Do You Wanna Hear an MCAT Horror Story?

Well do you?

Originally posted March, 13th, 2014

 

I want to preface this story by telling you what my pre-med advisor told me when I told her this story after it happened.

“I’ve been a pre-professional advisor a long time. I’ve hear a lot of stories about MCATs and LSATs that were pretty bad. But yours is the worst. I have no idea how did that.”

So there’s your warning.

This all starts after I got my first MCAT score back in late August (I did a summer MCAT course) and it was not what I wanted or expected to get at all. Because of that, I decided to retake the exam on the last day the MCAT was offered in September/October so that I would still have all of my online study material and all that jazz.

So there I am, sitting at the bus stop early on Wednesday afternoon after my bio 2 class. I hadn’t checked my phone in a while so I figured now was as good a time as any.  There is a voicemail from a number I’ve never seen, but I figure if I have a message the call must have been important. The person who was sitting across from me must have thought someone died from my reaction to the voicemail.

It said “Hello Miss Sass. This is Prometrics. We’ve made an unfortunate mistake in our booking system and overbooked the testing facility you will taking your MCAT at on Saturday. We had to cancel your test reservation. We hope this hasn’t caused you any issue. Please call us back if you have any questions.”

If you want to know my reaction this, it was that first I let my phone fall out of my hand, and hit the pavement while I stared completely unmoving. Then I screamed and started crying. Because this was the most mature reaction I could think of at the time. But can you blame me? They canceled my test. Four days before the test. The very last test.

The first thing I did was call my mom because I was really just a mess. We ended up calling Prometric back trying to figure out with them what to do. Over the span of three hours a solution was found! There was one place left in the country. One place in the entire United States where I could take the MCAT. And it was in San Diego, California. Oh and just for reference, I live on the east coast. So I went.

Yep, that’s right. I flew across the country to take an EXAM.

I blame my hero’s spirit from reading way too many mangas for shit like this that I do.

So yeah, two flights later and one favor called in by my mother to a friend I was in California. The good thing though was the 3 hour difference made it feel like I was taking the MCAT at 11 am instead of 8 am which was kind of nice. But if you think my troubles ended when I got to the testing center you would be wrong.

The physical science section was by far my weakest section. I generally struggle with more math based concepts and I’m not great at mental math. I’m about 50 minutes into the section when the screen goes black. My first reaction is SHIT I broke the computer SHIT SHIT SHIT. But then I see a head pop over the cubicle next to me, face screaming pure panic. A few more heads bob up and down, but only from my row down. Half of the room had lost power.

At this point, one of the other test takers managed to wave down a proctor without making too much noise. In the exact fashion you expect, the proctors realize what’s going on and RUSH into the testing room, scaring the absolute shit out of the other half of the room who has no idea what’s happening on our side. Now everyone in the room in panicking and freaking out.

They got the problem fixed, and no lost any test data, but everyone in the room was anxious after that. In the end, I just kind of figured the MCAT must hate me, but I actually didn’t do so bad. That MCAT score was the one that got me into med school despite the most traumatizing test experience I think I’ve ever had.

So there you have it. That’s my horror MCAT story and I pray that no one ever have to go through what I did.

Here’s what to take away from this story;

• I really really really let nothing stop me from becoming a doctor. I will literally jump over any hurdle.
• I’m a glass-full kinda person.
• These were real things that happened. They will probably never ever happen to you.
• Despite the complete bullshit that happens around you, you can do this. Everything will turn out the way it’s meant to.

Good luck to everyone taking the MCAT out there!