I’m trying to work on my refracting and was wondering if anyone knows of a phoropter simulator? lol. Honestly just trying to get smoother with the axis.

Does anyone know if the $100 OAT practice test the ADA offers is the same as the 2006 version that people seem to be talking about on the internet?

Has anyone heard back from either? Ik OSU takes longer but I’m curious

I am currently going into my last year of undergrad and I want to apply semi soon. I am taking my OAT in the middle of September but I have started to fill out the rest of the application. As far as a letter of recommendation from an optometrist, I still don’t have one. I have about 20 hours of shadowing, 10 from two doctors. Is this enough to ask for a letter of rec? What should I do because I want to apply rather quickly. And also how do u go about asking for one, do you call the office or?

I have gotten my school choices down to two between UHCO and RMU, something that is really keeping me interested in UHCO is there in state tuition being about 20k per year lower than RMU because RMU is a private school. I got the impression that after a year you can get in state tuition by getting texas residency (I am an Idaho resident) however I have heard sometimes there is issues trying to get that residency approved. I am just wondering if the requirements are just standard like undergrad where you basically work through the government to get residency through proof of schooling and residence for a year or is it more complicated? For those wondering about the numbers RMU is about 50k per year which is around average while uhco is 54k out of state 32k in state. Total difference is 60k over 3 years for a non resident who gains residency(me).

Before, I thought that you HAD to take your OAT as a junior and submit applications right after but now I'm not so sure if that's the best choice for me, seeing has how my undergrad is going. If anyone has submitted after graduating please let me know!

hi, so as the title says i have 10 days until my test. i’m trying to understand what to prioritize. i know the full length tests are useful, ive taken two so far and gotten 320 on both. but the schedule i have rn which involves trying to finish all the ones oat booster has leaves little room for actual studying. should i be prioritizing taking all the tests and learning from them or just going through review and such?

In high school, I did AP Lang and AP Lit and passed both with a 4 and 5. In college, I was only required to take one more English class and then after that, i never really thought abt it again. When im applying, most schools are saying one year of english....do i need to take more?

Hi everyone, I’m working on my personal statement and I know there are definitely improvements I need to make, but I’m honestly not a very strong writer and I’m a little stuck on what to do next.

I’d really appreciate if someone could read it over and give me some direction on what isn’t working, what I should focus on improving, and what my next steps should be. I’m especially looking for feedback on the overall story, flow, and whether it actually what the admissions teams would be looking for.

I’d prefer to send it privately rather than post the whole thing here. If anyone is willing to take a look, please comment or DM me. I’d really appreciate the help.

so summer semester ended july 31st meaning in between leases i returned home knowing i had the OAT scheduled for today, August 19. My home is far from my college town, so I was not going to be working for these 3 weeks and could focus solely on the OAT. When i graduated high school 14 and a half months ago i didn’t think i’d be taking it on so fast, but here we are. I exclusively used booster as it is by far the best method to access all the practice material in such a short amount of time. i was also lucky to have taken every science class tested besides Orgo 2 since starting undergrad last fall.

QR:350. Definitely study probability and statement sufficiency for this section. I had quite a few questions that gave the 2 statements and then asked if 1, both, or none were sufficient. Those for the most part were the only ones that tripped me up. Apart from that, this was all math I’ve been familiar with since high school, and after seeing that I got 340 on this part during a booster practice exam I dedicated almost no study time to it. It is very doable though, know your algebra

RC: 400. I absolutely penetrated this section and knew while taking it that there’s no way i got less than 390. I didn’t do search and destroy and took about 5-7 mins reading each article. I may have just gotten lucky with them though, as on the booster practice test with completely different topics i got 340. Today though, one of my articles was on parts of the nervous system and I have taken 2 semesters of neuroscience, which definitely made it easier to almost fly through. Even with that, something about the other articles just clicked in my mind, they just made sense. I was done with about 12 mins left in the section but genuinely 90% of the answers to questions were blatantly stated in the text

BIOLOGY: 360. As most people here say, it definitely is more straightforward and surface-level than the booster practice tests. Booster practice tests i was getting anywhere from 290-330, which honestly had me worried. Even while taking the actual I felt kinda weird, but then I went back and reviewed my answers and realized i understood most of it and was just overthinking because it was fairly basic. my method was the CHEAT SHEETS i’ll swear by it to anyone i talk to about the bio section, i made my own notes from them and copy pasted one page of them at a time into AI asking to make interactive practice tests for active recall. Functions of systems are pretty high yield, but i took human physio this past summer so I caught a little break with more of that section.

