MCAT Exam 2024
Jaci Gustafson
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02/20/2025
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The MCAT is an important part of your application to medical school. We’ll review the content of the exam, discuss considerations for when to take it, and share preparation strategies and resources.
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- [00:00:07.690]Jaci Gustafson: Okay. So I'm gonna go ahead and get started.
- [00:00:10.233]Jaci Gustafson: Excited that everyone's here. We have quite a lot of students for this workshop. That's amazing. So glad you guys are starting to get
- [00:00:17.650]Jaci Gustafson: prepared for registering for and taking the MCAT. This is actually the prime time to start thinking about this if you're going to be taking it next summer. However, I'm sure we have some students who are earlier on in their academic journey, and it's awesome to get started thinking about that, too, here.
- [00:00:35.210]Jaci Gustafson: at this time as well. I do want to know who's in the room, and just like really what age range you're in and what year you are in school, maybe not in age. Just year in school. So let's have 1st year students raise your hands
- [00:00:49.910]Jaci Gustafson: great
- [00:00:50.820]Jaci Gustafson: second year. Students.
- [00:00:52.960]Jaci Gustafson: Okay.
- [00:00:53.800]Jaci Gustafson: 3rd year.
- [00:00:55.620]Jaci Gustafson: Awesome. 4th year?
- [00:00:57.980]Jaci Gustafson: Or 5th year?
- [00:00:59.940]Jaci Gustafson: Awesome.
- [00:01:01.250]Jaci Gustafson: Happy that you're all here.
- [00:01:03.580]Jaci Gustafson: and we're gonna go a little bit over timelines, and that will help hopefully those of you, no matter what you you're in. So I'm Jaci. I work downstairs in the Explore Center on the 1st floor.
- [00:01:13.670]Jaci Gustafson: where we coordinate all the pre-health resources for UNL students. So we deal a lot with the MCAT. We have quite a lot of pre-med students here at UNL and
- [00:01:25.370]Jaci Gustafson: talk MCAT all the time. Emails this morning about it. And so just excited to share with you the basics and answer any questions that you all have.
- [00:01:38.110]Jaci Gustafson: I have to stand right here for the recording to work really well. So I'm going to go back and forth a little bit. It looks weird, but promise you it works out better for our recording. But we're going to go over the role of the MCAT in the medical school admissions process. We're going to look a little bit at MCAT content. Just so you get exposed to some of the topic areas.
- [00:01:57.310]Jaci Gustafson: We'll do a little bit about scoring. How does that work and some testing details? Also, how do you register for the exam? What does it look like on exam. Day.
- [00:02:08.320]Jaci Gustafson: and then spend quite a bit of time on what would be some good prep plans or resources for you, and I have Ashlyn Rasmussen here, who's going to help me with that part. Ashlyn just took the Mcat this summer. So you get to quiz Ashlyn about any and everything you want to know about that whole studying and taking the exam process
- [00:02:31.840]Jaci Gustafson: alright. So I like to start with this slide. It's fuzzy. But
- [00:02:37.390]Jaci Gustafson: The my main point is that yes, this is a workshop about the, and we are going to talk about that time.
- [00:02:44.600]Jaci Gustafson: But the Mcat is only one part of your application to medical school. What you can see up here is some kind of concentric circles where the middle is those numbers. You can call them metrics. If it's a quantitative thing, they go in the middle. Those are things you do have to meet certain Gpas certain Mcat score to be considered for Med School.
- [00:03:05.390]Jaci Gustafson: Everything around it is what makes you you.
- [00:03:09.250]Jaci Gustafson: Is that where you came from? What experiences have you had in your life? What experiences have you done as a college student at Unl? Maybe family background, maybe geographic background of where you've lived, and all of those things come together to make your total package of what you're bringing to medical school. So
- [00:03:30.300]Jaci Gustafson: I think sometimes it can get easy to really like, put a lot of pressure on the Mcat, and it is important. And it does make a difference what your score is. But there are also other things in your admission to medical school, so I just kind of like to put it in the picture.
- [00:03:47.840]Jaci Gustafson: It's fine.
- [00:03:52.760]Jaci Gustafson: So this is what the Mcat looks like. This is the breakdown of your schedule on test day.
- [00:03:59.677]Jaci Gustafson: So you have 4 sections, and we're going to go over those 4 sections and some breaks during that time it adds up to a 7 and a half hour day, and like I'm guessing none of you have taken an exam that takes 7 and a half hours yet in your life. So
- [00:04:16.630]Jaci Gustafson: part of what we'll talk about in this workshop is, how do you prepare for that type of a thing? And I'll probably ask Ashlyn to speak into that a little bit with how did she do that as preparation?
- [00:04:27.190]Jaci Gustafson: But this is what the exam looks like. That's how many questions there are and how long you get for each question the best thing, you know. We're going to talk a lot about practice. But
- [00:04:36.840]Jaci Gustafson: the best thing for preparing for that length of an exam is actually doing as many full length practice exams as you possibly can. Just so you know what it feels like to be in test mode for basically every day.
- [00:04:53.270]Jaci Gustafson: So we're going to break down the sections a little bit and just talk about why they're on the Mcat.
- [00:04:59.730]Jaci Gustafson: So you have one. And I'm gonna send out these slides to anybody who signed in today. So as long as I have your email I will send those to you within the next couple of days. So
- [00:05:11.670]Jaci Gustafson: don't worry about taking oodles of notes, but write down things that you think you
- [00:05:15.570]Jaci Gustafson: want to
- [00:05:16.980]Jaci Gustafson: remember. So anyway, here's your sections. There's 1 that's called the biological and biochemical foundations of living systems.
- [00:05:24.750]Jaci Gustafson: This takes content from your biochem biology, general chemistry, and organic chemistry. Then there's the chemical and physical foundations of living system section which takes content from your biochem biology, gen chem organic, chem and physics. And then psychology, social and biological foundations comes from your psychology, sociology and biology classes.
- [00:05:46.830]Jaci Gustafson: The last section is different. So those 1st 3 are content, heavy, like we have to know actual facts and know how to solve scientific problems. The last one is called the Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skill section. And this is a more
- [00:06:01.930]Jaci Gustafson: reading, comprehension, reading, analysis, type of section where you're going to read passages, and you're going to answer questions that the questions are not so much about what you know, but it's did you have the critical reasoning skills to understand what was written in the passages and to answer questions about them? So it's more of a reading set of reading comprehension. Section
- [00:06:25.500]Jaci Gustafson: there. I'm going to have so many links in this workshop because
- [00:06:30.570]Jaci Gustafson: the Aamc. Who creates this test, and also is where you apply to Med school, has such a great website and has so many great resources. If you want to dive into each section of the exam and know what's on it. They they you can do that here.
- [00:06:47.210]Jaci Gustafson: So if you're really curious
- [00:06:50.050]Jaci Gustafson: which
- [00:06:51.270]Jaci Gustafson: types of topics in my Gen. Chem classes will be tested. It's all listed on here like very detailed down to the like. What lesson you had in the 3rd week of Chem 109 like, it's not going to say, Chem 109. 3.rd But you're going to recognize it as a very specific thing. You learned in one of those classes. So you can get that detailed if you want to. And that would be on this website.
