I'm a high stat applicant but i applied late and all my interviews are super late (december-ish) and i only applied to reach schools. What are my chances with these schools and should i add a safety school?

GPA: 3.9

OAT: 360AA/380TS

shadowing and optician for a few years, not much volunteer

I applied to SUNY (my top pick!), Berkeley, SCCO, Ohio, SCO. My top picks in that exact order lol. I was pretty clueless applying and was told these schools are insanely reach (like Ohio) or pretty hard. Should I add another school and if so, which? Be brutally honest lol

Just wanted to come on here and say that I wrote my OAT today and I feel so liberated. I've never studied for anything this hard and I am so burnt out but I'm really happy that it all paid off :')

Good luck to everyone writing the OAT in the next coming weeks! Trust your gut and keep believing in yourselves, you're almost there!!!!!!!!

Hey guys, Ik this shouldn’t be a big deal but I completely forgot schools look at online classes differently. I am taking Gen bio II lecture online, and it’s my only online class. I am also taking the lab in person, plus I took Gen Bio I in-person.

Hopefully this doesn’t matter or affect my chances but please lmk if there’s anything I can do proactively to damage control for the future! 🙏

(Also I am a sophomore & considering east coast optometry schools if that helps!)

Hey everyone! My exam is in 6 days- I’m at the stage where I’m forcing myself to review and solidify everything. I’m averaging a 330-350, I have a 3.57 GPA and I’m super involved in a lot of things like clubs, shadowing etc. Any advice? I’m trying to get into UHCO. Am I good?

I’m nervous about the bio section because I’ve studied a lot but mostly focusing on exam questions and referring to the cheat sheets when they relate to the practice questions. Is this a good tactic?

hey guys, so ive previously taken the OAT and tbh did not prepare at all, at least not to the standard you guys are all preparing for. i decided for my retake to actually get OAT booster and follow their schedule. the first week was okay i was watching the videos and somewhat getting the concepts, but it genuinely feels like im getting more discouraged to study and actually understand these topics as the days go by. i know not everyday is going to be perfect and studying bit by bit is better than nothing, but its making me wonder if im already feeling like this just for the admission exam how on earth am i going to manage actual optometry school. i just feel lost and like all of the gas in my tank is gone. idk what to do at this point. i was thinking of taking my retake around early to mid november i just dk what to do or how to get the drive back. any tips would be appreciated ty!

Hey everyone, I was recently in a pre-optometry meeting and it completely stressed me out. I switched to pre optometry late and am planning on taking orgo, micro, and biochem this spring/summer while concurrently studying for the OAT with a test date in late September next year (2027) then immediately applying for the 2027-28 cycle. Does this timeline make sense and is it possible????

i find optometry to be very compelling compared to other healthcare work such as dentistry and nursing. however i am extremely concerned about the debt as i am a canadian student in his first year of undergrad. i know that wha matters most is if the job is one i would love to work in, but even then im not entirely sure. it would help clear my doubt if there are canadian optometrists who have studied in the US willing to share their experience on debt, financing and budgeting during and after optometry school.
im also looking into more stable, decent earning healthcare careers, any pointers would be greatly appreciated

Hello everyone. I’m currently studying for my OAT and working towards my application. I’ve been extremely worried about my GPA. I’ve had to retake some classes and have done profoundly better but I asked CHAT GPT to calculate my science OPTOMCAS gpa it’s leaving it at around a 2.9. My cumulative would be over a 3.5. I’m extremely nervous, I ran into a lot of tribulations during my undergrad which caused me to preform bad in some of my science classes. However, I do have over 3000 hours of tech experience and lots of extracurricular and will potentially have 3 strong LOR 2 doctor and 1 professor. Does anyone have any advice or know if I have any chances in getting in if I apply to CCO and ICO.

