I've attempted to make the NBEO pass rate data released by the ASCO a little easier to visualize and meaningfully use for comparisons. If you make a copy, you'll be able to change the top two graphs to show data from individual schools rather than the national averages. PLEASE if you see an error in the data, let me know!
How are you surviving the wait to hear back from the schools? It's driving me up the wall,, I just want to refresh my inbox all day 😭
And, for those who are no longer playing the waiting game-- where/when did you apply and when did you hear back from the school (for interview invites, and/or decisions following your interviews)?
I am SO relieved to be done with this test. My last 3 FL practice tests through booster were all a 370, and I felt a lot more confident during those than I did during the real thing, so I was kind of stressing since my goal score was a 360. Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised at the end!
I opted to use 90 day OATBooster to study, but I also paused studying for like 2 weeks in the middle to travel for tours. I'm usually a strong test taker, but even I was really nervous going into this! It's long, and it's easy to start catastrophizing partway through. Taking FL practice tests in the days leading to my exam really helped me develop the like,,, mental muscle memory required to push through.
Biology: I'm a biology major, and I'd done essentially all the courses required for the OAT beforehand. I only watched the videos for topics I wasn't very familiar with and relied primarily on my own memory. I made flash cards for hormones and wrote out cellular respiration/photosynthesis to make sure I understood those well. "Dear King Phillip..." mnemonic did come in handy!
Gen Chem: Watched all the videos, did the practice questions, and then kind of let it go for the month leading up to my test. Reviewed what I was struggling with on the FLs, and just kinda prayed haha. Acid/Base, Redox, period trends, gas law stuff and thermodynamifs all felt well represented.
RC: Funny that I did a geyser related passage on my final FL and then got a geyser passage on the real OAT. For this, I would go immediately to the first straightforward question, read it, and then begin reading the passage. I highlighted every paragraph's first sentence and read the whole thing pretty quickly, maybe highlighting one or two random things if I thought I'd wanna find it later. Ultimately, I'd read until I found the answer to the question, answer it, go to the next and repeat the process. Had the question been answered in an earlier paragraph? I'd stop reading and go hunt for it. Did the question require an understanding of the whole passage? I'd skip it, mark it, and come back once I was done with the passage. I ended up finishing this section with like 20 minutes to spare, double checked every answer, then with 9 minutes on the clock stretched and used the bathroom so I'd have the full 30 minutes of the scheduled break to review formulas lol. I think this method is extremely high yield, and I recommend you try it if you're early on in your studying or are struggling with time.
Ochem: So... Ochem. I took ochem during the Helene semester, and I live in an area that was significantly affected. My ochem foundation was already really shaky and then I put off studying it until ~6wks before my exam. I watched all the videos and wrote out every reaction and it was nowhere near enough to bring it in line with the rest of my scores. I just didn't have enough time to commit all the reactions to memory. I also didn't drill the fundamentals enough. FOCUS ON THE FUNDAMENTALS AND THE THEORY. Like the differences between SN1/SN2, how to identify them, etc. I know I could have gotten more points if I had done just a little more work, but I knew this would be my weak spot, so I just accepted that fact and made sure to try hard on QR and Physics. My intuition and understanding of at least a few reactions were greatly helped by just watching all the videos. Went from ~280 on my first ochem practice test to ~340 by just watching the videos.
Physics: optics, kinematics, buoyancy, DC circuits, charges and electric fields, harmonic motion. Those are probably the highest yield topics. I tried to practice a lot here rather than drill the equations via flashcards. If you can understand the concept, remembering the equations and THE UNITS will be easier. I'm guilty of ignoring units all the time in physics and it will come back to bite you.
QR: somehow like 2 questions about shadows when not a single shadow related question was covered by the booster. I thought I did worse on this than a 400, but maybe I guessed successfully on the few I was totally lost on lol. More of those "which quantity is greater" and "information sufficient?" questions than I'd been expecting. Here again is just practice, practice, practice and also memorizing those equations related to standard deviation, etc.
Just a heads-up that America's Best has a shockingly generous program for employees where if you have either 1) been employed at full time status for a minimum of 1 year OR 2) been employed at part time status working 20 or more hours a week for a minimum of 2 years, they will offer up to 20k USD (5k per year) for you to put towards OD school. You must have left the job in good stranding to directly pursue college or OD school, but afaik there are no other strings attached like most corporate loan repayment benefits (such as agreeing to practice there once licensed)
I work there and won't say I'm in love with my job or anything, and my circumstances prevent me from being eligible, but for those it could help I thought I'd let you know!
And, if anyone else knows of employers with similar benefits, or if they have insight into this program, please drop a comment! I'd be curious about any negative experiences as well.
So I wrote my personal statement assuming all schools had the same character limit: 4500 characters. I thought that was the universal standard, but when I went to paste it into OptomCas, OSU surprised me by having the character limit bumped up to 5000 instead. Are they the only school with this increased limit? Should I add something extra to my OSU statement? Has this been the case past years as well? I was just so thrown off seeing it haha.