- [00:07:16.330]Jaci Gustafson: But going back to these topics,
- [00:07:19.640]Jaci Gustafson: sorry, amazing.
- [00:07:22.400]Jaci Gustafson: No way. Wait 2 seconds.
- [00:07:30.590]Jaci Gustafson: Okay.
- [00:07:33.670]Jaci Gustafson: going back to these topics.
- [00:07:36.001]Jaci Gustafson: I kind of want to do a little bit of audience participation. Otherwise, it's gonna get really long for you guys. So let's take
- [00:07:44.450]Jaci Gustafson: I'm gonna assign
- [00:07:46.640]Jaci Gustafson: these 2 tables, these 2 tables.
- [00:07:50.250]Jaci Gustafson: these 3 people, these 3 tables, and then
- [00:07:55.060]Jaci Gustafson: new 2 and U 2
- [00:07:56.800]Jaci Gustafson: to each of the that's too many. That's not enough groups. I'll figure it out.
- [00:08:01.710]Jaci Gustafson: But I want you guys to kind of work together and think about, why are these sections on the Mcat and just like share with the group? So I'll have you. You know, you 2. And you guys do number one, the biology section.
- [00:08:17.560]Jaci Gustafson: This group do number 2, the chemistry physics section.
- [00:08:23.230]Jaci Gustafson: you guys can do psychological, social. And you guys. And this, these 3 can do critical analysis.
- [00:08:30.280]Jaci Gustafson: Let's just brainstorm. Why am I being tested?
- [00:08:33.880]Jaci Gustafson: on this to become medical, doctor? Someday I wanted this to make sense so that it's not just studying for an exam and memorizing facts, but that it's actually why you're getting tested on that. So
- [00:08:46.070]Jaci Gustafson: talk to your group. And then we're going to just share out with the group in about 2 min. That'll be real quick.
- [00:09:02.320]Jaci Gustafson: So the question is, why is this being tested of future medical centers.
- [00:09:26.840]Jaci Gustafson: What's important? All that stuff?
- [00:09:33.470]Jaci Gustafson: If the State 100,
- [00:09:35.260]Jaci Gustafson: we have a foundation.
- [00:09:43.300]Jaci Gustafson: Otherwise, something
- [00:09:51.106]Jaci Gustafson: okay. Sounds like, everybody got a chance to talk for a little bit. So my group number one, why is biology and biochem?
- [00:10:03.670]Jaci Gustafson: Because understanding
- [00:10:05.380]Jaci Gustafson: like biology and how your body works will help you understand why we do certain things and do things that employment.
- [00:10:16.080]Jaci Gustafson: understanding how growth affects the meeting.
- [00:10:19.730]Jaci Gustafson: Yeah. Understanding how the procedures and drugs affect the body on a like cool. Okay.
- [00:10:28.670]Jaci Gustafson: you were with number 2, right? Yeah. Okay, so chemical physical, all your physics and chemistry. Why is that important
- [00:10:37.813]Jaci Gustafson: kind of talked about site?
- [00:10:46.910]Jaci Gustafson: Why, something broke the road.
- [00:10:50.770]Jaci Gustafson: Physics would tell you, what type of a break you might have in a bone and
- [00:10:57.720]Jaci Gustafson: went in a certain direction and yeah, cool. Okay, I think you guys had number 3. That was great.
- [00:11:05.540]Jaci Gustafson: So like being able to assess someone based on, like their psychological and social like, being able to interpret that
- [00:11:13.310]Jaci Gustafson: make a diagnosis based off. That is pretty important.
- [00:11:16.600]Jaci Gustafson: So being able to kind of
- [00:11:18.620]Jaci Gustafson: see them for a social as a social person and understand what they're
- [00:11:22.750]Jaci Gustafson: what you might be able to treat so socially or is that automatically? Yep.
- [00:11:26.970]Jaci Gustafson: And then cars, section critical analysis, what do you guys think
- [00:11:30.910]Jaci Gustafson: we gotta talk about how being a physician and also Med student is more than just science. It's being able to reason, being able to take information. Obviously in medical school, and obviously beyond that residency, and in practice
- [00:11:42.630]Jaci Gustafson: be able to reason, think critically on the job in class and
- [00:11:47.190]Jaci Gustafson: really in medicine in general.
- [00:11:49.920]Jaci Gustafson: That's a super huge skill to be able to think critically and reason through things and be able to get around roadblocks and things like that awesome. So you guys did. Awesome. It's great.
- [00:11:59.530]Jaci Gustafson: So, yes, these are, these are definitely
- [00:12:03.470]Jaci Gustafson: important skills.
- [00:12:05.320]Jaci Gustafson: I'm gonna skip this slide because I
- [00:12:07.640]Jaci Gustafson: doesn't add much to the presentation, but
- [00:12:10.428]Jaci Gustafson: to be prepared for those sections. These are the courses at Unl that cover the content on the Mcat. The Mcat came out in 2015,
- [00:12:21.210]Jaci Gustafson: and the university broke it down, and the content that you need for the exercise in these classes. So 1st question, people, you know, usually ask is, When should I take the Mcat? My 1st answer is, So you're done with all these classes, and then we'll talk about like what month and what date and all of that. So, this is where you get that Mcat content in your courses.
- [00:12:41.100]Jaci Gustafson: And then there's the review process in the settings for the test. So you've already done a lot of this work which is exciting. So you're already. You already have a leg up and yeah, but I always list those out. So you know what the classes are, where you get that content.
- [00:12:58.610]Jaci Gustafson: Okay, so we're just gonna take a minute. And
- [00:13:01.670]Jaci Gustafson: all I want is for you to take one of these sections that you are unfamiliar with, and
- [00:13:08.750]Jaci Gustafson: look at a question, and just kind of get exposed to what the questions are like. So I don't care which one you do. And then I'm probably gonna ask a few people to share out like, what did you think like? Was it what you expect, expected, or was it not what you expected?
- [00:13:22.170]Jaci Gustafson: So just pick one, and we'll I'll give you like about a minute to kind of take a look and read the question
- [00:15:17.800]Jaci Gustafson: alright. We've probably at least gotten a chance to read the question, and maybe some of the answers.
- [00:15:25.700]Jaci Gustafson: would someone want to just share a little bit about? Okay? You read the question. You read some of the answers.
- [00:15:32.040]Jaci Gustafson: what do you think? What do you think of this exam just from that one question, what do you think of your question? Was it what you expected? Was it not what you expected
- [00:15:45.440]Jaci Gustafson: oops.
- [00:15:47.310]Jaci Gustafson: So I had a question for biological biochemical foundations, and it wasn't what I expected, because I thought
- [00:15:56.600]Jaci Gustafson: that it would be a lot more like
- [00:15:58.780]Jaci Gustafson: you have to know, like this content sort of memorization thing. But it gave a passage, and it was more like
- [00:16:06.130]Jaci Gustafson: reasoning and being able to apply yourself.
