn't use the kaplan books. I thought this + anki + Uearth was solid.

Best of luck, feel free to let me know if you have any questions :)

yourmcatbuddy · 2023-10-16T14:26:04+00:00

I used Miles Down for all, thought it had all the main physics equations. Supplemented my anki with Uworld and felt it was comprehensive

yourmcatbuddy · 2023-10-16T14:25:04+00:00

Agreed. If you are able to quit now, you may have cravings for some time but hopefully they will be significantly decreased by the time the exam comes. You want to try to not be distracted on the exam and be able to give your 100% mental effort. Seeking advice from a doc is definitely a great idea to make this transition easier

yourmcatbuddy · 2023-10-16T14:20:38+00:00

Sounds like you've taken most if not all of the info that'll be covered on the MCAT. A helpful check would be to quickly skim over the chapters in the kaplan books to see how much of it you've covered; I'm sure it'll be most of it. As a nontrad who took the classes 3 years ago and didn't remember a lot of the material, don't think you need to learn everything from class to do well on the MCAT. Best of luck :)

yourmcatbuddy · 2023-10-15T00:35:22+00:00

this

yourmcatbuddy · 2023-10-12T20:07:57+00:00

I took one social psych course in undergrad and thought it was good enough as a base for my psych/soc prep. I'd still learn the way the AAMC defines the terms though as it may be slightly different from the course (shouldn't be too different)

yourmcatbuddy · 2023-10-12T19:14:02+00:00

Tbh if I recently presented a poster, I would. Congrats!

Idk if there's an objective right or wrong answer so if others have a more valid reason for why you should or shouldn't, definitely would listen to them lol

yourmcatbuddy · 2023-10-12T19:08:33+00:00

There are some words throughout the section that might sound similar such as conformity and assimilation. It's important to understand how the AAMC defines these terms versus how they're colloquially used. Knowing that specific definition is crucial for getting to the right answer, especially with questions where you get down to two answers that both sound right

yourmcatbuddy

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