u/Sweet-Associate6885

I'm retaking the test and hoping for a 15-18 point jump because it is my 4th retake and in case schools take the average, I need to be on the safe side. I managed to get 127s in the sciences with a 122 cars (yikes) in all my attempts. I have to admit I never properly studied for the test for reasons I'm unable to disclose, but I do know that my previous studying wasn't my best effort and for my past attempts, I only studied fulltime for one month.

I have to work fulltime because I support myself and I'm wondering, given 40 work hours per week, would a massive jump like this be possible if I take the test by the end of the summer? I'm a lot more motivated than before, but also a lot more scared given the number of attempts and the stakes on this attempt. How can I best structure my studying? I do believe I need to brush up on content well as I have forgotten a lot. I find that when I'm familiar with the content well, I tend to score decently high in practice so I don't have a strategy problem, and in the past, I never properly finished all the content going into the exam. I'm most worried about cars, would there be a cars tutor available who can help me point my mistakes (hopefully at a reasonable price?)

Lastly, this isn't as important as my other queries, but does anyone have tips on how to get over my previous attempts and not feel absolutely incompetent because of them? I performed decently throughout my undergrad and masters, but I can't stop feeling like its impossible for me to conquer this test because I'm too dumb for it given my history with it. In my last retake, I found myself stuck in a self-fullfilling prophecy loop and convinced myself I was too dumb and that I can never study for this test, and indeed, I struggled a lot with my mental health and got diagnosed with GAD and MDD and ended up performing the exact same as my second attempt. I'm really scared I'll continue doing the same this time around and I unfortunately don't have a good support system going into my take as I'm not close with family.

Any advice helps. Thanks in advance.

I'm retaking the test and hoping for a 15-18 point jump because it is my 4th retake and in case schools take the average, I need to be on the safe side. I managed to get 127s in the sciences with a 122 cars (yikes) in all my attempts. I have to admit I never properly studied for the test for reasons I'm unable to disclose, but I do know that my previous studying wasn't my best effort and for my past attempts, I only studied fulltime for one month.

I have to work fulltime because I support myself and I'm wondering, given 40 work hours per week, would a massive jump like this be possible if I take the test by the end of the summer? I'm a lot more motivated than before, but also a lot more scared given the number of attempts and the stakes on this attempt. How can I best structure my studying? I do believe I need to brush up on content well as I have forgotten a lot. I find that when I'm familiar with the content well, I tend to score decently high in practice so I don't have a strategy problem, and in the past, I never properly finished all the content going into the exam. I'm most worried about cars, would there be a cars tutor available who can help me point my mistakes (hopefully at a reasonable price?)

Lastly, this isn't as important as my other queries, but does anyone have tips on how to get over my previous attempts and not feel absolutely incompetent because of them? I performed decently throughout my undergrad and masters, but I can't stop feeling like its impossible for me to conquer this test because I'm too dumb for it given my history with it. In my last retake, I found myself stuck in a self-fullfilling prophecy loop and convinced myself I was too dumb and that I can never study for this test, and indeed, I struggled a lot with my mental health and got diagnosed with GAD and MDD and ended up performing the exact same as my second attempt. I'm really scared I'll continue doing the same this time around and I unfortunately don't have a good support system going into my take as I'm not close with family.

Any advice helps. Thanks in advance.

I have screwed up pretty badly with this test. I'm retaking for the fourth time because I was too stubborn to admit I needed to take a break in the past and ended up always halfassing my studying due to anxiety, depression (both diagnosed), severe burnout, etc. I managed to get 127s in my sciences, but always screwed up CARS where I got 122 consistently. In Canada, this score means nothing because I didn't meet the lowest cut offs of 124. I'm not trying to justify what happened, there was a lot more things involved that contributed to my inability to study fulltime, but I support myself and well, this test just got a whole lot more expensive.

I'm in a dilemma now. I have started my coop as part of my master's degree, and I'm basically working maybe even more than fulltime because I'm expected to work on my defense paper while completing my coop which is 30 hours/week. So all together, I will likely have to work possibly 45-50 hours per week. Initially, I made the decision of not taking the test seeing that I need to be a lot more wiser about my fourth retake and finally show some growth in my approach to this test. I want to give it my absolute all, go all in, but if I don't take it this summer, it means I miss out on another application cycle this coming year. I was ok with that, but it has started to take a toll on my family life. My entire family currently is against me taking this exam and continuing this path citing that I'm a complete failure and that I will never be able to pass. But I know that I never truly gave it my all, but gave every other part of my application my 110%. I have decent reasons for wanting this profession, truly I want to practice with integrity and help patients. It is all I wanted to do, otherwise I consider my degrees to be a complete waste. I'm getting older in age and have this fire in me that says I must stretch myself completely thin while I can because when it works out it will be worth it. But another (rather traumatized) version of me is saying I really shouldn't take it this summer and that I should defend my master's first before I try again. Would it even be remotely possible to do it this summer given a 45 hour work week?

Also, again I'm not excusing what happened in the past with my MCAT attempts, but the guilt is eating me alive. I truly despise myself for not realizing sooner that I needed time out to catch my breath so I can truly give this test my all instead of half assing my studying. Is there any advice from retakers here on how to overcome this feeling. I couldn't help but associate myself to a coward and associate my scores with my intellectual capacity, even though I'm aware of the context. I have seriously considered not pursuing this path to spare my family the pain of disappointment, but I have so much to give and I have learned so much over my education and work experience that I truly feel gutted everytime I think no one will get to benefit from it one day. I would really appreciate advice from retakers/mature applicants because I feel very lonely in this process that I often wonder if this is even worth it anymore.

Thank you for reading this

I'm headed to my second year of my masters and I feel like giving up because my GPA is not great. I really struggled with my mental health and slacked off in my course-based masters this year. I did some calculations and if I work really hard next year and take a few more courses this summer I can finish off with 3.76. Would a decreased master's GPA from undergrad look badly? Would I need to submit an explanation for that decrease? Are masters GPA even considered?