- [00:16:09.850]Jaci Gustafson: That's a super huge point. So what I'm reading, please for the recording in the biological and biochemical foundations example
- [00:16:17.290]Jaci Gustafson: it. It was unexpected because it wasn't just a
- [00:16:21.383]Jaci Gustafson: factual question. It was a reasoning question and solve this problem. Question.
- [00:16:27.172]Jaci Gustafson: Yes, you're going to have some just factual questions, but most of them I don't know, Ashlyn, you can correct me. If I'm wrong, most of them will be more that problem solving thing. Applying the information
- [00:16:39.020]Jaci Gustafson: ish. There's there's some of both, some of both. Yeah, yeah.
- [00:16:43.460]Jaci Gustafson: cool. Anyone else want to share their observation.
- [00:16:46.460]Jaci Gustafson: Did you notice.
- [00:17:00.590]Jaci Gustafson: does it differ from your course exams in some way that you notice. Yeah, you 2 both nodded it, Fornifa, and I don't know your name. But
- [00:17:10.130]Jaci Gustafson: how did it differ from your courses?
- [00:17:13.930]Jaci Gustafson: Sorry you're eating so in our exams. Normally, we have like question answer. There's like no really explanation for why? But it just says question answered. But we have to think about why, and then it reflects into the answers. But it's not like you have to explain. It gives you like 4 different explanations, and says, Why is it right? But that
- [00:17:36.470]Jaci Gustafson: that
- [00:17:37.310]Jaci Gustafson: similar to what you were gonna say, okay, yeah. Yeah. Yep. They're they're definitely gonna challenge your thinking in a lot of ways so awesome. Well, I just wanted you guys to get a chance to kind of look at a question if you've never seen an Mcat question before.
- [00:17:50.802]Jaci Gustafson: Here you go. We wanted to. I want to make sure that was in here
- [00:17:56.430]Jaci Gustafson: alright scoring. So how does scoring work? Your score ranges? You get scored on each section the exact same way.
- [00:18:04.980]Jaci Gustafson: and then your total score can be from a 4, 72 to a 5, 28,
- [00:18:09.350]Jaci Gustafson: a 500. It is exactly in the middle, so you'll see 500
- [00:18:14.690]Jaci Gustafson: bandied about as like.
- [00:18:16.920]Jaci Gustafson: hey? That's an average store. The most important number to know, though, is the
- [00:18:23.480]Jaci Gustafson: most recent
- [00:18:25.560]Jaci Gustafson: average of the Mcats at the schools you want to apply to. So those are not going to be around 500. They're going to be up the average. The national average for all the schools is a 5, 11, 5, 12,
- [00:18:36.600]Jaci Gustafson: and I just happen to know the unmc. One is usually between a 5 12 and a 5 13.
- [00:18:42.740]Jaci Gustafson: it's cool if you're interested in Unfc, also cool if you're not. But just as an example school. So the the 5, 11, 5, 12 is where you can feel really confident, sending your application just about anywhere. Some schools have averages that are up around like 5 16
- [00:19:00.830]Jaci Gustafson: in that range as well. It just depends on the school. If you a good tool to research Mcat scores. You can go to each school's individual website and they'll probably have it listed somewhere. That kind of takes a lot of time. There is a tool called the Medical school admissions requirements. Database which I have linked here. You shorten it to Msar, and you in that one you can
- [00:19:26.180]Jaci Gustafson: just actually look at each school and find their Mcat score just one right after the of the other. It's a little faster.
- [00:19:32.604]Jaci Gustafson: I think, to see Mcat score. You have to pay a subscription, and I believe it's somewhere around like
- [00:19:37.760]Jaci Gustafson: 32, or $35 for a year, or something like that. So it's pretty reasonable. But it can really help you compare and contrast different schools. With a very standardized set of information, and you don't have to keep like flipping to different sites. But
- [00:19:51.920]Jaci Gustafson: that's how scoring works. And like, I said, like national average wise, the admitted students are getting in the admitted around a 5, 11, or a 5 12. So that's a good number to shoot for.
- [00:20:06.280]Jaci Gustafson: Oh, question! I've heard that like like, if you take the test again that you average the 1st score, and the second score. Is that true? That would be a school by school decision. So your your medical schools, if you repeat the medical, the Mcat
- [00:20:19.746]Jaci Gustafson: they will have different
- [00:20:23.510]Jaci Gustafson: procedures that they did with that maybe they'll average it. Maybe they'll look at the highest one. Maybe they'll look at the most recent one. I don't know you'd have to ask.
- [00:20:30.750]Jaci Gustafson: So you have to submit both.
- [00:20:33.150]Jaci Gustafson: They're gonna get every score you take? Yeah, there's no you you can't choose to hold back your scores.
- [00:20:38.530]Jaci Gustafson: We're going to talk about that in a little bit. But yeah, anytime you take an Mcat. It's on your record and they'll get your full record.
- [00:20:45.080]Jaci Gustafson: Yeah.
- [00:20:48.980]Jaci Gustafson: okay, Mcat score and your application. So outside of the Mcat, there are a lot of factors of what schools you might want to apply to.
- [00:20:57.682]Jaci Gustafson: And we have a whole other workshop on that. It's coming up at the end of the semester researching schools and budgeting. So it's a financial and a researching workshop. But
- [00:21:07.240]Jaci Gustafson: when you take the Mcat and you're planning to apply to schools. You really do want to make sure that you're applying to schools where your Mcat is either at or above their Median score.
- [00:21:16.380]Jaci Gustafson: And what I was telling you before is a Median score, that 5, 11, 5, 12
- [00:21:21.017]Jaci Gustafson: we recommend submitting, not submitting your application until you know your Mcat score
- [00:21:27.470]Jaci Gustafson: students definitely do submit without an Mcat score like they've taken the Mcat. But it takes a month to get your score back, so they've submitted in between that time it definitely happens.
- [00:21:39.340]Jaci Gustafson: I'm on the camp of. It's better to know what information is going out about you than not to know.
- [00:21:46.450]Jaci Gustafson: And then you can make better decisions, because if the Mcat didn't go as well as you wanted to, you may not want people to have that score.
- [00:21:53.023]Jaci Gustafson: At least that time you might want to repeat it and then
- [00:21:56.430]Jaci Gustafson: identified.
- [00:21:57.710]Jaci Gustafson: But if you have questions about that, it's definitely a very individual, situational kind of decision. And I'd encourage you to make an appointment with one of our academic advisors to talk about your options.
- [00:22:12.270]Jaci Gustafson: So registration begins next week. And so that's why, one reason why I'm glad that those of you who are taking this next year are here today. On October second, the the Mcat dates that are happening in January, and through June of 2025 will be opening. So you can sign up for the Mcat starting on is that Wednesday, I think. Wednesday next week.
