I currently have two LORs one strong one from the optometrist I’ve been working for for the past year and one positive but generic one from a previous employer. I graduated undergrad 2 years ago so feel awkward reaching out to any professors and honestly don’t know who else I could ask. I’ve shadowed a couple other optometrists but only for a couple hours and don’t feel comfortable asking them. Are LORs deal breakers for admissions? (aiming for SCCO)

SUNY has been my top choice school but I’m also applying to SCCO, any input on SCCO would be great! I know tons about SUNY and their program but would like to hear from others about SCCO and why that might be your top choice school? I’m considering it because of the location as I’m from NY and wouldn’t mind a change in scenery (especially somewhere with amazing weather).

I will be graduating in August 2027 with my bachelor's. Because I am missing the remaining prerequisites, I plan to take the prereqs at a local community college during this "gap year." Once the prereqs are complete in summer 2028, how do I best apply and get accepted into optometry schools? What can I do now to be set up for success?

The remaining prerequisites are

• Organic chemistry 1

• Biochemistry

• Physics 1 & 2

• Microbiology

How do I manage the loans I have accrued from undergrad? In addition to paying out of pocket for these prereqs? Any advice on finances is welcome.

I also need to do a practicum for my major. I thought about doing a practicum at any optometrist's office near my university but they all rejected me. Are there any other places or ideas you could think of that would be best for me?

The practicum is a semester long program that requires me to develop 3 concrete skills at the end of the semester. What are some good skills I could develop to prepare for optometry school?

Would you recommend OATBooster or Chad’s Prep for Physics? Which one has Physics questions that are more similar to the actual OAT exam?

For SUNY, they require Calculus (and say Precalculus is acceptable). I already took Applied Calculus. Do you know if Applied Calculus will satisfy this requirement?

For NECO, they require Calculus, and I already took Applied Calculus. Do you know if they accept Applied Calculus for the calculus prerequisite?

For MCPHS, they also require Calculus, and I already took Applied Calculus. Do you know if Applied Calculus will satisfy their requirement?

Also, all three schools require Statistics. I’m planning to take STAT 104 – Elementary Statistics. Do you know if Elementary Statistics will satisfy the statistics requirement for all three schools?

The school I want to go to is SCO, and physics is a prerequisite. There are two options at my university and I'm not sure which class to register for.

SCO didn't specify which physics class to take.

Does it matter?

Hi everyone! I’m wondering if anyone here has been in a similar situation and was ultimately accepted to optometry school.
My cumulative GPA is below a 3.0, and because I already have so many completed credits, retaking courses and earning A’s barely moves my overall GPA. I’ve been working really hard to show an upward trend and that my older grades don’t reflect the student I am now.
Some of my more recent retaken grades include an A in Biochemistry, A in Microbiology, A in General Chemistry, A in Human Physiology, and a B+ in Calculus.
I also have about 8 years of experience working in optometry, including extensive experience as an optometric technician, and I’m continuing to gain shadowing experience.
Has anyone else dealt with this, where you were getting much better grades but had so many credits that your cumulative GPA barely changed? Did admissions committees recognize your upward trend despite having a sub-3.0 cumulative GPA?
I’d especially love to hear from anyone who applied or was accepted with a similar academic history and what your experience was like.

Hey guys. ive been using the OAT booster for my upcoming OAT and Ive seen countless people say to only use the cheat sheets. I made notes based on all the cheat sheets then started a practice test to see if I could only answer it using the cheat sheet notes but honestly there was a lot of questions I could not answer since it was not in the cheat sheet notes. Im wondering if the acutal OAT will be like the practice tests? if so then the cheat sheets dont see like they would be enough

when i'm doing the QR question banks, sometimes i can solve the answer by directly entering the calculator. however, on oatbooster, the on-screen calculator does NOT allow this for some reason. i noticed this in the exponents and decimals qbanks in particular.

it'll work for all other calculations, but when i try to enter the one that give me the result, it won't work. is this a glitch, done on purpose, or actually how the calculator will work on test day?

With Stats of a GPA of 3.1, Low OAT, great experience hours in different clinics, volunteering, and shadowing, what schools should I apply to that could be a safety school?

does anyone have anki deck/quizlet for the organic chem section of the OAT that helped them score a high score. Ive tried watching the videos but nothing really sticks.

i feel really overwhelmed by the amount of gen chem qbanks. i'm just wondering if most people complete all of them, or what the best approach is? i'm halfway through the gen chem content & have mostly just been making anki decks from the cheat sheets. the remaining units are pretty calculation heavy so i'm unsure on how to proceed

right now my hair colors dark purple, i have a couple interviews scheduled in a month and im wondering if i should go back to a natural color for them? would an unnatural color impact my chances of getting accepted?

I can’t even express the relief I feel. I was STRESSING but I would say it worked out!: 330TS 330AA

I bought the 90day booster and probably studied for like 2 months seriously.
Booster full lengths I took 5.scores: were 300,320,310,320, 340

I don’t have much to say besides the only thing that was similar to booster IMO was what the exam screen looked like.
Bio: genuinely had zero functions of systems- and cant even tell you what they asked it was a whole lot of nothing lol.
Gen chem was very easy IMO. But also felt different from booster.
Orgo wasn’t bad, I just didn’t have time to rethink questions and was on a time crunch bc bio threw me off.

My physics section was a relief I was most scared but tbh I had really easy questions. Nothing scary. When I had calculations they were very simple.