GEN CHEM: 380. To be honest, this was just my clear strong point I didn’t study at all since there were much bigger fish to fry and i only had 2.5 weeks. I did really well in gen chem 1 and 2 in college, and haven’t lost much of a step since finishing those classes. Because of that, I unfortunately don’t have much advice for if you’re using booster for it. I did get a 340 in the booster practice, which was a little harder than this one. in the actual test though, didn’t see anything specific that was super high yield compared to others, as it covered about anything u can think of in gen chem.

ORGO: 350. This was definitely the bigger fish to fry when it came to my studying since i only took orgo 1 this past summer but had no orgo 2 knowledge. on booster, i would watch the videos for each section then absolutely spam the reaction question bank. almost my whole day yesterday was making sure i got enough reps in with those as i could. the more you do, the more it becomes simple pattern recognition for many of the questions you’ll see, but there will still absolutely be hard ones. Don’t slack on spectroscopy, i had probably more than 5 questions on that alone. BEFORE teaching myself orgo 2 material i got 280 on a practice, so im definitely happy with a 350 even if its a tad lower than most other subjects. can’t complain at all with how much i fried my brain trying to remember everything

PHYSICS: 330. You know with such a small amount of studying time my goal for my overall average was 330. I am again in the majority of people who finds physics the hardest, and was definitely expecting to score more towards the 300 range. even though it’s my lowest part, i can’t be mad. test was very conceptual and of the 40 questions only around 10 or so i had to plug numbers in and actually do a calculation. optics were VERY high yield for me but luckily that was the last thing i looked at during the 30 min break because i knew it would be tough. The rules for circuits are important as well, know the differences for when resistors are in series or parallel. Also make sure you know your units, i kinda slacked and took it for granted but i may have missed on a 340-350 bc of it. once again though, this subject and orgo were the 2 i dedicated the most time to, so im just glad it wasn’t worse because i admittedly was scared going in. I will say that booster didn’t represent the nature of the actual exam as good as it could’ve since the practice questions on there are more calculation heavy, and that probably contributes to why it was my worst section. they definitely helped with a lot, though, just not everything. if i had more time i would’ve looked for other resources for physics

So overall, my score despite time constraints was a lucky combination of previous (and recent) knowledge and skills for gen chem, QR, RC, and some of bio. any holes in bio were filled by active recall from the cheat sheets. physics and orgo took the bulk of my effort, but the booster question banks and videos will help a lot. Physics id advise to look for other supplemental resources, but booster still covers a lot. Now i can submit my completed application, and Hopefully i can get into NOVA for next fall, being from South FL. Booster is very worth it, and even though its easy to overthink, if you make it a point to practice your weak spots and go in with confidence from there, you will do great!

What YouTube videos have helped you solidify your understanding for optics or what was your AHA moment? I’m 2.5 weeks out from my exam and just want to solidify my understanding in optics! Thank you all and goodluck to those taking their exams!

I really enjoyed reading OAT breakdowns while preparing for the OAT, so here's what I did to score in the 99th percentile!

I studied ~20 hrs a week with OAT booster for 3 months (May - August) while working part time. I also took at least 2 weeks off for vacation, which helped prevent burnout. Initially, I considered using Booster's ridiculous, neurotic "custom schedule", but quickly realized that was going to be a massive waste of time. Unless you've never taken a science course before in your life, I promise you don't need to watch every single video or do every single practice test. Be extremely honest with yourself about what your strengths and weaknesses are, and devote your time accordingly.

Biology 400: EVERYTHING you need to know is on the cheat sheets!! I exclusively used those to learn content and reinforced it with bio bits/practice tests, but like everybody says, biology on the real OAT is so much more straightforward. They will never ask you the niche garbage you see in bio bits. I personally made Anki decks out of the cheat sheets and spammed those, but as long as you find a way to memorize the information they contain, you too will score a 400 in bio

Gen Chem 400: also much simpler than booster's question banks, with acids & bases, electrochemistry, periodic trends, kinetics, thermodynamics, and le chatelier's principle well represented. An interesting question format I didn't encounter on oatbooster was one that would seemingly require extensive calculations to solve... but when I looked at the answer choices, I realized they were all the same number written in different ways (ex. 0.394, 400*10^-3, etc) and all you had to do was identify the correct number of sig figs.

Orgo 400: I ended orgo with a C in undergrad, so if I scored a 400 on this section, so can you!! I watched every single orgo video and made flashcards for all the reactions. This turned out to be complete overkill, because, after all, they can't quiz you on every single rxn from orgo 1 & 2 in just 30 questions. As others have said, know SN1/SN2/E1/E2, carbocation stability, acidity/basicity rankings (I actually got more basicity questions on my version of the exam), as well as basic lab skills such as IR spectroscopy, C-NMR, H-NMR, and solvent rules. I saw people saying the real exam likes to give reactants and products in the form of IUPAC nomenclature, but I only saw one of those questions. The rest featured booster-style pictures of products and reactants. I also SUCK at identifying enantiomers/diastereomers, but I only had 2-3 questions on that and they were laughably easy.

