Hello! I am in desperate need of any advice as I took the MCAT a few weeks ago and planned to receive my score a few days become I can submit AMCAS application on May 28th.
I struggled with the MCAT and my practice averages were around 504, so I can’t expect that I got anything higher than that on the real thing.
I was really banking on a good MCAT score to apply MD because my gpa is low (cgpa : 3.6, sgpa: 3.4). Though I was already planning on applying to a couple of DO schools, I’m very stressed because the AMCAS and ACOMAS applications opened today and I would like to start filling everything out so that once I get my score back on the 25th, I can decide whether to apply this cycle or not.
IF I were to score in the lower 500’s, would you all recommend to apply DO only this cycle, or retake the MCAT and take another gap year? For context, I AM interested in more competitive specialties which really has been the only stressor in deciding on DO or not. From my understanding, MD route makes life a little simpler than DO.
Here is a brief summary of the rest of my app:
- over 1000 clinical hours as an MA
-2+ years of clinical research in neurology, 2 publications, 1 other expected publication and a few other projects l've assisted on case reports
- 200+ volunteer hours mentoring and tutoring ESOL students (im bilingual, URM)
- 150 volunteer hours in clinical volunteering at hospital and Alzheimer's daycare
- Co-led a literacy summer program for elementary students in under-resourced schools
- 170 hours as microbio lab TA
- 2x panelist for an annual event at a scholarship organization
- 60+ shadow hours across various specialties
Any advice or comments on whether another gap year or DO are preferable would be greatly appreciated!