drblue Posted October 6, 2008 Report Share Posted October 6, 2008 Hi guys I need some advice Ive written the MCAT once before and got 9 VR/8BS/8PS and wrote it agian this year got 9 VR/ 8 PS/ 10 BS. Physical sciences seems to be the end of me...do you think I should take another chance and re write it or give up on it and apply to caribbean? My GPA is 3.7 Any suggestions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
webshy Posted October 6, 2008 Report Share Posted October 6, 2008 Hi guys I need some adviceIve written the MCAT once before and got 9 VR/8BS/8PS and wrote it agian this year got 9 VR/ 8 PS/ 10 BS. Physical sciences seems to be the end of me...do you think I should take another chance and re write it or give up on it and apply to caribbean? My GPA is 3.7 Any suggestions? The first three times I wrote the MCAT, I got a mark of 8, 8 and 7 on the PS section. Two years later, I worked through the EK Physics and Chemistry books. When I re-wrote the MCAT, I was confident in my PS ability for the first time. That time, I got a 12 on the PS. I had an opportunity to go the Carribbean a couple of years ago. However, I am so glad that I continued to try for a Canadian school (after a hiatus), and that now I will be able to obtain a residency in Canada, and don't have the fear about returning to Canada on my mind. If you have given the MCAT everything you have, and the marks you have achieved are the highest you believe you can achieve, then okay. However, if like me you knew you didn't give the MCAT your absolute all, then I suggest you re-write it and try to get a mark that will mark medical school in Canada a possibility. Best wishes to you. Elaine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flame219 Posted October 6, 2008 Report Share Posted October 6, 2008 Did you take a prep course for MCAT prep? If you wanna give it a try one more time, I would recommend to give yourself some practice with the Kaplan practice materials and practice tests. They are harder than the real thing, at least most of the time, and I find that if you can tailor yourself to the level of doing Kaplan physical sciences, the real MCAT should give you satisfactory results. I prepped the MCAT with the kaplan course and I ended up with a 13 in the physical sciences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drblue Posted October 6, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 6, 2008 Yea I took TPR....I definitely studied my hardest for the PS section....In fact, when I took the practise exams, I was actually consistently breaking a 30+ on every test with all PS scores being above 10...but then at the actual exam, I just ran out of time so was forced to guess questions. Its mostly the calculations that take time for me...I know how to do them but for some reason I just keep running out of time. That wasnt happening in the practise tests though...so I dont know if its nerves or what Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
osmosis Posted October 8, 2008 Report Share Posted October 8, 2008 i did a prep course with EK material, but i did not do well on the sciences sections. do you think that kaplan or princeton has better review for the science material than EK? or is EK superior in all sections? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supafield Posted October 8, 2008 Report Share Posted October 8, 2008 Depends on learning style... I used the TPR course and a bit of EK stuff.. Ek is better if you have a strong hold on the material already... or at least somewhat of an understanding.... it hits core concepts it seems and saves the fluff. For me, I needed more of a easing back into it and loved the fact that princeton basically babied the concepts to me. there were moments where I felt geez do I really need to be wasting my time.... but in retrospect I'm glad I did because of the slower pace I found my comprehension to be much better (although it took longer) after reading a passage of TPR vs. a passage of EK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
osmosis Posted October 8, 2008 Report Share Posted October 8, 2008 hmmm. i actually felt that way about ek as well. it has been several years since i have taken those classes, and i need a book to explain to me all the nitty gritty details with baby steps. maybe i should look into TPR, and supplement with ek. how does TPR structure their books? do they have seperate books for the sciences and VR? or is it mostly practice test material? also, where can i pick up the book material? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nothing123 Posted October 8, 2008 Report Share Posted October 8, 2008 hmmm. i actually felt that way about ek as well. it has been several years since i have taken those classes, and i need a book to explain to me all the nitty gritty details with baby steps. maybe i should look into TPR, and supplement with ek. how does TPR structure their books? do they have seperate books for the sciences and VR? or is it mostly practice test material? also, where can i pick up the book material? TPR books are broken up into a Biological sections book, a Physical sections one and a Verbal/Writing Review book. Accompanying these review books are a verbal practice workbook and a Science workbook which are both pretty extensive in my opinion. It is definitely a comprehensive review. The books come in a package when you sign up for the course but I'm surely seen people selling them online. I may be even able to sell you mine pending my results... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneDay Posted October 9, 2008 Report Share Posted October 9, 2008 I really liked the Princeton review materials. I looked over the Kaplan books, and didn't really like their style as much. I thought the Princeton covered EVERYTHING, so when I started with practice tests from EK, AAMC, Kaplan etc, I was never shocked with anything because everything was covered in the princeton books (nothing more nothing less in my opinion). