In a recent interview, an interviewer seemed very doubtful in my abilities to do well in medical school because I took my MCAT three times. This has been on my mind a lot and made me wonder if the admissions committee here had the same notion. I would like to spend time to clarify and hopefully eliminate any doubts the committee may have in my ability to do well in medical school and also be a great clinician.
Some may view the fact that I took the MCAT three times as it took me three tries to finally get it right, but I don’t. I believe that it only took one with the right resources. For my first exam, I spent 9 weeks studying and outlining ¾ of my chemistry, biology, physics, and organic chemistry textbooks, in addition to approximately ¼ of my biochemistry textbooks. While they were great a …show more content…
I wasted 6-14 hours of my days agonizing over minute detail, thinking that anything could possibly be tested. After taking my MCAT, I knew I could do better and that I hadn’t done my best not because I didn’t study enough, but because I didn’t have the proper resources to guide my studying. I couldn’t settle with the fact that I knew I didn’t reach my maximum potential and embarked to taking the exam again even before I knew my scores. I resolved that no matter what the score was, high or low, I wouldn’t be content. In my second attempted, I used the ExamKracker’s 1001 book series that a classmate, who had taken his MCAT the same date as mine, had given to me. They did more harm than good as I hadn’t realize that those books were intended to be used for practicing and drilling concepts, not as representation of the type of questions that would be asked on the actual exam. In the process, I burned myself out spending 16 hour days drilling questions that were not representative of the exam. This
Some may view the fact that I took the MCAT three times as it took me three tries to finally get it right, but I don’t. I believe that it only took one with the right resources. For my first exam, I spent 9 weeks studying and outlining ¾ of my chemistry, biology, physics, and organic chemistry textbooks, in addition to approximately ¼ of my biochemistry textbooks. While they were great a …show more content…
I wasted 6-14 hours of my days agonizing over minute detail, thinking that anything could possibly be tested. After taking my MCAT, I knew I could do better and that I hadn’t done my best not because I didn’t study enough, but because I didn’t have the proper resources to guide my studying. I couldn’t settle with the fact that I knew I didn’t reach my maximum potential and embarked to taking the exam again even before I knew my scores. I resolved that no matter what the score was, high or low, I wouldn’t be content. In my second attempted, I used the ExamKracker’s 1001 book series that a classmate, who had taken his MCAT the same date as mine, had given to me. They did more harm than good as I hadn’t realize that those books were intended to be used for practicing and drilling concepts, not as representation of the type of questions that would be asked on the actual exam. In the process, I burned myself out spending 16 hour days drilling questions that were not representative of the exam. This