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3Rd Year Applicant - Write Mcat For Cars Only?


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Hey all,

 

I'm heading into my third year of undergrad, and I'm scheduled to write the MCAT in August. This application cycle, I will only be applying to Ottawa (no MCAT required) and McMaster (CARS only), so the rest of the MCAT schedules are not extremely pertinent to me this moment.

 

Now, it is my understanding that Ontario/Canadian med schools will look only at your recent or best score. My question is, can I safely focus my efforts on acing CARS and not put as much effort into the other sections, and then rewrite for Western/Toronto/etc in 2018? Or is there something I'm missing that might screw me?

 

I do not plan on applying to any US schools. I'm an Ontario resident.

 

Thanks, and good luck to all of you who are on the waitlist.

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Well, realistically, OP has only so much time to study.

 

Schools are quite literal when they tell you what their MCAT requirements are, so no I don't think there's anything that will screw you. While interviewing at Mac, one of the students told me she went "Mac or bust" (she was a non-trad) and literally skipped every MCAT section except CARS while writing the test. She's now in med school.

​My advice to all MCAT takers is: do the MCAT practice test (the official AAMC one) BEFORE you study, and look at your score. Then compare to where you want to be (look at the requirements posted by all med schools which you may be interested in). Then figure out what you have to study for. You'll probably find out that your ability in many sections may be much better than you think - in which case definitely don't study for those. 

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If you are gonna spend the money to write it, why not give it your best shot for all sections?

 

I'm working full time on a research position this summer, and if it's not necessary, I'd rather not spend my entire evenings studying for the MCAT.

 

Well, realistically, OP has only so much time to study.

 

Schools are quite literal when they tell you what their MCAT requirements are, so no I don't think there's anything that will screw you. While interviewing at Mac, one of the students told me she went "Mac or bust" (she was a non-trad) and literally skipped every MCAT section except CARS while writing the test. She's now in med school.

 

​My advice to all MCAT takers is: do the MCAT practice test (the official AAMC one) BEFORE you study, and look at your score. Then compare to where you want to be (look at the requirements posted by all med schools which you may be interested in). Then figure out what you have to study for. You'll probably find out that your ability in many sections may be much better than you think - in which case definitely don't study for those. 

 

This is actually really good advice. Earlier on I figured I'd do the MCAT practice test after studying to "prove" what I know, but it definitely makes more sense to see where your weaknesses are. Thanks for that!

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I can speak as someone who's recently tried this strategy successfully.. I only studied for CARS, and my score ended up 124/130/124/127 = 505. It got me into Mac, and also got me accepted at an Irish medical school too (my backup given my low GPA of 3.30)

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Similar to hollyjolly, I also made use of your proposed strategy successfully. I only had 3 weeks to study for the MCAT last summer so I opted to just write CARS; luckily scoring a 130. I was accepted (off the waitlist) to Mac with a 3.65 GPA. 

That being said, Mac was really the only school I wanted to go to (I am very biased!). 

Good luck with your decision and application!

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Thank you everybody for your responses! I feel a lot better about it now :)

14 hours ago, hollyjolly said:

I can speak as someone who's recently tried this strategy successfully.. I only studied for CARS, and my score ended up 124/130/124/127 = 505. It got me into Mac, and also got me accepted at an Irish medical school too (my backup given my low GPA of 3.30)

 

14 hours ago, Hopeful2017 said:

Similar to hollyjolly, I also made use of your proposed strategy successfully. I only had 3 weeks to study for the MCAT last summer so I opted to just write CARS; luckily scoring a 130. I was accepted (off the waitlist) to Mac with a 3.65 GPA. 

That being said, Mac was really the only school I wanted to go to (I am very biased!). 

Good luck with your decision and application!

How did you two study for CARs? I'm averaging ~1-1.5 wrong per passage based on the question packs. I really appreciate the help :) 

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38 minutes ago, SoraAde said:

Thank you everybody for your responses! I feel a lot better about it now :)

 

How did you two study for CARs? I'm averaging ~1-1.5 wrong per passage based on the question packs. I really appreciate the help :) 

Happy to help! I did all of the questions in the AAMC question packs and used Kaplan's free practice material. I reviewed carefully what went wrong each time. I typically got one question wrong per passage as well. Interestingly, I found the test-day CARS questions to be easier than the practice questions. I'm not sure if anyone else experienced this...maybe it was simply due to heightened focus from test-day nerves/adrenaline?! 

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1 hour ago, Hopeful2017 said:

Happy to help! I did all of the questions in the AAMC question packs and used Kaplan's free practice material. I reviewed carefully what went wrong each time. I typically got one question wrong per passage as well. Interestingly, I found the test-day CARS questions to be easier than the practice questions. I'm not sure if anyone else experienced this...maybe it was simply due to heightened focus from test-day nerves/adrenaline?! 

The question packs are recycled questions from the old MCAT's verbal sections, which are actually harder than CARS (apparently). It would explain why you found test day easier!

Did you use the official guide to the MCAT questions?

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The question packs are recycled questions from the old MCAT's verbal sections, which are actually harder than CARS (apparently). It would explain why you found test day easier!

That would explain it... my mark on the old MCAT verbal reasoning section wasn't the greatest, and similar to Hopeful2017 I found that my performance on test day for CARS was significantly better than the scores I was getting during practice. Glad it's not just me!

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8 hours ago, hollyjolly said:

The question packs are recycled questions from the old MCAT's verbal sections, which are actually harder than CARS (apparently). It would explain why you found test day easier!

That would explain it... my mark on the old MCAT verbal reasoning section wasn't the greatest, and similar to Hopeful2017 I found that my performance on test day for CARS was significantly better than the scores I was getting during practice. Glad it's not just me!

Not to hijack this thread or anything, but do you think CARS can be improved within a 2 month time frame? I started studying last month averaging around 1-1.5 questions wrong as well with TPR resources, and have been getting wrecked recently on some of the harder workbook passages. I'm starting to worry that for some weird reason my performance is going down in CARS. 2 months left to practice so just wondering if it's improve-able haha.

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5 hours ago, Cuttlefish said:

Not to hijack this thread or anything, but do you think CARS can be improved within a 2 month time frame? I started studying last month averaging around 1-1.5 questions wrong as well with TPR resources, and have been getting wrecked recently on some of the harder workbook passages. I'm starting to worry that for some weird reason my performance is going down in CARS. 2 months left to practice so just wondering if it's improve-able haha.

I can't speak for CARS since I wrote the old MCAT, but Verbal score could definitely be improved in that times frame

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