I'm a rising senior at Rutgers University. I'm now signed up for the 8/24 MCAT. I'm taking a prep course with TPR, which will end in a couple of weeks.
My ideal MCAT score is around 515 to compensate for my relative poor GPA(3.5 Science, 3.6 Overall). I started studying for my MCAT in the beginning of June and have been studying for it about one month now. I'm also working in a lab and volunteer at a hospital a few times a week. I feel like i didn't get much studying done in the past month on top of all that and some procrastination. I probably only studied 2 hours a day after my 3 hour prep course.
I'm about halfway through my content review, but I definitely don't feel like I will be ready to take the exam on Aug 24(43 days left). I'm debating whether I should postpone my MCAT to 9/9(59 days), or until next January. What are your opinions on that? Does postponing for two weeks really make a difference? I'm also concerned that I feel should take the exam in the summer, since it'll be much more difficult to study when the semester starts(I will be taking 3 science classes, 1 psych class, and 3 credits of research), and people say that you forget a lot of the material if you take wait too long after the prep course. If I do decide to take the MCAT this summer, I will be willing to starting full-time studying now(I might quit volunteering and limit research to once a week). But I definitely don't think I should take the test if I'm not fully prepared, which I'll probably end up taking it again
Now my options are keep my original test date, postponing to 9/9, or to next January. How much time does an average student need to be fully prepared and do relatively well? Do people who take more months to prep tend to do worse because they forget the material?
My ideal MCAT score is around 515 to compensate for my relative poor GPA(3.5 Science, 3.6 Overall). I started studying for my MCAT in the beginning of June and have been studying for it about one month now. I'm also working in a lab and volunteer at a hospital a few times a week. I feel like i didn't get much studying done in the past month on top of all that and some procrastination. I probably only studied 2 hours a day after my 3 hour prep course.
I'm about halfway through my content review, but I definitely don't feel like I will be ready to take the exam on Aug 24(43 days left). I'm debating whether I should postpone my MCAT to 9/9(59 days), or until next January. What are your opinions on that? Does postponing for two weeks really make a difference? I'm also concerned that I feel should take the exam in the summer, since it'll be much more difficult to study when the semester starts(I will be taking 3 science classes, 1 psych class, and 3 credits of research), and people say that you forget a lot of the material if you take wait too long after the prep course. If I do decide to take the MCAT this summer, I will be willing to starting full-time studying now(I might quit volunteering and limit research to once a week). But I definitely don't think I should take the test if I'm not fully prepared, which I'll probably end up taking it again
Now my options are keep my original test date, postponing to 9/9, or to next January. How much time does an average student need to be fully prepared and do relatively well? Do people who take more months to prep tend to do worse because they forget the material?