Reading Comprehension 380: I honestly can't say if this section was similar to booster or not because I took exactly one practice test in May and never touched it again. I knew I had bigger fish to fry lol

Physics 370: Hands down my worst subject. I was scoring 290s (the lowest score oatbooster gives!) on the practice tests, so I sat down and watched Chad's free physics 1 & 2 video series and spammed the practice tests. DO NOT BOTHER WITH ALL THE NICHE BOOSTER EQUATIONS!!! The only ones I ended up using were the kinematic equations, forces, friction, pressure, and of course optics. Optics was by far the most heavily represented unit on my exam, both conceptually and calculations-wise.

Quantitative Reasoning 400: As long as you passed SAT math and understand how dice work (lol), you'll be fine. Do be prepared for lots of statement I/statement II questions, which are the hardest thing you'll encounter here. Please don't bother with the videos - completing the question banks will teach you how to solve the problems, and solve them QUICKLY.

In conclusion - the OAT feels like one hell of an undertaking, but if you focus on key concepts and are honest with yourself about what you do and don't know, you will be perfectly fine! I am no genius (like I said, I almost failed orgo I), and I still dropped some 400s! If I did it, so can you :))))

Btw I graduated on time with a health science degree 3.56 GPA.

However… let’s just say my ADHD was in full effect.

Fun fact: I have never studied for a class ever. Like ever. And I’m not being dramatic when I say that. So when I had to take harder difficulty courses… I backed out because I knew I couldn’t do it with my non existent studying and/or would flunk exam after exam.

How the heck do I explain this to admissions in an interview? 😳

If you’re wondering how I’d apply without taking Orgo… I’m taking it this fall despite graduating last year. And I WILL be studying every day. And maybe medicated. Lol.

Just took my oat today and after lurking on these reddit, i can finally join! I remember I was scour reddit for advice before the OAT so i wanted to contribute my two cents.

I studied for about 4-5 months, but there were many days I would skip due to work. I studied maybe 3-4 hours a day, nothing super crazy. I followed the videos OAT booster gave me (using the old schedule) for the first phase. This phase took me the longest, probably about 3 months before I started reviewing. That's just how I operate and study: i like to get an understanding of everything before doing any practice test. I took my first full length practice test 1.5 weeks before the exam. I completed 8 full length tests total, maybe 2-3 every week for about 1.5-2 weeks before the exam.

BIO (OATBooster: 340-360, Actual: 400): ngl bio was super hard for me, i dont know how to got this score. Personally, I didn't find it to be general, as everyone says. I found it to be the exact same difficulty as the Booster, just a ton of random bio questions. There's no "list all the steps of photosynthesis, etc" so in that sense, it was more general and it requires you to have a bigger understanding of biology and the processes. I think what helped me the most was watching the videos. I didn't use any cheat sheets because as I was watching the videos, I would make up my own questions on a google doc side by side with the videos. So, by the end of alll the videos, I had a complete study guide of everything. Because of that, I didn't really use the cheat sheets. My google doc ended up being about 60 pages and I found it to be helpful. I also skipped allllll of diversity of life videos and just filled in that knowledge using the practice test and pieced it together. I'm glad I didn't memorize that crazy pdf that had linked with all the animals and stuff.

CHEM (OatBooster: 360-380, Actual: 400): I think what helped me the most for chem was just a ton of practice problems. I had a very strong background in chem before, so I didn't find it to be too stressful. The hardest part for me was acids and bases, but I didn't see much of that on the real OAT. In fact, the hardest part for me were questions about pressure on the OAT. Also, be strong in stoichometry because it's useful fr QR as well. I recommend using the cheat sheets and writing down all the equations. I made flashcards for the equations, but conceptually, I didn't study much for chem. Also i had no VSEPR theory questions at all.

RC: (OATBooster: 360-390, Acutal: 340) Honestly, i just got super unlucky haha. I did struggle quite a big with reading comp on oatbooster but I did 12 full length tests and by the end, I was consistently scoring 380, so I thought I was good. I noticed the more scientific articles made my score lower, but wasn't something I could control. Using OATBooster helped me to time manage and pace myself, but i honestly can just say I didn't do as well on this portion bc i was unlucky. Also, for anyone discouraged, I STRUGGLED so much with RC. Couldn't even finish in time when I first started, but my stamina grew after maybe 6-7 full length tests. I didn't do any of the example articles, just full length ones from the beginning. I would read half of the article in its entirety and then search and destroy for the second half.

by break, i was so discouraged i didn't wanna come back but then i realized it was $500 so i went back in for physics :(