- [00:22:33.595]Jaci Gustafson: I have a link to the Mcat registration page one thing to note is, you can actually fill out your your demographic information like your bio, and like your name and your birth birth date
- [00:22:47.490]Jaci Gustafson: before things open, and then there's a day and time when they open it's October second, and I can't remember
- [00:22:55.180]Jaci Gustafson: if it's 10 or 11. But it is. It is to your advantage to try to sign up that very 1st day, if you can. I know that's not possible for everyone but
- [00:23:05.170]Jaci Gustafson: If you're gonna take it in the 1st half of the year, January, through June.
- [00:23:09.840]Jaci Gustafson: You'll get your best pick of locations and days if you try to sign up next week.
- [00:23:15.570]Jaci Gustafson: That's why we have this workshop a week before it happened. So you guys prepare for that. One thing I learned at a recent double A/C webinar that I went to is that
- [00:23:24.190]Jaci Gustafson: when you sign up for the Mcat. You really need to have that name that you put in as your name match your Id that you're going to use on test day. Otherwise they may not let you take the exam. And that's a complete waste of money. So just make sure when you're signing up for the Mcat that you put your name in as it's going to look on your
- [00:23:44.590]Jaci Gustafson: even if it's a driver's license, or whatever id you're going to use that day, they they really hammered that home. So I thought, I better share that with you guys.
- [00:23:51.860]Jaci Gustafson: There's a webinar
- [00:23:53.960]Jaci Gustafson: They did it the day after the webinar that I attended last week, so it's not posted yet, but it was a it's a webinar about the Mcat in general. And then there's an Mcat registrations tips
- [00:24:06.720]Jaci Gustafson: blog post that I linked here, too. That will kind of talk about how to register.
- [00:24:12.530]Jaci Gustafson: There's all kinds of good information, and you'll probably figure it out. You all are tech, savvy? But there are some tricks and tips. You can sign up for an Mcat on a day and a time that you find, but you can also put in a reminder or request for them to tell you if another date that you prefer better opens up. So there's some things like that that you might want to learn about in case.
- [00:24:34.250]Jaci Gustafson: But put all those links on here, so you guys can go out and get yourself prepared
- [00:24:38.600]Jaci Gustafson: any questions about the registration or anything like that. We're going to go over cost. Yeah, how much does it cost? Yeah, we're gonna get. We're gonna get there. That's great. Next one.
- [00:24:51.074]Jaci Gustafson: These are the dates for 2025. And
- [00:24:54.570]Jaci Gustafson: so
- [00:24:55.820]Jaci Gustafson: the like. I said January, for through June dates, registration opens next week, the July through August dates. So that registration opens in February. So you've got a little bit of time. If you're planning on testing in July ours for September
- [00:25:10.590]Jaci Gustafson: kind of some considerations with when to take the exam.
- [00:25:15.270]Jaci Gustafson: So
- [00:25:18.280]Jaci Gustafson: most students, I would say, take it in like the May or June dates.
- [00:25:22.500]Jaci Gustafson: and then you have your test back and are able to sort of knowledgeably send in your application in July.
- [00:25:31.730]Jaci Gustafson: because it takes you. You can't see it, because it's really really small. But the score release dates are about a month after the exam. Date.
- [00:25:40.620]Jaci Gustafson: so you might want to plan on your spring semester being as light of a load as possible, I would say, in my opinion.
- [00:25:48.760]Jaci Gustafson: if possible, no more than 14 credit hours of schoolwork, because
- [00:25:53.500]Jaci Gustafson: it is
- [00:25:54.750]Jaci Gustafson: a commitment to study for this exam. It takes a lot of time.
- [00:25:58.800]Jaci Gustafson: and I recommend starting 4 to 6 months out of studying and planning in 6 to 10 HA week of studying. Now you're probably going to talk to people who have taken it who didn't put that much time in. But if you budget for that much time and you don't use it all, then you have a lot of free time.
- [00:26:15.850]Jaci Gustafson: But that would be what I would recommend to be fully prepared. One little note there's this way to apply to Med school that's called early early decision.
- [00:26:26.070]Jaci Gustafson: and that's a whole other
- [00:26:27.770]Jaci Gustafson: conversation and workshop. But if you are interested in one particular school, they're your favorite.
- [00:26:34.160]Jaci Gustafson: and you think you've got the metrics that they want. It could be a good idea to apply early decision, and that would mean you need your test score back by August first, st
- [00:26:43.940]Jaci Gustafson: which would put your last
- [00:26:46.450]Jaci Gustafson: helpful test date to be. I'm gonna have to get closer to the screen.
- [00:26:50.877]Jaci Gustafson: See, it's probably
- [00:26:55.080]Jaci Gustafson: beating our test score back.
- [00:26:57.350]Jaci Gustafson: So probably June 29, th ish
- [00:26:59.870]Jaci Gustafson: that last 1 20. The numbers are really fuzzy, because that wall is not very so.
- [00:27:06.550]Jaci Gustafson: yeah, if you're thinking, early decision might be an option for you. You might try to definitely do
- [00:27:11.270]Jaci Gustafson: June or earlier. So you have your score. But
- [00:27:14.750]Jaci Gustafson: everybody's summer looks different. Everybody's spring looks different. So this is another thing you can talk about with the pre advisor. Or do you guys have any questions right now about timing? Answer for you?
- [00:27:30.670]Jaci Gustafson: Well, any come, any any. Come up, just please shout them out. I have linked that schedule
- [00:27:36.480]Jaci Gustafson: map, too, so you can go right to the page and look at the dates where you can actually read the dates. And they're not too small.
- [00:27:46.000]Jaci Gustafson: All right. So study prep, we're gonna kind of turn the page to how to prep.
- [00:27:50.500]Jaci Gustafson: One thing about the Mcat. It's not like when you maybe took an entrance exam for Unl. I know not. Everyone had to, but I think a lot of people, you know
- [00:27:58.980]Jaci Gustafson: heard about the act or the sat or took it themselves. Those exams I see, act, and sat you take as many times as you want. It's no big deal. You just take it until you get the score you want.
- [00:28:09.570]Jaci Gustafson: It's not the same thing with the Mcat
- [00:28:12.190]Jaci Gustafson: one. It's expensive. 2. Anytime you take a test and you score, it's going to go to your medicines, so
- [00:28:20.360]Jaci Gustafson: you don't really want them to see that you ever performed poorly on the Mcat, if you can help it. Now, people do definitely repeat the exam. So if you test the 1st time and it, and you thought you were ready and you weren't, and it didn't go. Well.
- [00:28:34.780]Jaci Gustafson: you can take it again. The timing, you know, might might have to talk to your schools or pre-health advisor timing. But people retake it.
- [00:28:43.410]Jaci Gustafson: and it, you know, it can be okay. But the main idea is, don't take the official test as practice. There are plenty of practice tests that don't count for anything that don't get recorded on your record that you can take for practice. You don't want a poor score just for the fun of it.
- [00:29:01.130]Jaci Gustafson: Do you have a question?
- [00:29:04.740]Jaci Gustafson: 1st of them.
- [00:29:06.270]Jaci Gustafson: most commercial companies and exam. Creators have free practice exams. There's ways to get a hold of free practice exams or low cost practice exams.