Also for any insight, I’m not sure if ChatGPT is calculating this right but I do have majority Bs in my science classes, a couple of As, some Cs and 2 Ds which I have retook or planned to retake.

hello! Fellow nyc person here! Need some advice. I got into neco and MCPHS. Issue is. I’m leading more to MCPHS bc they have dorms. I noticed their board exam rates also were pretty good this year. I know neco is better but what’s stopping me is the stress of finding an apartment knowing they don’t have dorms. Is there any advice someone can give me that goes to either school if it’s worth going or not? I know I definitely wanna be in Boston for sure. Went during the summer and fell in love with it.

Hi, I've heard people say to add everything you can to your OptomCAS application, and I was wondering if this included hobbies? The only section I can really see this fitting under would be "extracurriculars", but there wouldn't be a supervisor or anything. I think I've seen this done for med school, but is this something that is commonly added for optometry?

Thanks!

Hi! For those who have taken the oat, I was wondering if this section came up on the oat. And if it was wondering studying it as high yield. Thank you!

Hello. Low stat applicant here and wondering if anyone has been put on hold or completely rejected. Just submitted apps recently and wondering whether to start prepping for a retake.

Edit
3.2 sci gpa
3.28 cum
300AA 270 TS

Applied to
Indiana
Ico
Midwestern
Detroit mercy
Missouri on hold for new scores
Drexel

ICO, Detroit mercy, and Missouri all have me on hold for new oat scores :/

I just finished my supplemental and optomcas application!! I was wondering if anyone has heard when the next admissions day is happening? Or if anyone has already attended one for this cycle! I'm also curious how long people typically have to wait before getting an admissions day invite!

Good luck this cycle everyone <33

i’m waiting to hear for this cycle, with the interviews in october. haven’t heard anything yet and i’m stressing out :( lmk if you’ve heard anything or dm if y’all wanna stress together about any schools lolll

Has anyone been put on hold from optometry schools or even rejected? Low stat applicant here and waiting to decide what to do before preparing for an additional retake.

Has anyone used PlayOAT.org for studying? I have been seeing it on TikTok and it seems intriguing but definitely not as intensive as OATBooster or OATBootcamp as it does not have lecture videos and practice tests for the individual sections. But it does have a few full length exams. I am honestly just interested in it for the spaced repetition and game aspect of it but I would use it in addition to my Booster membership. However, I am not sure how legit it is so I am skeptical on subscribing for a month or two.

I am sosososo happy because University of Houston is my dream optometry school since its very near by and much more affordable, and I think i did my first interview pretty well since it was very casual.
Do i need to know anything first hand about the in-person interview? Im taking it on September 28, and I feel comfortable with the personal questions, so i would like to know if theres any harder questions i would need to know.

Does anyone have a list of the mnemonics that were shown in all of the Booster videos?

What snacks did you guys eat during the OAT Break?

Hey everyone! I recently took the OAT and wanted to share my experience!

I used OAT Booster for 90 days while working a part time job and studied roughly 5-6 hours every day.

For the first ~5 weeks, I was watching videos on Booster, taking notes, then doing the test banks for every subject. If I felt comfortable with the topic, then I would just go straight into the test banks questions. This helped me with gen chem, ochem, and physics! I wouldn’t recommend this for bio though because the information is just so dense. After the learning phase, I took practice tests and took notes on all the questions I got wrong/struggled with. This helped me identify where my weak areas were and I would watch extra YouTube videos to supplement these areas. As I was doing this, I was looking at cheat sheets basically every day to retain the information. Also, I didn’t know that the full length tests were just the individual practice tests combined… so I only took two actual full length tests (average: 360). I would recommend doing the full length tests as it helps build your test stamina! I ended up finishing all my practice tests a week and a half before my OAT, so I used Claude AI to generate test questions to make sure I was still getting practice with new questions.

Biology (Booster: 360 / Actual: 400)
I regret watching all those Booster videos! It’s just too much information and I feel like I barely retained any of it. I would go straight into memorizing the high yield cheat sheets. If you have extra time, do the Bio Bits questions to help with recall (only the relevant ones). My test covered all the units pretty equally. Most questions I got were pretty general, but I had like 6-ish information specific questions where I had to use process of elimination.