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mystery_chick Posted October 9, 2008 Report Share Posted October 9, 2008 I really liked the Princeton review materials. I looked over the Kaplan books, and didn't really like their style as much. I thought the Princeton covered EVERYTHING, so when I started with practice tests from EK, AAMC, Kaplan etc, I was never shocked with anything because everything was covered in the princeton books (nothing more nothing less in my opinion). I actually thought the opposite. I preferred my Kaplan stuff over the stuff my friend had from Princeton. Princeton just goes on for too long on the same material. I guess that's good for someone who didn't have a background in science but I'm in science so I liked how Kaplan just laid out the stuff and gave neat summarizing charts etc etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supafield Posted October 9, 2008 Report Share Posted October 9, 2008 hmmm. i actually felt that way about ek as well. it has been several years since i have taken those classes, and i need a book to explain to me all the nitty gritty details with baby steps. maybe i should look into TPR, and supplement with ek. how does TPR structure their books? do they have seperate books for the sciences and VR? or is it mostly practice test material? also, where can i pick up the book material? I have the 2008 hyperlearning books the full set of class books that I'm selling quite cheaply.... as they're heavily highlighted and decently worn.... If you're interested give me a shout... I think I listed them as $100 on the for sale boards... Mind you if don't like highlighted books these are not for you lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byrne Posted October 9, 2008 Report Share Posted October 9, 2008 Has anyone taken any of Kaplan's online courses before? I want to boost my Physics mark so I'm thinking about taking their PS Edge online course. I know it's $499, but I have some codes that will get me discounts off that price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
osmosis Posted October 10, 2008 Report Share Posted October 10, 2008 i would actually like to buy the Princeton material, but i would prefer if it was new or in lightly used condition. anybody know if it's possible to buy the material w/o registering for the course itself? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drblue Posted October 12, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 12, 2008 i would actually like to buy the Princeton material, but i would prefer if it was new or in lightly used condition. anybody know if it's possible to buy the material w/o registering for the course itself? Im fairly sure you can order just the books to study...either check the website or call them to ask Or you could always buy them off someone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest viscous Posted March 7, 2009 Report Share Posted March 7, 2009 how many times a person can write the mcat before the ontario schools start frowning upon the rewrite? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supafield Posted March 7, 2009 Report Share Posted March 7, 2009 how many times a person can write the mcat before the ontario schools start frowning upon the rewrite? Seemingly unlimited. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kalia Posted March 7, 2009 Report Share Posted March 7, 2009 McGill cares, as in >3 = bad. In terms of the States, I emailed a couple, and most said they will look at all the MCATs (and usually taking the most recent into consideration), but they won't look down on applicants who took multiple MCATs. I think they want to see improvement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest viscous Posted March 8, 2009 Report Share Posted March 8, 2009 ok so here it is. I just needed to some opinions regarding mcat rewrite. So I have 9 in VR. The other sections are well above cutoffs required for Ontario schools. My gpa was good enough to meet UOttawa cutoff but ABS was not sufficient. But my cgpa is not good enough to land me a UofT and Mac interview. I meet gpa cutoffs for QUeens and UWO by a large margin. I can bring UWO in my interview range by rewriting mcat and by ensuring to get 10 on VR at least. But is it worth the risk to rewrite just to bring one school within my range (at the expense of good mcat score in other sections which I can loose by rewriting, but I guess they wont really benefit me within ontario cuz as long as I am above cut-off I should be fine) even though my gpa is bottleneck for UT and Mac .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorelan Posted March 8, 2009 Report Share Posted March 8, 2009 ok so here it is. I just needed to some opinions regarding mcat rewrite. So I have 9 in VR. The other sections are well above cutoffs required for Ontario schools. My gpa was good enough to meet UOttawa cutoff but ABS was not sufficient. But my cgpa is not good enough to land me a UofT and Mac interview. I meet gpa cutoffs for QUeens and UWO by a large margin. I can bring UWO in my interview range by rewriting mcat and by ensuring to get 10 on VR at least. But is it worth the risk to rewrite just to bring one school within my range (at the expense of good mcat score in other sections which I can loose by rewriting, but I guess they wont really benefit me within ontario cuz as long as I am above cut-off I should be fine) even though my gpa is bottleneck for UT and Mac .... Hmm, ok! You are saying you will not qualify for either U of T or Mac regardless of the mcat, so we can exclude those. That leaves western, ottawa, queens and NOSM. Ottawa does use the MCAT and unless you are from the north (are you?) NOSM is a bit of a long shot. That leaves you only queens and western - both of which your mcat is stopping your application. For Ontario at least you don't have much to lose it seems. Your Ottawa app is safe with a rewrite, and it can only help you at queens and western. This is all very Ontario centred of course It would seem though that if you meet queen's cut off you are likely about the gpa requirements for a lot of the other school but 9 in VR would still be pretty low for those. My logic could be wrong but a rewrite seems like a good thing to do (well from an application point of view ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
w8kg6 Posted March 8, 2009 Report Share Posted March 8, 2009 If you're interested in OOP schools, I think you'd make the cutoff for Dal, so long as your GPA is above 3.8 OMSAS (which it sounds like it is). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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