- [00:29:14.206]Jaci Gustafson: My my biggest piece of advice, and I know. Probably a quarter of you in this room are going to ignore me, and it makes me makes my heart hurt. But don't wait until the end of the spring semester to start studying.
- [00:29:28.240]Jaci Gustafson: It does not go well.
- [00:29:30.590]Jaci Gustafson: pretty much ever and I know it sounds like a good idea, because it's like I'm so busy during the summer semester during the spring semester. I have nothing to do when school's out, but it just has never gone well for any student that I know.
- [00:29:45.580]Jaci Gustafson: it's so much content. You need to give yourself more time to get through it, and then to study the things that you're not getting, and then try. Try another practice exam, and it just takes.
- [00:29:56.750]Jaci Gustafson: So that would be my biggest piece of advice, for from this workshop, if you hear nothing else.
- [00:30:04.350]Jaci Gustafson: So how to study.
- [00:30:07.110]Jaci Gustafson: We're gonna have Ashlyn share how she studied. But just like in general, there's 2 kind of different ways to do it, or you can combine these. I guess some students decide to take a prep course, and that is usually something that is offered by a test prep. Company. You've probably heard about these or been marketed, these and they can cost anywhere from 2 to $5,000. These tests offer you some structure
- [00:30:31.260]Jaci Gustafson: where they're going to require you to do certain things by certain times, like a class and also give you feedback and help. Kind of customize your prep to you.
- [00:30:43.439]Jaci Gustafson: So you can do that. Other students have studied on their own and I've seen students do
- [00:30:49.580]Jaci Gustafson: great with a prep course I've seen students do great when they plan their own study schedule and do it on their own. I've seen students do poorly with a prep course, and I've seen students do poorly when they plan it on their own. I don't know that I can correlate that. What I would say is, think about what is your learning style? And are you able to understand
- [00:31:06.410]Jaci Gustafson: where you're not getting it and then
- [00:31:09.140]Jaci Gustafson: get it later? Is that how it's gone for you in college cool. Then you're probably going to be fine studying your own. If you need someone to tell you that, then maybe you want to look into a prep course.
- [00:31:20.830]Jaci Gustafson: If you need to learn in a group.
- [00:31:22.990]Jaci Gustafson: you might be able to find a prep course. That's group group oriented, or you could create your own group, and it doesn't cost you $5,000. So
- [00:31:31.520]Jaci Gustafson: choose a method that works best for you, for your learning, style, and and go with it. Go with that.
- [00:31:38.870]Jaci Gustafson: My next several slides are
- [00:31:41.540]Jaci Gustafson: really just resources, and links, and so not going to click on all of them. But one thing that is helpful is to start out your studying with a plan. So we all know that if we don't plan, we aren't going to probably follow through the thing that we wanted to do. So
- [00:31:58.370]Jaci Gustafson: there's a couple of creative study plan resources on here that could kind of help you plan things out week by week, which I think is awesome and super helpful.
- [00:32:07.280]Jaci Gustafson: and then
- [00:32:08.860]Jaci Gustafson: these include when to take full length practice exams. Most of these start with a diagnostic test, and there are some free ones
- [00:32:17.400]Jaci Gustafson: on the double Amc. That are really good to start with. That's like you take it cold, Turkey. You haven't done any review. You haven't done any studying, and then you kind of see, where am I at? So that's a good way to start, because then you can make a study plan that caters to where you're at that moment and spend most of your time there.
- [00:32:38.130]Jaci Gustafson: Okay, then, I have a lot of links on different resources you could use.
- [00:32:44.110]Jaci Gustafson: But I think this is where I would have Ashlyn kind of
- [00:32:48.260]Jaci Gustafson: share what you want to come up via the mic. And you can kind of start where you want to start. Yeah.
- [00:32:54.840]Jaci Gustafson: So I guess, 1st of all, does anyone have any initial questions before we kind of start talking.
- [00:33:01.770]Jaci Gustafson: No?
- [00:33:03.410]Jaci Gustafson: Okay. So I took the MCAT in March of last year. So my original study plan was, I've seen at a minimum you want to do three months of studying.
- [00:33:14.410]Jaci Gustafson: And I realized that I didn't want to spend my summer studying for the MCAT because I wanted to start applying in the summer and so I started studying over winter break. I wouldn't recommend that for everyone, because it can be very difficult going into the spring semester initially having that heavy of a load. But I decided to do roughly, like 20 hours a week of studying
- [00:33:35.370]Jaci Gustafson: for three months, and so you can look it up online like there's different planners. I would start out with a diagnostic plan. And on my initial one I scored around 507. But that doesn't really matter that much. Whatever you scored you can increase to whatever you need.
- [00:33:52.550]Jaci Gustafson: And then, over the course of three months, I ended up scoring a 519 on the real thing
- [00:33:58.280]Jaci Gustafson: and I used completely free resources. I didn't use a prep course or anything like that. So it's very possible to score however you want to score with free resources. Plenty of people do it.
- [00:34:09.530]Jaci Gustafson: I would say the first month I spent on doing what's called content review. So like these Kaplan books right here were very helpful.
- [00:34:17.989]Jaci Gustafson: You can take them with the course, or you can just self study and read them through on your own. I don't know how much they cost. I think there was some PDFs online that I found that someone had shared, or something like that. And there's one for each subject, and you just go through and take notes on each one, read, kind of brush up on the topics, or if you haven't covered a topic yet in a class. So you haven't been able to take, like
- [00:34:41.630]Jaci Gustafson: genetics or
- [00:34:43.550]Jaci Gustafson: you want to spend more time on that and go through it.
- [00:34:47.580]Jaci Gustafson: and as well as has anyone here heard of Anki? It's yeah. Anki is really, really, really big, and you don't, it's good to make some of your own flashcards. If there's a certain topic or something really struggling with. But there's also
- [00:35:01.680]Jaci Gustafson: pre-made Anki. So if anyone doesn't know what it is, it's a flashcard program
- [00:35:06.570]Jaci Gustafson: that's for free on your, I think the mobile version is like $25 but on laptops it's completely free.
- [00:35:12.700]Jaci Gustafson: And you can find pre-made Anki decks online that other people who have taken MCAT have made.
- [00:35:18.540]Jaci Gustafson: They're completely free. They have the content, they have free vocab, and everything like that. So, I used one called the Mile Down deck. There's a lot of flashcards. I'm not gonna lie. It's a lot of content. There's gonna be a lot of flashcards to do. I think mine was like
- [00:35:33.820]Jaci Gustafson: 3 or 4,000. And so what I would do is, as I was looking for a chapter in the news, I would start doing Mile Down deck
- [00:35:40.110]Jaci Gustafson: for that session.
- [00:35:42.570]Jaci Gustafson: And that way you can active practice and recall for the things you're learning.
- [00:35:47.010]Jaci Gustafson: And then so after a month, going through these and starting Anki practice, I think that's when I started doing more practice questions.