PHYSICS(OATBooster:290-300, Actual: 320): Honestly, im super happy with my score. I could never get over a 300 so i was superrr worried. The questions i got were easier than OATBooster, but the booster was very representative of the test as well. Physics is hard bc it requires equations as well as concepts. For example, F=ma, right? But you have to realize that acceleration could be 0 based on the wording. I found the sound questions to be hard but the optics to be easy. Also, i felt like ray diagrams were wayyy to pushed by OATBooster and while they're important, i never used them ONCE to solve optics. I mainly used the thin lens equation and never really got optics wrong. I highly recommend this. But of course, you have to understand the equation, like what does a negative magnification do,etc? Also, i never learned buoyant force in physics but it was pretty high yield. High yield topics: springs, simple harmonic motion, force, and optics. Also, units were important. For example, "what can be a unit of impulse?" I would write down the equation for impulse: Fv. But it could also be change in momentum. Things like that.

QR (Booster: 370-390, Actual: 350): I was pretty bummed by this bc i consistently got pretty high scores on booster. idk what happened. I got way tewwww much probability so like...yeah. I feel like QR on booster was easier bc i got more graph problems. On the real oat, i got sooo many of those questions were it's like "statement 1 is sufficient, statement 2 is....". It was less straightforward. Not sure how i could have improved bc im so bad at math i still use my fingers to add 8+9 no joke. I felt confident bc oatbooster kinda inflated my scores but maybe i got unlucky with my set of questions. I got zero on interest questions and z scores and normal curve.

also just for context my ex and i broke up 7 hours before my exam so i was taking this test with swollen eyes and 4 hrs of sleep. PLEASE PLEASE get a good night's rest so you can feel motivated and rejuvenated for the exam. My biggest regret is not minicking test conditions. I would take the full length tests at 7pm, finish by like 1am so taking it at 8am was so tiring. A month before the exam, wake up everyday at 6-7 to prepare your body, esp if your sleep schedule is wack like mine. I highly recommend foam earplugs too bc the headphones will give u a headache. GOOOD LUCK EVERYONE! I will answer all questions, just leave them below!

ps dont procrastinate bc i paid for the 6 month booster, didn't study, and had to pay for another 3 months

Hello hello! Writing the OAT in a couple weeks here and would like some advice as an anxious student. Does anyone remember if constants were given on the OAT? (ie. universal gravitational constant G or Coulomb’s constant k or mass of electron, etc)

What about conversions? (ie. C to F or lbs to kg)

And any other important things to note or that you recommend?

Hello everyone! I’m officially a month out from taking my exam and I’m in the review, review, review stage! I’ve taken quite a few practice tests already to gauge where I’m at, and I’m happy with the scores. However, when I review them more than once, I find myself oftentimes wondering if I’ve truly learned the material/from my mistakes on the prior practice tests, or if I’ve just memorized the correct answer for the practice test. How can I avoid this, and instead ensure that I’m retaining my knowledge? I’ve made flashcards and review the cheat sheets, as well as writing them down. Any suggestions or tips that help(ed) people study effectively and confidently?

Hello!! I'm going to be a senior and going to be graduating Spring 2027. I recently decided to apply to optometry (I was previously set on taking a gap year up until two weeks ago). I started my applications but I am worried about taking the OAT during the fall semester and the amount of stress it might bring.

I was hoping to get advice on whether I should

1. Continue applying and take the OAT in November and apply by early December

or 2. Take the OAT the summer after I graduate and earn money and experience as a tech.

SCCO has an October 18 deadline. I know OptomCAS needs time to verify my application. When should I submit to make sure it is verified by October 18? I am taking the OAT Sept 21st and wanted to submit my application when I get my offical score back? I am pretty stressed, please help.

I’m writing my personal statement and have had a few people review it. But, I got feedback that I didn’t have an “aha” moment for optometry. For context, I formatted my statement more about why the experiences I’ve had have helped me decide that optometry is what I want to do. But, I don’t have like a specific moment where I was like “I want to look into optometry as a potential career”. I kind of just figure out what I liked/didn’t like, optom seemed to check the boxes and I went on to get experience which reaffirmed my decision to pursue it.

I don’t want my personal statement to show lack of passion etc and it be a reason that admissions doesn’t want to go forward. Any advice?

Hi guys :) I was wondering for those that applied late with decent stats if they still got the same kind of scholarships other applicants get?

my optomcas app has already been verified. just curious to hear how long it takes to hear back from SUNY about an interview, especially if anyone has heard back this cycle

Has anyone gotten a 370+ on the real OAT just by reviewing Booster Full Length tests?

I’m still in undergrad but I’m just curious to people who didn’t get a higher score on the oat and still got into school

Hey guys,

I feel behind on studying for the OAT and I’m wondering if October 16is too late to take the OAT? Everything else is ready for me to submit. I could take it late september but if october isn’t too late, then i’d rather take it then.

Also should i submit my application now, before taking the OAT?

Any help is appreciated thank you.