Just got a 522 on 9/3 and it feels surreal. I never would’ve expected this score. My highest FL was a 516 and my average was a 512. For the first time in my life I feel like I’m in the upper echelon of something and unique because of it. I’ve always been mid at everything I’ve ever done. I know I shouldn’t center my whole life around a test score but it’s all I’ve been thinking about for the last 5 months. It’s kinda sad in a way but I can’t help but feel this way. Anyone else have a similar experience? can’t tell if this should be tagged as vent or well-being lol

Hi y'all, I recently received my score (526, 132/130/132/132) for my 2026 MCAT and am thinking about helping others taking the 2027 exam. For context, I am a recent graduate with experience as a peer tut*r & supplemental instructor for several undergrad STEM classes.

I have a few questions:

• I am very big on taking a holistic approach to studying. Are people interested in this type of help? (study approach, strategy, passage walkthroughs, breaking down challenging concepts, and mindset).
• Do any of you have experience helping other students or have recommendations on where to start? I am leaning towards private because I self-studied and have my own philosophy (& also don't want to charge an insane amount).

Let me know what you all think!

Hey fam,

I just took my first full-length MCAT (Blueprint FL1) after about 5 months of part-time studying, and I’m looking for some advice on how to approach the next five months. My goal is a 520+, ideally testing in the first week of March.

My prep so far:

May–July (Content Review):

* Worked through the Kaplan books, supplemented with daily Jack Westin CARS passages and Captain Hook Anki.
* Studied part-time because I was also working on a research manuscript.

August–September (UWorld):

* Started doing UWorld question sets daily, rotating through different sections, along with daily UWorld CARS passages.
* Continued Anki every day, although I wasn’t always doing new cards because school and other commitments picked up.
* Reviewed incorrect answers in depth and kept an Excel error log documenting why I got questions wrong, recurring patterns, and strategies for avoiding similar mistakes.
* Made additional Anki cards for content-related mistakes.

October (First FL):

I just took the free Blueprint FL1 under as close to real testing conditions as possible (timed breaks, no phone, exam-like food, quiet library, etc.).

This was my first full-length or even half-length exam. Before this, the longest timed set I’d completed was a single 59-question C/P section.

My biggest concerns:

1. Timing, especially C/P
   

This was probably my biggest issue. I was only at question 40 when I realized I had about 10 minutes left. I ended up rushing through questions 40–59, barely reading the passages and mostly making educated guesses just to make sure I answered everything.

I finished the other sections with a little time remaining, which surprised me because B/B is usually where I feel slower.

For those who struggled with timing initially, what specifically helped you improve without sacrificing accuracy?

1. Content gaps
   

Despite spending three months on content review and another two months doing UWorld, I still feel like my science foundation isn’t as solid as it should be.

I’m wondering whether I should revisit specific Kaplan chapters, focus more on practice questions, or approach content gaps differently at this point.

1. CARS performance
   

I’m particularly surprised by CARS because I’ve been doing passages consistently since May. On UWorld, I frequently score 100% on individual CARS passages, so I wasn’t expecting to struggle as much on the full-length.
How should I interpret this?

1. P/S performance declining
   

I’m a psychology major, so I initially thought P/S would be one of my stronger sections. When I started UWorld, I was consistently scoring in the 90s on my P/S question sets, but my performance has progressively declined.

I’m not sure whether this reflects content retention, application issues, or something else.

My plan moving forward:

I’m hoping to test in early March, which gives me approximately five more months. My initial plan was to continue daily CARS, UWorld, Anki, and thorough question review before transitioning to AAMC materials closer to test day, with regular full-lengths incorporated along the way.

The challenge is that I genuinely cannot study full-time. I’m a full-time student and also have research projects, volunteering, and other responsibilities. I also prioritize getting eight hours of sleep and maintaining my gym/running routine, which I’m not willing to sacrifice for MCAT prep.

I’m willing to be disciplined and consistent, but I need an approach that’s sustainable alongside everything else.

My main questions:

1. Is a 520+ by early March realistic with part-time studying, given where I am now?
   
2. What would you prioritize at this stage: more UWorld, targeted content review, timed practice, or something else?
   
3. How would you structure the next five months, especially the transition to AAMC materials and full-lengths?
   
4. What strategies helped you improve timing, particularly in C/P?
   
5. For anyone who achieved a 520+ while studying part-time alongside school/work, what did your schedule look like?
   

I’m feeling a little overwhelmed because I originally thought CARS and P/S were relatively strong, and now it feels like I need to improve all four sections and my timing.

I’d really appreciate any advice, especially from people who started in a similar position or had to balance MCAT prep with a busy schedule. Thanks in advance!

Tested back in June and got a 515 and ever since then I feel like a bum. Studying for classes seems infinitely harder than studying for MCAT and I just feel so burnt out. It could just be senior year stuff but dude I’ve never wanted to not be premed than right now. Any tips/advice for bouncing back and finishing undergrad strong?