- [00:35:55.950]Jaci Gustafson: And
- [00:35:57.020]Jaci Gustafson: so there's a thing called, you can decide of whether you want to use this or not, but it's called New World
- [00:36:01.790]Jaci Gustafson: and that's also another pretty common resource that people use as well where it is a paid subscription, so this one isn't for free. But
- [00:36:09.760]Jaci Gustafson: I only did the free trial, and then I decided that I just wanted to do free stuff on my own but it is really helpful for people that do use it. I think it's
- [00:36:17.930]Jaci Gustafson: probably, like different monthly subscriptions have different prices, but a lot of people do really like using their MCAT
- [00:36:24.230]Jaci Gustafson: products on there. They have a lot of like passage questions. And the MCAT breaks down the type of questions. And there's passage based questions. And then there's just
- [00:36:34.240]Jaci Gustafson: so there's some where you either know it or you don't. And so that's where memorization comes in a lot. But then, like we were talking about earlier with the passage questions, there is some where you want to really practice like finding the answers in the passages, and the only way to get better at those things is just practice.
- [00:36:51.640]Jaci Gustafson: And AAMC, like the official like organization that runs the MCAT, has banks of practice questions that are really helpful as well, that you can buy like
- [00:37:01.190]Jaci Gustafson: And so, and those are a lot cheaper. So out of the paid resources to buy, I would definitely buy the official ones from AAMC. And they also have practice tests you can buy as well.
- [00:37:12.960]Jaci Gustafson: Maybe they have, like one to four that you can pay for
- [00:37:16.370]Jaci Gustafson: and we can take them as many times as you want, and you'll review the questions, and then, if you get the question wrong,
- [00:37:25.090]Jaci Gustafson: you can have it explain to you why it was wrong. And so, as I was getting done with content review and like stopping practice questions. The next thing to do is take a like, say you're 5 weeks out from your test, you want to start taking
- [00:37:38.830]Jaci Gustafson: practice tests.
- [00:37:40.410]Jaci Gustafson: Awesome.
- [00:37:41.330]Jaci Gustafson: And then going through what you miss, seeing what you're struggling with, and then doing more content review on the things you're still unsure on.
- [00:37:49.080]Jaci Gustafson: So that was about my basic like, study plan.
- [00:37:52.330]Jaci Gustafson: I would say Anki is a really important thing, because that's really just reading is not
- [00:37:59.260]Jaci Gustafson: so what I would really recommend finding some kind of either if you want to make your own flashcards cool, or if you want to do a pre-made one also cool. I just had saved me a lot of time.
- [00:38:09.670]Jaci Gustafson: So
- [00:38:11.240]Jaci Gustafson: yep that's about what I did.
- [00:38:13.030]Jaci Gustafson: Any questions from there?
- [00:38:16.810]Jaci Gustafson: And would you say that the scores that you got like on your practice test. Did they reflect your actual score? Was it off?
- [00:38:23.890]Jaci Gustafson: So
- [00:38:25.040]Jaci Gustafson: I would say,
- [00:38:26.570]Jaci Gustafson: I actually scored a little bit higher on the practice.
- [00:38:30.730]Jaci Gustafson: I think,
- [00:38:31.990]Jaci Gustafson: obviously like a lot of stuff can affect you on test day like nerves. It's a very long test. So that's another thing to point out is taking a practice test. You want to be in an environment on test day you have really uncomfortable things that you're wearing, because
- [00:38:54.790]Jaci Gustafson: want to make sure like, get some noise canceling headphones from the library until you get on your own
- [00:39:04.370]Jaci Gustafson: like. I know, I've heard some people that like push back their MCAT because of their practice exams, don't. They're not getting a good score, but then, on the day of they'll get like a higher score or lower score. So I just want to. Yeah, there's there's definitely some variability. But I would say, like, if you're using ones that aren't doing
- [00:39:25.150]Jaci Gustafson: one. Honestly, those are a little harder.
- [00:39:27.630]Jaci Gustafson: So like if you're doing like some of those tests. And then, if you're going to AAMC, those are pretty accurate, because, like you should see score increases as you go through, like taking the tests like, I went from like 511 to 514 to 521
- [00:39:49.490]Jaci Gustafson: So it's more of like a score range you should expect to find yourself in. Obviously, if you're like, I scored a 510 on my last practice test might not score exactly a 510, but I think.
- [00:40:01.360]Jaci Gustafson: or anywhere from a 507. And so, as long as you like.
- [00:40:18.200]Jaci Gustafson: click the value.
- [00:40:19.830]Jaci Gustafson: I definitely would also say, bring snacks.
- [00:40:22.350]Jaci Gustafson: Bring snacks on testing, because the very long test you get breaks. Use your breaks because your brain's gonna get burned.
- [00:40:30.460]Jaci Gustafson: So like you do get a lunch break, which is really good. I packed like, and then I took like my other breaks. But if you don't early you can also skip the breaks, they're not mandatory.
- [00:40:42.320]Jaci Gustafson: But I would recommend them
- [00:40:45.600]Jaci Gustafson: Is it like the ACT where you'll take it with a bunch of people?
- [00:40:49.660]Jaci Gustafson: Yes, it's all on a computer. So it's not handwritten. But you do get like scratch paper
- [00:40:55.284]Jaci Gustafson: to write out like, because there is some math involved and everything. So you don't get a calculator, though, so that if you're bad at like mental math or anything like that, you can probably practice that again.
- [00:41:07.114]Jaci Gustafson: There is like probably I was like 12 or 15 people with me, not everyone's station.
- [00:41:13.200]Jaci Gustafson: but they kind of like taper you off by. Who goes in the room. So like not everyone goes in at once. They would have like a procter that has to walk into the computer every time they want to get up. So they stagger the time to start.
- [00:41:25.180]Jaci Gustafson: Oh, not everyone starts at the same time.
- [00:41:30.640]Jaci Gustafson: Yeah, you do that. One is really nice. I would. I would recommend using that a lot.
- [00:41:43.500]Jaci Gustafson: Okay.
- [00:41:44.250]Jaci Gustafson: what if your spring schedule look like like while you were take practicing, studying for the exam like were you actively taking any of those classes that you were going to be tested over?
- [00:41:53.960]Jaci Gustafson: Yeah, so my strategy I wouldn't really recommend it. But I took like half the classes I took in the spring,
- [00:42:00.960]Jaci Gustafson: I kind of was like, I'm going to teach it to myself before the semester starts, and so I'll go to classes over here when I'm taking them. So I don't have to like.
- [00:42:12.960]Jaci Gustafson: So I took physics two and
- [00:42:16.170]Jaci Gustafson: physiology
- [00:42:21.250]Jaci Gustafson: and biochem
- [00:42:22.300]Jaci Gustafson: which was a lot of science, but also like taking those classes better. So I actually did pretty good that semester, but I also.
- [00:42:34.500]Jaci Gustafson: So I only was in 12 credits. But it was still a little bit so that was a lot.
- [00:42:44.190]Jaci Gustafson: When did you take your first diagnostic test? Was it before you registered, or was it after?
