u/Feisty_Calendar9133

hey, I'm a 520 MCAT scorer (CARS was my best section), applied last cycle and got into 9 MD programs including one full ride. Taking a year before med school to tutor and advise pre-meds full time.

I work with:

- MCAT prep (content + CARS + AAMC strategy + FL analysis)

- Med school admissions (primaries, secondaries, interview prep)

- Pre-med strategy (college freshmen through reapplicants)

- BS/MD applicants (high school students)

results so far:

- 9 MCAT students all up at least 5 points, several up 7+, mix of first-timers and retakers

- 1 high school senior into a 6 year BS/MD program

- 1 college freshman early decision MD acceptance after 3 years of undergrad

- 3 traditional applicants, first cycle MD acceptances

- 2 non-trads, MD acceptances (one first try, one second cycle)

logistics:

- sessions over zoom

- free 30 min consult to look at your situation and see if I'm the right fit

- pricing is per session and per package, share it on the consult once I know what you need

DM me if you want to chat.

hey, I'm a 520 MCAT scorer (CARS was my best section), applied last cycle and got into 9 MD programs including one full ride. Taking a year before med school to tutor and advise pre-meds full time.

I work with:

- MCAT prep (content + CARS + AAMC strategy + FL analysis)

- Med school admissions (primaries, secondaries, interview prep)

- Pre-med strategy (college freshmen through reapplicants)

- BS/MD applicants (high school students)

results so far:

- 9 MCAT students all up at least 5 points, several up 7+, mix of first-timers and retakers

- 1 high school senior into a 6 year BS/MD program

- 1 college freshman early decision MD acceptance after 3 years of undergrad

- 3 traditional applicants, first cycle MD acceptances

- 2 non-trads, MD acceptances (one first try, one second cycle)

logistics:

- sessions over zoom

- free 30 min consult to look at your situation and see if I'm the right fit

- pricing is per session and per package, share it on the consult once I know what you need

DM me if you want to chat.

Scored a 520 last cycle, CARS was my best section, got into 9 MD programs. Taking a year before med school to tutor full time and at this point I've worked with enough students to see the same mistakes on repeat.

If you're stuck or just starting, here's what I'd actually tell you.

1. Content review isn't studying

Most people spend 3 or 4 months grinding Kaplan books or Khan Academy and call that prep. It's not. Reading content maybe gets you to a 505. The test doesn't care if you know the Krebs cycle. It cares if you can use the Krebs cycle to figure out a passage about some experimental drug you've never heard of, under time, with two answers that both look right.

What actually works is more like 30/70. 30 percent content, and only on the stuff you're weak on, not the whole list. 70 percent practice and reviewing that practice. Flip that ratio and you'll plateau.

2. Review matters more than the practice does

People do UWorld, see the score, move on. Wasted time. The 515+ scorers spend longer reviewing each question than they do answering it.

For every one you got wrong:

- why is the right answer right

- why is each wrong answer wrong

- what was the question actually testing

- have you missed this pattern before

Keep a doc of the patterns you miss. That doc is your real study guide, not the Kaplan book.

3. AAMC is the only stuff that actually matches the test

UWorld, Kaplan, Princeton are fine for volume and concept reps. But AAMC writes the test, and nobody else nails their question style or their trap answers. The wrong-answer logic on third party stuff is just different.

Use UWorld in the first half for volume. Save AAMC for the back half. AAMC FLs in your last 6 weeks. Question packs and section banks are gold, treat them like that.

4. CARS is a daily thing, not a study session

People who break 130+ on CARS are doing 1 to 2 passages a day for months. Not 10 on Saturday. Not a weekend cram. Every day.

Jack Westin for daily volume, AAMC CARS in the final stretch. Review the same way you'd review a science question.

And if you're a native English speaker scoring under 127 on CARS, it's almost never reading comprehension. It's that you're picking what you think instead of what the passage actually says. Train yourself to find the answer in the text. Sounds dumb, works.

5. Take FLs the way you'll take the real test

Same start time. Same breaks. No phone. No snacks you wouldn't bring to the testing center. People take FLs in pieces and then wonder why their stamina dies on test day. It's 7.5 hours. If you've never sat 7.5 hours in one go you're going to fade in B/B and your score is going to show it.

6. Plateaus mean you haven't changed anything

If you went 508, 509, 508 across three FLs, more practice isn't the answer. Something in your process is wrong. Are you reviewing right. Are the same question types catching you. Are you running out of time. A plateau is data, it's telling you what to fix, not to push harder.

Anyway, happy to answer stuff in the comments. DM me if you want to talk through your specific situation.

Scored a 520 last cycle, got into 9 MD programs, taking a year to tutor before med school. I see a lot of high schoolers in this sub asking about pre-med and BS/MD and most of the advice they're getting is either generic or just wrong. Here's what I think actually matters at 17, from someone who just lived through this whole thing.

1. BS/MD programs are not a shortcut, they're a different gamble

every high schooler interested in medicine asks about BS/MD because it feels like skipping the hardest part. Reality is the acceptance rates at the top BS/MD programs are lower than ivy schools, you're competing against students with 1550+ SATs, multiple research projects, hundreds of clinical hours, all at 17.

here's what nobody realizes about these programs. Most BS/MD applicants apply to like 2 or 3 programs as a "lemme just try" and assume they'll get in because they're smart. They don't and obviously, because these schools don't want just smart. The students who actually get in apply to 8-12 programs and treat each application as seriously as a med school app. If you're not willing to put in that level of work, don't bother, just go the traditional route.

and one more thing, getting rejected from BS/MD doesn't damage your traditional pre-med path at all. So apply if you want, but don't treat it as your only plan.

