u/Worried-Accountant52

I see lots of people panicking on secondaries and how long they are taking. I am worried I may not be putting enough time into each one. How much time/effort is each one taking, and why?

I started studying for the MCAT a year ago this week, so I figured I’d share some tips that I have no use for anymore lol

1. Give yourself more time than you think to study. People always say “you’ll burn out”, which can be true, but you will also burn out if you cram 6 months of studying into 2 months lol. I studied for 8 months on average 20 hours per week, waaaaayyy more manageable for me than if I did 4 months full time.

2. Plan ahead!! If possible, set up your pre-med schedule ahead of time so you will be set for a light semester or two while studying. When I declared as a pre-med focus my sophomore year, I sat with my advisor and had her help me plan out my next couple years, knowing I was gonna have to take the MCAT. Very glad I did, my course load while studying was pretty chill.

3. Don’t be afraid to live your life. I went out at least 1-2 days a week while studying, played poker with my friends, celebrated birthdays, did all the normal stuff that college students do. You should not be a slave to the MCAT. It is a part of the process, but letting it run your life will lead to burnout and resentment towards the exam.

4. Find ways to enjoy it. The MCAT gets a lot of flack, and for a lot of good reasons. But you have to be at least to some extent a masochist to get through it successfully. Lean into the grind (in a healthy way, don’t let it control you like I talked about before). Be excited when you see progress, and if you don’t, work even harder until your next FL! Find subjects you like within it, find ways to enjoy collecting all the little Snapple-facts the MCAT forces us to learn.

5. Take as many FL’s as possible. When training for a marathon or endurance race, your long runs are up there with the most important training sessions. FL’s are exactly the same. They fit sooo much content in, they challenge your endurance, they challenge your mental fortitude. I took 11 FL’s, and I’m so glad I did because it made the real thing feel as close as I could get it to a FL.

6. Nutrition is important. Your brain runs on glucose. I carbed up HARD the day before each FL, with several days of fueling before the real thing. Was the effect mostly placebo? Who knows, all I know is that I started doing better once I was downing carbs. I also had 20ish grams of carbs in each break during FLs and the real thing in the form of Rice Krispies (fast digesting). Also, if you’re anything like me, you have to pee when you take tests. I couldn’t believe how much I was peeing in the breaks between sections on my full lengths, so I starting supplementing with electrolytes to replenish what I was losing my. My favorite ended up being full-sugar body armor (high potassium and magnesium) mixed in with an electrolyte powder (high sodium) to get a really really strong electrolyte profile I could sip on. This really helped my energy and focus.

7. Make your own custom Anki deck. Anything you didn’t know before, any question you got wrong. I can’t remember exactly how much, but my deck got thousands of cards worth of my mistakes long.

8. Do not be able to do material twice. I did Uwhirl 2x (besides CARS, which I just did once), all AAMC material besides FL’s 2x including 2x thru all of the CARS. The second run through solidified recognition skills of the AMC logic for me, as well as effectively 2x the math problems to do (after thousands of problems, I didn’t remember individual answers well)

9. Practice an equation sheet. As a guy who sucked at physics and got a 130 on C/P, I could not have done it without my equation sheet. I wish I practiced it even more, but hindsight is 20/20.

10. Underrated tip, maybe unpopular: pick a major that complements pre-med classes well. I got my degree in psych, and as a low-unit major, I was able to focus like 90% of my studying time and effort on my STEM classes. Plus, psych classes allowed me to not have to take like 4 bio classes back to back to back in a school day, breaking things up. Lower unit, easier/interesting majors can complement your prerequisite classes in an important way.

I know this post is long-winded, but these tips helped me soooooooooo much and I wish I had learned some of them sooner (esp making my own custom Anki deck). If anyone is beginning studying right now like I was last year, good luck!!

So as I’m filling out secondaries, I’ve came across 2 schools so far (at least that I’ve noticed) that require 2 science teachers’ letters. My Ochem professor is one of mine, by my other professor letter comes from my neuroscience teacher. The class I took from him was in content anatomy and physiology of the brain, but the course itself is called “Biopsychology”, and it is listed as a psych class bc it’s required for my major (psych). Taking the class was no diff than taking a bio class, it even had a sheep brain dissection lab portion, but on paper it looks like a psych class. What are the odds these universities will accept my app, or will I be ineligible?
I just emailed them asking the same, but since it’s a Friday I doubt they’ll respond until next week.

“Please describe any connection to this COM or this state”

I have literally 0 connection to either.
Never been, never applied to undergrad, never even been to the region this is in. No family, no sports teams I like.
No idea how to answer. Plz help lol