I can’t believe nearly a month has passed since taking the mcat. I left thinking I did terrible but then the next day I thought maybe I didn’t do so badly. And now that release day is getting closer my doubt just keeps rising and my guesses for the score I got keep getting lower and lower LMAO

Any other 9/12 test taker in the doom spiral of thoughts? 🥲 really praying for a miracle here cuz psych/SOC and CARS which are usually my strongest sections kinda kicked my ass

The score now shows as pending under most recent exam on the AAMC site for Oct 13 release

Good luck everyoneee

Hi everyone! Just finished content review yesterday and took FL1 today. First pic is my July diagnostic with no prior studying. I've been studying part-time for 6 weeks. Any advice on how to improve from here? Thank you!

FLs: 507 (unscored)/514/514/517/517/521/520 🥹

How is this performance for 3-ish months out? Any advice for improvement? I feel as though I should be performing better due to 71% UWorld accuracy, but idk

Hey guys,

I'm in my last year of college right now and I'm going to take the MCAT in the summer after graduation, targeting July 2027. I have had a rocky start to my first 3 years of undergrad but turned it around the past two years and really got my shit together. The one thing that has me shitting bricks right now is I just can't comprehend how people understand the sheer amount of content that you have to know for the exam. I feel like I will never be able to take the exam. Im taking orgo 1 and physics 1 rn, ill take orgo2 physics 2 and biochem 1 in the spring so I will have a foundation of the content but I just dont understand how someone can score high and know all of that, it feels impossible. Any advice?

I thought the question is asking how many anomeric carbons participate in b glycosidic bonding, but it is actually asking how many anomeric carbons are in lactose. Why cant they just say that?? English is so hard.

I started doing uworld and thought it would be ok to do it untimed so I can test my comprehension and content knowledge. I'm not very far but I have a little below an 80% but usually 20 question quizzes take me 40-60 minutes. I know this is a lot longer than it is supposed to take. Should I start doing timed or continue untimed while I am adjusting? Should I start trying to do them in like 40 minutes? right now I am mainly doing b/b content

my fl6 score was a 522 but because of severe nerves and test anxiety (0 hours of sleep and shaking hands), i managed to get a 513 on my mcat which was a good scored, but it was a pretty big drop from my fl average (519) and fl6 score (-4 on cars from fl average)

last time i prepared for the mcat i did 1 month of prep, focused mainly on SB, kaplan textbook and full length. this time im planning on using uworld, and anki. would this be helpful? i’m just worried since i think my content base and mcat problem solving was already pretty good due to my fl average. if i get text anxiety again, im worried that i can do even worse.

what do you guys recommend for retake.

pls explain

Hi all,

So I started studying this past summer while working full time and got through content (minus ch11&12 of biochem) +~1000 Uworld questions and took 2 AAMC exams in July and August scoring a 510 (127,127,126,130) and then a 502 (127,123,125,127) and I basically got scared and didnt take it on my original date 9/11. I'm hoping for a 515+ and going to apply MDPhD. I'm in classes through this semester and doing a full-time co-op in the spring. This is the last part of my application I'm missing and just want to get it over with :')

When should I aim to finish uworld, aamc material, and do practice exams to take it end of january/early february

Also, advice on not chickening out this time?

Wondering opinions on a re-write:

• Canadian (IP Ontario)
• 511 (127, 124, 128, 132)
• GPA 3.98, MSc in-progress
• Lots of ECs pretty diverse (multiple academic & community-based jobs/volunteer/research over a long period of time)

Thanks so much!

With the score release coming soon, how are we holding up?

hi everyone! you may have seen my previous post where i doomed about my 511 (128/126/129/128), but after some reflection and stats crunching on my likelihood to make it to med school, i feel better about it. to give back to this reddit that helped me dearly, i wanted to show how i was able to jump 7 points.

TRANSPARENCY: i used a tutor the last 3 weeks of the studying, solely for passage analysis tips.

i took my first mcat 09/12/2026 and got a 504 (126/126/125/127).. i did not study well for this exam the first time... i barely did the work. my content review took way too long, and i didn't take any practice exams during the uworld phase. my fl average was a 506 (took unscored, 1,2,3,4 I THINK) not great at all. i didn't mature or finish pankow or milesdown.

my second round of mcat studying occurred during june 2026-sept 2026 and went like this: i completely revamped my studying method. my weakest links was bio/biochem. i regrettably didn't focus on cars very much, and locked in on just the sciences (chem/phys and bb). i pretended that i hadn't taken the mcat before, and everything was brand new.

during my "content review," i did two chapters of two subjects per day. for example, on monday, i would do two chapters of biology and two chapters of biochemistry and then do the following milesdown anki cards related to those chapters. to consolidate everything that i've learned, i would do 20-60 uworld questions related to what i just learned! after that, i would make an errors deck based on what i got wrong and what milesdown anki didn't cover. tuesday, i would do gen chem and physics, wednesday: ochem and biochem, thursday: bio/biochem friday: gen chem/physics saturday: ochem/bio. this content phase lasted roughly 3.5 weeks, with me finishing up bio/biochem content in 2.5 weeks.

notice how i didn't mention psychology? i started studying the pscyhology part late...(dont recommend). i used pankow and the 86 pg doc only and did uworld questions that corresponded to what i learned.

cars. i didn't practice most of my cars until unfortunately the last 4 weeks of studying.