2. where you go to college matters way less than people think

a 3.9 from a state school beats a 3.4 from harvard for med school admissions, full stop. Adcoms care about GPA and MCAT first, prestige is a tiebreaker maybe, and even that's debatable.

here's the part that actually matters and nobody tells high schoolers about. Some schools have what's called a committee letter, where the pre-med committee writes one combined recommendation for you. Adcoms trust committee letters from certain schools and don't really trust others. This is way more important than rankings. Before you commit to a school, look up whether they have a strong pre-med committee and whether their grads actually get into med school. Some big name schools are pre-med graveyards because the intro classes are designed to weed people out, that's a real thing and it'll tank your GPA.

3. clinical exposure has to start before college

med schools want to see years of clinical exposure not 18 months of scrambling. The students who get in early decision or get into top schools have been around real medicine since they were 15 or 16.

and listen, shadowing is not clinical exposure, it's passive observation. Adcoms know the difference. The students who stand out are the ones who actually get hands-on, like get your CNA certification the summer after junior year, or get EMT certified senior year of high school, then work part-time during college. By the time you're applying to med school you'll have 4+ years of paid hands-on clinical work and you'll blow past the kid who has 200 shadowing hours and a hospital volunteer gig.

4. AP credit for pre-med courses is a trap

everyone tells you to take AP Bio and AP Chem and use the credit to skip intro in college. Don't. Most med schools either don't accept AP credit or require you to take an upper level class to replace it, so you end up retaking the material anyway. And the students who skipped intro bio with AP credit and went straight into upper level bio almost always get crushed because their foundation has gaps they don't know about.

take the APs for the GPA boost in high school and the rigor on your college apps, but actually retake the intro pre-med courses in college. You'll have a much easier time, your GPA will be stronger, and you won't be scrambling in upper level classes.

5. start journaling now even if you don't know "why medicine"

biggest mistake high schoolers make is trying to write a polished "why medicine" essay at 17 when they genuinely don't know yet. That's normal, you're 17, you're not supposed to know.

here's what to actually do. Start a notes doc on your phone right now. Every time you have a clinical experience, a moment that hits you, a conversation with a doctor, a patient story, a moment of doubt, write it down. Like 3 sentences. You don't need to know what it means yet. In 4 years when you're writing your personal statement for med school, you'll have a doc with 100+ real moments to pull from instead of trying to reconstruct memories from 4 years ago. The students with the strongest personal statements aren't more dramatic people, they just kept better records.

6. if you're already burnt out at 16, the path is wrong not the rest

i've worked with students who came to me already exhausted, hating their lives, doing 5 ECs they don't care about, all because someone told them "this is what pre-med looks like." It's not.

pre-med is a 10 year marathon from high school to MD. If you're already cooked at 16, you will not make it through, period. The fix isn't pushing harder, the fix is doing less stuff but doing it deeper. Drop the activities you don't care about even if your parents pressure you to keep them. Do the things you actually like. Adcoms can smell genuine interest from a mile away and they can also smell resume padding.

and if you genuinely don't enjoy any of it, that's important, you might not actually want to be a doctor and that's ok. Better to figure that out at 17 than at 27.

anyways, drop questions in the comments if you have any. Feel free to DM me if you want to talk about your specific situation.

Scored a 520 last cycle, CARS was my best section, got into 9 MD programs. Taking a year before med school to tutor full time and at this point I've worked with enough students to see the same mistakes on repeat.

If you're stuck or just starting, here's what I'd actually tell you.

1. Content review isn't studying

Most people spend 3 or 4 months grinding Kaplan books or Khan Academy and call that prep. It's not. Reading content maybe gets you to a 505. The test doesn't care if you know the Krebs cycle. It cares if you can use the Krebs cycle to figure out a passage about some experimental drug you've never heard of, under time, with two answers that both look right.

What actually works is more like 30/70. 30 percent content, and only on the stuff you're weak on, not the whole list. 70 percent practice and reviewing that practice. Flip that ratio and you'll plateau.

2. Review matters more than the practice does

People do UWorld, see the score, move on. Wasted time. The 515+ scorers spend longer reviewing each question than they do answering it.

For every one you got wrong:

- why is the right answer right

- why is each wrong answer wrong

- what was the question actually testing

- have you missed this pattern before

Keep a doc of the patterns you miss. That doc is your real study guide, not the Kaplan book.

3. AAMC is the only stuff that actually matches the test

UWorld, Kaplan, Princeton are fine for volume and concept reps. But AAMC writes the test, and nobody else nails their question style or their trap answers. The wrong-answer logic on third party stuff is just different.

Use UWorld in the first half for volume. Save AAMC for the back half. AAMC FLs in your last 6 weeks. Question packs and section banks are gold, treat them like that.

4. CARS is a daily thing, not a study session

People who break 130+ on CARS are doing 1 to 2 passages a day for months. Not 10 on Saturday. Not a weekend cram. Every day.

Jack Westin for daily volume, AAMC CARS in the final stretch. Review the same way you'd review a science question.

And if you're a native English speaker scoring under 127 on CARS, it's almost never reading comprehension. It's that you're picking what you think instead of what the passage actually says. Train yourself to find the answer in the text. Sounds dumb, works.

5. Take FLs the way you'll take the real test

Same start time. Same breaks. No phone. No snacks you wouldn't bring to the testing center. People take FLs in pieces and then wonder why their stamina dies on test day. It's 7.5 hours. If you've never sat 7.5 hours in one go you're going to fade in B/B and your score is going to show it.

6. Plateaus mean you haven't changed anything

If you went 508, 509, 508 across three FLs, more practice isn't the answer. Something in your process is wrong. Are you reviewing right. Are the same question types catching you. Are you running out of time. A plateau is data, it's telling you what to fix, not to push harder.

Anyway, happy to answer stuff in the comments. DM me if you want to talk through your specific situation.