- [00:42:50.400]Jaci Gustafson: Yeah. So I registered like, I think not the day it opened, but I would definitely recommend registering as soon as possible
- [00:42:58.373]Jaci Gustafson: you know.
- [00:43:00.660]Jaci Gustafson: So I registered like like the day or second day after it opened, and so that was in my fall, and then I took my 1st diagnostic, like I had made my study plan like
- [00:43:11.640]Jaci Gustafson: after, like I registered. But I didn't start it until the beginning.
- [00:43:16.420]Jaci Gustafson: So I took my right one.
- [00:43:21.820]Jaci Gustafson: So
- [00:43:29.200]Jaci Gustafson: before you start monitoring, yeah.
- [00:43:33.400]Jaci Gustafson: It was third year that you took it? Yeah,
- [00:43:36.480]Jaci Gustafson: yeah, that was my one issue with trying to take it in the summer is if you're a junior, and if you're taking a gap year extension because I'm not taking a gap year before medical school. I'm applying right now. And so I started applying in the summer, and so I wanted to have my MCAT score back early so I could start planning
- [00:43:57.010]Jaci Gustafson: because it it is like like
- [00:43:59.030]Jaci Gustafson: Jaci was talking about. It is really good to know, because you want to definitely be in the meeting score from the school you're applying to, and if I submitted like in June, I wouldn't be able to see.
- [00:44:12.360]Jaci Gustafson: And a lot of people are. It's very early, but a lot of people start.
- [00:44:18.750]Jaci Gustafson: That was.
- [00:44:23.290]Jaci Gustafson: Most most people take it, either this spring or summer before their final year at UNL. If that makes sense. So a lot of times that's junior year, or or the summer after junior year.
- [00:44:34.890]Jaci Gustafson: But if you're
- [00:44:36.420]Jaci Gustafson: going to take gap year, or whatever it could be, you're taking it after your senior year.
- [00:44:40.660]Jaci Gustafson: Yeah. So if you are considering a gap year, taking it your senior years.
- [00:44:45.930]Jaci Gustafson: Did you apply early decision? No, I had applied normal decision just because I like UNMC, but I don't know exactly where I want to live. And so I think it's like, it's more about locations. I was really interested in. Because if you apply early decision.
- [00:45:07.360]Jaci Gustafson: wait. So if you apply early decision, just apply to that one school, if you like, get shifted into the regular decision. Does that mean you can apply to more than one school.
- [00:45:17.110]Jaci Gustafson: you would say I did early decision, and that was, that's the only place I could apply to. So they look at my application and say, they decide, yeah, we're going to put regular applicants.
- [00:45:33.240]Jaci Gustafson: So whenever that's why I didn't do it is because I wanted to just be.
- [00:45:39.710]Jaci Gustafson: Let's take one more question. And then I want to finish slides. And then if you guys have more questions, for actually, maybe you could
- [00:45:45.720]Jaci Gustafson: ask them afterwards. That'd be okay.
- [00:45:48.120]Jaci Gustafson: So your concerns.
- [00:45:52.230]Jaci Gustafson: It was her.
- [00:45:54.570]Jaci Gustafson: Which schools did you?
- [00:45:57.868]Jaci Gustafson: I applied to a lot. I
- [00:46:00.470]Jaci Gustafson: I've heard, like, anywhere, like, what would you? Normally? Yeah, average is probably around
- [00:46:07.860]Jaci Gustafson: 7-10
- [00:46:09.670]Jaci Gustafson: probably. But I actually was a unique in that way. So yeah, because my, I applied to a lot of like very competitive schools. And so I was just hoping I could hear back from like one or two of them.
- [00:46:23.450]Jaci Gustafson: So I applied
- [00:46:26.610]Jaci Gustafson: because it is like, I don't know did we go over the cost of the MCAT?
- [00:46:37.940]Jaci Gustafson: So applying is like $45 per school
- [00:46:42.643]Jaci Gustafson: on the primary application, and then a hundred ish dollars per school on the second.
- [00:46:48.040]Jaci Gustafson: I just want to. If you want to apply to a ton. Obviously, there's a lot of essays to write. So keep that in mind, too. But also
- [00:46:56.470]Jaci Gustafson: just budget.
- [00:47:00.830]Jaci Gustafson: cool.
- [00:47:02.290]Jaci Gustafson: Sorry I had to rush that I just wanted to get through everything, and then
- [00:47:06.480]Jaci Gustafson: We'll probably need to move out of this room and then
- [00:47:11.480]Jaci Gustafson: but I have listed on here some of the popular resources which
- [00:47:17.430]Jaci Gustafson: pretty much all of them Ashlyn views the Anki decks and the the 2 up here were ones that I've heard that students use.
- [00:47:24.700]Jaci Gustafson: and then new world. I've also heard a lot of people do like the Khan Academy resources.
- [00:47:30.265]Jaci Gustafson: And then I did want to click through to the low cost. Wmc, because that's where you'll see the question packs that Ashley was talking about and the prep.
- [00:47:38.680]Jaci Gustafson: Sorry the full length.
- [00:47:40.260]Jaci Gustafson: Practice exams.
- [00:47:41.820]Jaci Gustafson: There are
- [00:47:46.504]Jaci Gustafson: there are 2. The sample test is free, and then there's a free practice practice test. So these 2 are free, and then you can purchase more of the full length practice exams, and then the question packs? I think they're adding a new question pack this fall.
- [00:48:04.642]Jaci Gustafson: I believe so. These are ones that students have repeatedly told me they really appreciated actually purchasing, and they are low cost. You know you will probably in this process. If you're not taking the course you will probably spend maybe
- [00:48:19.440]Jaci Gustafson: $300 getting all the resources that you need. But that's a pretty small investment for
- [00:48:24.927]Jaci Gustafson: in the grand scheme of your future. If these resources are great, use all the free ones and buy some of the more official ones, too.
- [00:48:38.890]Jaci Gustafson: So here's the cost. It costs $345 to take the MCAT one time.
- [00:48:44.970]Jaci Gustafson: We're going to talk about the fee assistance program that can lower your cost on both the prep materials
- [00:48:51.630]Jaci Gustafson: and the MCAT, and the application, which is another cost.
- [00:48:56.884]Jaci Gustafson: Later. So we'll we'll do the assistance program, I think, on the next. Oh, that's on this slide. So the fee assistance program requires that you
- [00:49:07.770]Jaci Gustafson: fill out a bunch of financial information.
- [00:49:11.220]Jaci Gustafson: and then you submit that and you find out if you got accepted to the fee assistance program and then they'll reduce all of your costs for most of these things. So that's an awesome program. But you do want to apply for it at least 3 weeks before you want to register with for the MCAT.
