 gen 


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The MCAT is now behind me
Wow.
It feels really weird. I'd been warned, but you do come out of it unsatisfied. You're glowing because it's finished, but on the other hand you're just so drained you look really bad and your brain feels numb.
I think I did excellent on the verbal reasoning, I had shown continuous improvement over the semester and I scored a 12 on the last practice test, so if I just got it up one point on this test, I'm in the highest scoring bracket.
Physical sciences kicked my butt. Princeton review really prepared us to solve problems and do calculations, but this was all experimental and theoretical. I don't think I did SO bad, but it will probably still be my weakest section. Even weaker than on previous exams maybe.
The essays were just the essays - nobody cares about them or looks at the letter grade.
Biological sciences went fairly well, except that I had really hoped for more biology and less organic chem, and that didn't happen. The organic was pretty obscure synthesis stuff, with mechanisms and no passage info - really hard to make sound deductions.
Our 15-people Princeton Review group was really REALLY close, and we stuck together before the exam, at lunch, and after the exam. Scott and Shada (two of our instructors - Scott is 20 and he scored 38 on his MCAT last year, Shada is 19 and she scored 40) met us on campus right after we got done, so around 5:30pm. They had brought shot glasses, Tangerine Absolut and Malibu. I had a shot of the former. The huge group of us then walked over to St-Laurent and we dined and drank at Café de Nuit(?). We talked and talked and drank and drank until midnight. It was really, really emotional, for us and our rookie instructors. Everybody felt like it was the end of an era.
Some of us are probably going to meet for a movie on Tuesday, and we've promised to keep in touch. But all of us have plans, and many of us won't be in town much longer (Sofia leaving for Peru, Sarah for Israel, Neil for Japan, Scott for BC, Shada for DC, etc). So it really is the end of an era.
On the bus ride home, I felt like I'd just awakened from a long hibernation period. The MCAT stress, and the obligations and the responsibilities that came with such a hugely important exam are now gone, and I suddenly feel alive again. It's an incredible feeling... Not that I recommend taking the exam just to achieve that feeling.
I got home past 1 am, and my parents had decorated my door with a "congratulations" banner and they'd made me an huge card. They had even gotten me some sushi. I couldn't possibly have a sweeter family. Really, they have been so supportive and so nice. I'm really grateful.
Now I just have 6-8 more weeks to wait before I find out how I actually did, and whether I'll be wasting my summer studying to write it again in August or whether I need to change career orientation altogether.
The MCAT is done!
It just feels so good to say that.
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"An intellectual is a person who's found one thing that's more interesting than sex." -- Aldous Huxley
[ posted by gen at 04/21/2002 02:43:48 AM ] [ trackback ]
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