Application Cycle One: 08/10/2012

• Undergraduate college: Top Tier SUNY
• Undergraduate Area of study: Mathematics

• Total MCAT SCORE: 513
• MCAT Section Scores: B/B 130, C/P 128, CARS 126   Detailed Breakdown
• Overall GPA: 3.78
• Science GPA: 3.84

Summary of Application Experience

Non-Trad Career Changer. I applied late which definitely hurt my chances at a lot of schools, but luckily I still ended up getting into one of my top choices.

My recommendations to future applicants:
1. Apply Early (and if you don't apply early - be prepared that it takes a long time to be verified. I submitted on 8/10 but wasn't verified until 9/17, which means I didn't submit secondaries until end of September/beginning of October)
2. Have significant experiences that you can talk about both in your personal statement and interviews
3. Make sure to update schools on any new accomplishments if you're still in the running
4. Show interest through letters - but you need good reasons in the letters
5. Study hard for the MCAT - I studied only 6 weeks. Though I did well, I could have done better with more studying. The physics section had areas which I hadn't really reviewed. I used Princeton Review which is excellent for the sciences but I changed to Exam Crackers a week before the test for Verbal. My practice AAMCs jumped from an 8 in Verbal to around 11 with Exam Crackers, though I ended up actually scoring a 9. I wish I had practiced more with Exam Crackers as I believe I would have scored at least a 10.
6. Writing Section - Maybe it hurt me at some schools but never came up in any of my interviews. It's now irrelevant as they are removing this section from the test. My score is pretty awful, so I don't really think the schools cared much about it.
7. Pre-Write secondaries if you can so that you can submit as soon as you receive them.