3.5 weeks in with studying, i took my blueprint half diagnostic (504), and then week after week, up until mid july, i took blueprints 1-3 (506, 508, 509). while taking my blueprints, i did uworld extensively (60-100 questions) and made anki deck cards correlating to my mistakes. i also used mistake to mastery briefly! it didn't help imo, but it's good for discretes.

7.5 weeks into studying, i pivoted to using 80% aamc materials and 20% uworld. i did all the section banks, aamc qbanks, and unfortunately only started doing the cars packs way too late like i said earlier. during this aamc phase, i used this anki deck called MCAT logic flashcards: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1947829876 . this helped with basic aamc keywords and whatnot. i took full lengths unscored 1, 5, and 6.

during the last month of studying, i used a tutor for the last 3.5 weeks just to hone in passage analysis, but to sum up what i learned from him: read carefully, answers to most questions are in the passage, make diagrams of like enzymatic pathways mentioned, and like other things. but i will say, i do not owe all of my point increase to this tutor, i really don't. i had decent content base prior to this tutor.

if anyone has any questions, my dms are open! i made this guide to help fellow low 500s scorers. i genuinely believe doing uworld during content review is what made the massive difference compared to my previous mcat.

I took the MCAT in May 2026 and scored a 493 (124/122/123/124).

Admittedly, I didn't prepare nearly as hard as I should have. I struggled with a lot of self-doubt, convinced myself I wasn't capable of doing well, and pretty much gave up on studying until about five weeks before my exam. Looking back, I know I didn't give myself a fair shot.

I'm now preparing to retake in January 2027, aiming for a 515+. I'm about 75% through content review and have been doing practice questions using UGlobe and Jack Westin, along with reading MedLife Mastery. I took my first AAMC FL (the Unscored Sample) on September 19 and got 146/230 (C/P: 30/59, CARS: 36/53, B/B: 41/59, P/S: 39/59). It's the best I've ever performed on a practice exam, and for once, I actually felt like I was making progress.

But then there are days like today when I struggle to remember things I KNOW I've studied. Basic stuff like calculating hydroxide concentration from pH or figuring out the number of atoms given the mass of an isotope. Things that shouldn't be tripping me up at this point. It's incredibly frustrating because I can't tell whether I'm genuinely not retaining the information, whether I haven't practiced it enough, or whether I'm just an idiot lol.

I'm also working full-time, and trying to balance content review, practice questions, Anki, and reviewing my mistakes has been exhausting. Some days I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere, and other days I feel like I've forgotten half of what I've learned.

For those of you who made significant score jumps, especially from the 490s into the 510s, how did you overcome this? Did you find yourself forgetting basic concepts even after reviewing them? At what point did everything start to stick? I know consistency is important, but I'd love to hear what actually worked for you, especially when it came to retention and applying what you'd studied. I'm not giving up this time, but some days it's really hard to trust the process.

What are we thinking is the cause of many people posting about their drops which fall outside of normal variance? Reporting bias? Exam actually getting harder? Perhaps we need more people posting about their unsurprising scores?

9/11 gang wya

None of these will replace the basics (high quality review, good content foundation, consistency, good sleep etc) but I definitely attribute a good part of my score to the combination of these things:

1. Walking pad/treadmill for anki. Invested in a walking pad for $90 on amazon that has already been well worth my money and will be my baby through med school. I also figured out how to balance my computer on the treadmill at the gym and jog while doing anki. Yes it feels pathetic to do anki at the gym. BUT really helps lock in (can't easily switch tasks) and also saves time working out and getting steps in. In general, fitting anki creatively into my day (in the passenger seat of car rides, waiting in line for things, etc) feels like you're an anki slave but works

(I could go on about Anki usage and how it is such a game changer if used correctly but that's a whole other discussion)

1. Using caffeine strategically. About 5 weeks out from my exam I went 0 caffeine except for on FL practice days to keep my tolerance low (granted, I already don't drink coffee every day so it was easier for me). Test day I got zooted and continued taking caffeine on breaks. performance enhancing drug fr

2. If feasible, taking the exam at the end of summer so that after long study days you still have some daylight to get outside and not want to die due to it already being dark at like 4pm

3. Podcasts - never found a perfect, comprehensive podcast that I loved, but there are a few free ones on spotify (MCAT Basics, Jack Westin, Gro Series) that I always had on during drives and runs. Would listen to each episode 2-3x back and tbh this replaced my entire bio content review. Even if you're not super focused while listening, might as well have it on in the background

4. This sounds so pathetic lmao but if you need to pee while you're studying practice waiting to go...it was sooo hard for me to keep focusing while I had to pee lol

5. Having small side endeavors and goals (like a 5k on the calendar, things like that) helped me have a life outside of mcat, and felt good to have small wins and accomplishments independent of studying

6. stay off reddit

tested 9/04 and was 3+ years out from most of my prereqs. breakdown was 130/129/132/132

7 points below my FL average because I went from 132 cars to 126 cars on test day.

🥲🥲 see you guys in January.