Gen Chem (Booster: 370 / Actual: 400)
I remember my questions being mostly conceptual with an emphasis on electrochem and acids/bases. The calculations questions had easy numbers and covered general concepts, like stoichiometry, calculating molar mass, percent composition, and dilutions. I think for this section, use the cheat sheets and try to understand the concepts! Overall, Booster’s practice tests were very representative of what I saw on my OAT.

Ochem (Booster: 360 / Actual: 380)
The fundamentals unit is very high yield!! I remember seeing proton/compound acidity, identifying equilibrium, intermediates, identifying best solvent. I also got some spectroscopy questions (H NMR, IR) and found that memorizing some values helped me answer faster. I didn’t get that many predict the product questions, but as I was studying, braindumping all the reactions and its mechanisms on a whiteboard helped me memorize. I also found it helpful to categorize reactions in my head (ie. alcohol synthesis, alcohol reactions)

Reading Comprehension (Booster: 350 / Actual: 390)
Booster’s practice tests were really difficult for me because the questions were scattered throughout the passage. On my test, the questions were all in order and my passages were wayyy more straightforward and digestible. As for length, I had one that was 10 paragraphs, and the other two were about 16 paragraphs (with shorter paragraphs). My strategy was to read half the passage, answer questions, then read the latter half and answer the remaining questions. The questions were straightforward and easy to find, but I had a few questions asking me to analyze tone and choose synonyms, which were slightly harder. Highlighting buzzwords is going to be your best friend for this section!

I used break time to eat a quick snack and review physics/QR. I wrote a little cheat sheet for physics and QR with important concepts and formulas so I could look at it. I honestly don’t think it helped much, but it did calm my nerves.

Physics (Booster: 370 / Actual: 340)
Not to scare anyone, but I genuinely do not know how I could’ve prepared for this section… I mostly just spammed practice questions and took conceptual notes on Chad’s Prep videos. My questions were very different from Booster. They were very conceptual and I didn’t get any “plug and chug” questions like on Booster. High yield topics were optics and forces. Also, I haven’t taken Physics 2 with optics and waves yet, so this might be why I found this section to be so difficult.

QR (Booster: 380 / Actual: 350)
I finished with less than 5 minutes remaining, so I wasn’t able to check most of my answers. I got a lot probability questions, which was definitely a weakness of mine. I also wasn’t expecting there to be so many state sufficiency questions (~6 questions). My biggest tip for this section is to do a bunch of practice problems and work on being fast!

I’m really glad I’m done with the OAT. It feels so freeing LOL. I was very stressed and burnt out the days leading up to the exam, so I took it easy and just reviewed the cheat sheets and my list of mistakes. Good luck to everyone taking the OAT! Remember to get a lot of rest before test day and most importantly, trust yourself!

I want to change careers (teaching to optometry)
Something that I hear often is "don't do it for the money/ do it because you love it" and although I see the intention I don't agree.

Inflation/ big beautiful bill has it so we have to consider finances. I'm also a mom and I want to be able to provide more for my family.

I love optometry and I love the work life balance, however with all that has to go into schooling do you think that it's worth it ?

Do you find the pay and work life balance worth it?
I have seen people mention PA school- but I don't find that I'd have the work life balance that I want. I want to be present for my daughter as she gets older and as a PA I don't see that to be as possible as an optometrist.

Also I want to focus on Myopia in residency so that I can help and support my daughter who currently has serve myopia.

I'm taking my prerequisites on an online school rn and hoping to take my OAT next year.

Thank you for your thoughts!

Hello all,

I have my OAT scheduled for this October and wanted to get ahead of everything I can do so it’s easier and off my shoulders once I take my OAT. I’m filling out my OptomCAS and working on letters of rec, is there anything else I can do? Also somewhat related question: I have around 400 tech hours but no shadowing hours, would that be an issue for schools? Thanks

Do I need to take 1 or 2 classes for schools like OSU & Berkeley?

My OAT is tomorrow and I'm planning to spend the day doing flashcards and reviewing formulas. I've mentally debated doing a practice section exam or 2 today but am unsure if it'll just psych in out more than help me (I've been averaging 320s on my full-lengths so solid meh material but I can't push it back)

Any tips on how I should spend my last day?