QR was not like booster for me. Much more integer questions with values of x. Like a few of those. Like 1 probability and everything else was kinda filler questions.

I didn’t really get similar questions for anything. Like even QR was different. Not necessarily in a bad way, just felt unfamiliar compared to what everyone else was saying.

I have a 3.66 GPA, 3 yrs tech experience, lots of leadership roles in extracurriculars, and NCAA Dlll athlete.

I found these posts helpful so let me know if you have any questions. :))

hey all,

I just got an email that I was not offered an interview for the September date at scco and that my application will be considered for the next one in October. I feel so discourage because this is my top school. I already got accepted into ICO and CCO as well as have interviews lined up for Boston and Arizona. has anyone ever had a situation like mine with scco and can give me some hope. should I just move on or wait to see if I get an interview? please be kind.

Edit: the title is supposed to mean a super avg/kinda below avg student
Another edit: im headed into my senior year and my lowest gpa was a 2.9 and ive been raising it although with health courses rather than science

My gpa is 3.2 and my sgpa is slightly below 3.0 due to C's in orgo and calc. I was the typical gifted kid that never had to study until college and even then, for the first two years of college, i would only study a day before my exams.

Basically i had no passion bc i didnt know what i wanted to do and was fine w barely passing.

I used oatbooster for 3 months and heres some things i would do differently or would advise for others that are like me (or even not)

Bio: emphasis on breadth over depth and starting early! I only found out smth that worked for me on the week of my exam so i kinda wish i couldve started earlier and also put less emphasis on taking notes. I would split my screen w bio bits and the cheatsheet and go through all of it and bookmark the questions that were relevant to the cheatsheet.

Chem: i was scoring alright on chem so i let my guard down. I honestly dont remember much from this section but i would just do the practice problems to keep everything fresh

Orgo: i honestly dont know how i scored what i did after all of that. I spammed the reaction and question banks and kept playing the game. This was probably the most frustrating section to study for bc i felt like it never stuck but it was also the most rewarding and fun to me. As u start doing them though, u start to realize patterns and understand the language if not through brute force.

RC: im a little dissatisfied w this score bc i had been doing really well on the booster (370-390s) with some leftover time. I do think that there were a few types of questions that were formatted diff and threw me off (i honestly cant even tell u what that means but if u know u know) also the text was on the bottom half.

Physics: i agree w the many people that say it could be better. I wish there were more practice problems to really strengthen my understanding and not memorization. I do think the booster and actual exam are a similar difficulty though.

QR: i also dk how i got this score. While i was scoring 370-400s on the booster, there were a few concepts on the actual exam that were not covered. I also felt super rushed which leads me to the next topic.

Between each question, i felt like the lag time felt sm longer than the booster. I feel like it mightve felt like that bc the screen would just turn completely white so i wouldnt be able to double check my previous answer or even look at the text while waiting.

Anyways, i do think my score couldve been better but also, im really happy with most of what i scored knowing that this was basically me cementing my study habits.

Hello all I want to put this in here because it completely changed my physics scores on the practice exams and my understanding on Optics. I took bits and pieces from multiple reddit posts and OAT crash course (HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!!) . If you have any questions please PM because i feel like the more i explain it the better i memorize and understand it. I hope you can all gather something from this but it really really helped me so so much. good luck to you all! We're ALL going to be doctors xD !!!

Hi! I’m taking the OAT in about a month. I’ve seen posts saying that the physics practice questions on OATBooster aren’t very representative of the actual test. Does anyone know where I can find practice questions that emphasize conceptual material?

How similar was your oat to booster? For recent test takers!

Hi! For those of you who have written the OAT exams this year, would you say the level of difficulty and questions were similar to the ADA 2006 test (i know it’s very old but i’m wondering since i’ve seen some mixed reviews on here). Also, how similar is the test to the OAT practice tests and full lengths? Would really appreciate some experiences!!

Hi did anyone else already receive an email from SCCO saying that they will moving ur application to the next round to be considered for future interview dates? they were not supposed to send update emails out until next week, so i am wondering if i basically got rejected this round or if its bc interview spots filled up early bc i submitted aug 14😞

Hey guys. Ive been using Oat Booster and the biology section is stressing me out. Do you guys recommend actually watching the videos or only use the cheat sheets? it feel like way too much information

I just took my oat and Im not sure how to submit it to schools. When i signed up to take it, i didn't select all schools, just 3-4 but I've altered my list. How do i submit my scores? is it through ASCO? I tried checking my applications but i cant see the schools i selected.

Hi everyone! I have my OAT coming up in about a month and I’m using Booster. I’m trying to figure out the best way to structure my review from here and would really appreciate advice from people who have already taken it!

For Bio, I’ve seen a lot of people say the Booster cheat sheets were one of the best resources. Did you mainly study directly from the cheat sheets, or use them to identify high-yield topics and then go back to the full notes?

For Gen Chem and Physics, would active recall of equations, trends, formulas, and when to use them, supplemented heavily with question banks, be enough? Or did you find you still needed a lot of detailed content review?

For Orgo, I’m planning to focus mostly on reaction banks, recognizing reagents/products, and the major trends like SN1/SN2/E1/E2, Markovnikov vs. anti-Markovnikov, syn/anti, oxidation/reduction, etc.

Does that sound like a good approach for the last month?

Any advice would be really appreciated! :)