Name: Should You Delay Your MCAT? How to Know If You're Ready
Uploaded: 2021-03-06T19:15:26.000Z
Duration: 14 min 32 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

The MCAT is upon us - your test date is approaching and you've been studying hard, but perhaps

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you aren't quite certain if you should take the MCAT or reschedule it for later.

Here's an easy, step-by-step process on how to decide whether you're ready to take the

Let's first dispel the myth that delaying is always good because it gives you more time

In reality, delaying the MCAT results in two overlooked drawbacks: (1) forgetting content

Students erroneously believe that the more time they spend studying, the better their

This is simply false, as demonstrated by the fact that many students who spent 6, 12, or

18 months studying for the MCAT don't necessarily perform better than those who spend just 3

You can visualize your own MCAT test performance as a bell shaped curve, with the time spent

studying on the X-axis and your score on the Y-axis.

At early stages, more time spent studying will yield an improved score.

However, at a certain point, further time spent studying will result in a score plateau,

and after this point, further studying will actually result in a worse MCAT score outcome.

The reason for this is two-fold: (1) the balance of retaining versus forgetting and (2) burnout.

The Ebbinghaus forgetting curve illustrates the fact that we don't retain information

We can limit the amount of forgetting through certain learning principles, such as spaced

However, after a certain point, the rate of information you are adding and retaining will

balance out with the rate of information you are forgetting.

This effect is more prominent with those who space out their MCAT studying over longer

By spending a fewer number of hours per day spaced out over a longer duration, they forget

information at a higher rate, thus reaching the retention-forgetting balance point much

We find that students generally, all other things being equal, perform best when they

can study for the MCAT over a shorter duration but higher intensity.

For example, 3 months fully immersed in MCAT preparation at higher intensity, or even 6

This increases the rate of learning and retention, and caps the rate of forgetting.

The second part of the equation is burnout.

You cannot expect yourself, or any student, to be able to study for the MCAT indefinitely,

particularly at high intensity, without reaching a point of burnout or frustration.

Let's be real, there are probably more than just a few other things you'd rather be doing

Burnout is a multifactorial phenomenon that can be mitigated, but that's a conversation

In understanding these two core foundations of forgetting and burnout, we can rid ourselves

of the notion that more studying will always lead to an improved MCAT score.

What we want to determine is whether you should take the MCAT as planned, or opt to delay

There is a subset of students who delay the test when unnecessary and end up hurting their

There's another subset who are too inflexible to postpone, even when that would prove beneficial.

Here's how to decide if you fall into either one of these camps.

The first step is being honest with yourself.

How has your MCAT studying been thus far, and are you overall satisfied with the intensity

This includes assessing both the quality of your studying as well as your resources and

This isn't the time to pat yourself on the back for studying for 4 hours per day when

Similarly, you shouldn't beat yourself up if you're a bit behind schedule, underestimated

the time requirements, or needed an extra break day or two beyond what you had initially

The better behaved you've been, the more likely it is that you're ready to take the MCAT.

The more you've deviated from your plans, the more likely it is that you'll need to

But hold on before making that decision, as there are other factors to consider.

You also need to look at your resources and their relative importance.

You don't have to get through every single resource in order to get a great MCAT score

- in fact, many students actually spread themselves too thin across multiple resources.

In terms of MCAT resources, there are three main categories: (1) content review books

& videos, (2) spaced repetition tools, and (3) practice questions and practice tests.

The highest yield resource is the Official AAMC Practice Materials, including question

You should absolutely get through 100% of these materials, saved toward the end of your

Next in order of importance, spaced repetition tools, such as Memm, help you memorize important

content efficiently while minimizing unnecessary fluff.

Content review books and videos are the lowest priority, as their consumption is passive,

yielding poor retention, and they often are riddled with out-of-scope information that

If you're unable to get through all the resources you intended, revisit them through

the lens of relative importance and see what you'll be able to get through by test date.

We'll need to consider how long have you been studying and how far away are you from your

test date, as this informs how large a score improvement you can hope to achieve.

The greater the duration of your studying, the larger the impact of your past study habits

If you're only 2 weeks into your study period, you're fairly early on in the process and

making changes now can have a dramatic influence on your ultimate outcome.

On the other hand, if you're 10 weeks in with only 2 weeks left, you have less of an opportunity

A greater amount of your studying is already behind you.

Ultimately, if you've been sticking to your study plan and are further away from your

test date, the lower the chances you should delay your MCAT.

On the other hand, if you're been distracted and not studying as intensely as you know

you could, or your test date is rapidly approaching and you're not anywhere close to your target

score, you may want to consider delaying your MCAT.

Next, we'll rely on more objective measurements to guide your decision on whether or not to

First, you'll need to refer back to your target MCAT score.

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Should You Delay Your MCAT? How to Know If You're Ready

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