- [00:49:27.110]Jaci Gustafson: So unfortunately, we're one week out from registering for the Mcat if you do it next week. But you could. You could wait to read. You could do that. The assistance program right now and then register in later October. That would be totally fine. But if you purchase. If you sign up for the Mcat and pay the full price, they're not going to give you your money back. Basically, you have to get accepted to the assistance
- [00:49:47.550]Jaci Gustafson: before you sign up for the Mcat. In order to use the benefits on the Mcat, you could still get the assistance for all your application fees and for the prep materials that you plan to purchase and the
- [00:49:59.520]Jaci Gustafson: the details of what you get is on the website. But the benefits. If you apply right now, the benefits would last through December of 2025. So those of you who are farther out and who aren't doing Mcat, or applying to Med school in the next year. You'd want to wait to apply to for that until much, much closer to the year that you're going to be purchasing an Mcat school. But great program and you should apply if you think you want to get those benefits.
- [00:50:31.900]Jaci Gustafson: So this is my last slide, and then we can kind of go back to questions about Ashlyn's experience. But when and why should I repeat? So this is a question that's really an important question to be asking. As you're in the application process, it's very individualized, though, so should I repeat, when I have a student come into my office and ask me that I'll kind of ask. Well, what happened? You know you didn't get the score that you wanted.
- [00:50:58.180]Jaci Gustafson: What do you think was the reason for that. Did something happen, or
- [00:51:02.520]Jaci Gustafson: were you not in the end as prepared as you wanted to be, or should have been? So that's 1 question. Can we pinpoint a why? And then what amount of time do you have to make
- [00:51:14.560]Jaci Gustafson: a progress on whatever didn't go? Well?
- [00:51:18.040]Jaci Gustafson: And so that's a, you know, a pretty individual conversation. But
- [00:51:23.800]Jaci Gustafson: You know some students have come to me and said, Well, I gave it everything I got. I don't want to repeat it again this year. I need another year. It's like great. Give yourself another year. Attack it again next year. Take a gap year. When you get to work some kind of cool healthcare job and try again. You know, when you're ready, some people are like Nope, I'm going to repeat it this year. I know exactly what I need to do. I know exactly what I was
- [00:51:48.420]Jaci Gustafson: weekend, and I don't have a huge course schedule to manage my senior year, so I think I can retake it in September, which are the last days available for the impact next year.
- [00:51:59.190]Jaci Gustafson: So there's lots of different options again. It's a personal. It's a personal thing. I had one student. This is just a fun example, but
- [00:52:07.163]Jaci Gustafson: not fun. But she. The reason she didn't do well is that she, her cat, kept her up the whole night the night before. Because it was sick, and so she like knew why she didn't do well, and that she was prepared, and so she repeated it pretty quickly thereafter, and didn't need to do any extra prep. I would say most of the time. It's it's because someone wasn't as prepared as they thought they were going to be, and needs some time to re prepare.
- [00:52:34.900]Jaci Gustafson: Those are some things to consider. There.
- [00:52:37.990]Jaci Gustafson: Think that's my next.
- [00:52:40.640]Jaci Gustafson: Yes, so
- [00:52:42.630]Jaci Gustafson: Lastly, if again, if you want to talk more about this, all of our academic advisors in the explore center are trained on this. So you can make an appointment. We also started using Instagram. So if you want to follow and see when the rest of our pre-med workshops are going to be this semester. We'll remind you on Instagram. We also send those out by email. That's probably how most of you heard about this. But,
- [00:53:02.990]Jaci Gustafson: we invite you to schedule an appointment and come see someone. And then, lastly, I have a feedback survey, but you can do it anytime.
- [00:53:14.180]Jaci Gustafson: Let's give Ashlyn a little more time to answer questions. Since we have.
- [00:53:19.200]Jaci Gustafson: we have 5 min left, we can stay in here for 5 min, and then, if you're still talking.
- [00:53:23.530]Jaci Gustafson: I'll probably say we just need to kind of head out. There was one person, or maybe 2 people that came in and that didn't get checked in. If you can come up here I'll get you checked in then I'll just turn it over to Ashlyn for a couple more minutes and a few more questions.
- [00:53:37.470]Jaci Gustafson: Does anyone else have any other questions?
- [00:53:42.360]Jaci Gustafson: [Student question] Do you pay when you register, or day of, or...? [Ashlyn] You pay when you register. So that's the hard part is, if you have to cancel for any reason depending on how late you cancel you [inaudible]
- [00:53:52.980]Jaci Gustafson: Just look at those dates before then.
- [00:53:56.970]Jaci Gustafson: [Student question, inaudible]
- [00:54:03.190]Jaci Gustafson: Yeah, that actually is true. So, but you don't know which one it is. And so that's kind of the hard part is they throw in some experimental questions because they want they're like feeling out if they can use them for future years. So this is the 1st year they've made it, and they put it in, but it doesn't count.
- [00:54:20.120]Jaci Gustafson: But obviously, as soon as you don't know which one it is, you should still [inaudible]
- [00:54:27.580]Jaci Gustafson: (No, you're good.)
- [00:54:29.380]Jaci Gustafson: Yeah. [Student question] What resources do they provide for every network? [Inaudible] Is that the only limited resources that they are going to provide you? That's about it pretty much. I would say.
- [00:54:44.730]Jaci Gustafson: Most of it's just memorizing outside of your own. There's a lot of good harmonic devices you can use. But you can look for those online. And it's like we can help you memorize a lot of information, and especially like for psychology. That's very vocab, heavy. I would look into those but or like equations, you should memorize equations for physics and chemistry because you're going to use that for sure.
- [00:55:14.198]Jaci Gustafson: [Student question, inaudible]
- [00:55:17.692]Jaci Gustafson: I worked as a CNA for a summer, and then it just didn't work with my class schedule after that. So I did that for about 250 h, working full time over the summer, and then I'm a volunteer now, so I still do that.
- [00:55:31.870]Jaci Gustafson: [Student question] I can't remember if you said this. But do you use any sort of review book? When you were like reviewing content? [Ashlyn] Yeah, I did Kaplan.
- [00:55:40.310]Jaci Gustafson: They're really good, I like it.
- [00:55:44.590]Jaci Gustafson: [Student question] Yeah, what are you doing the senior year, like, how many credits, are you doing anything in particular? Just application? [Ashlyn] Yeah. So I'm in the interview stage of my cycle right now. So I actually had an interview today before I came here.
- [00:55:58.104]Jaci Gustafson: And so I decided to take a pretty... I don't really need that many credits, either semester. [inaudible] But I would suggest, if you're going to be applying like, try to keep a lighter semester when you're doing interviews, just so you can schedule them
- [00:56:16.860]Jaci Gustafson: as much as possible.
- [00:56:18.683]Jaci Gustafson: And even if they are going to use.... you know, like [inaudible]
- [00:56:22.430]Jaci Gustafson: Most of them are online and virtual now, which is nice. So you only just like data, instead of having to fly out somewhere and spend a bunch more money flying somewhere.
- [00:56:29.970]Jaci Gustafson: But I'm also still getting started with my [inaudible]
- [00:56:38.690]Jaci Gustafson: Thanks everyone for coming. I'm gonna shut it down. So I just need wrap things up. But if you want to ask more questions, feel free.
- [00:56:46.520]Jaci Gustafson: That's fine.
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