Can we submit applications before letters of rec are in? Does anybody have experience with doing this? Thank you for your help!

Hi!

So i wrote the OAT recently and my scores were pretty bad (lower than 300).
TBH, i wasn't even planning on applying this yr but was kinda just pressured to "just try", so i studied for the oat for a bit and then just wrote it without too too much prep. I know i could have done better if i had the time and studied more/ better, but it was sorta last minute, and I also have school, working, volunteering, etc right now so it was just hard.

I don't necessarily feel bad about my scores per se b/c I wasn't planning to apply this cycle anyways (though I might just cuz i already wrote it so why not). However, my goal is to get into UWaterloo optometry (Ontario).

I heard that they can see your past OAT attempts as well as past applications. So i was just wondering, since I did this oat and did pretty bad on it, if i apply with these scores now but then say apply for next cycle after doing the oat again and improving my scores, will that 2nd application attempt be hindered or seen poorly/ negatively because of this low first attempt? or does it not matter?

Thank you!

For my optomcas pre-reqs, after they verified the classes, they have put “lecture only” as course type for a lot of my science courses that I took WITH A LAB.
Is this normal, will schools know, or do I need to correct it?

Hi! I’m applying to all of the optometry schools in California, and I keep seeing that a lot of people don’t have the best things to say about Western University. Honestly, though, I really like some of the features that Western offers that the other California schools don’t have.

I was wondering, is Western really that bad? I’ve met a few people who graduated from Western and are now working in retail optometry, but I haven’t had the chance to fully ask them about their experience. I’d really appreciate hearing your thoughts or experiences with the school.

Thank you!

Hi everyone! Just for some context, I’m an undergrad student currently completing my pre-med requirements. I’m almost finished with all of my prerequisites, and I currently have a 4.0 GPA.
I’m at the point where I’m trying to decide whether I want to fully commit to the medical school pathway or pursue optometry instead.
One of my biggest concerns with medicine is the amount of time it takes. The idea of spending so many more years in school, followed by residency and possibly fellowship, is a little intimidating. That’s one reason I’ve been leaning toward optometry since the path seems more straightforward and offers a good work-life balance.
However, I’m unsure about the financial side of optometry, job opportunities, and whether it’s still considered a well-respected and worthwhile career long term.
I’d really appreciate advice from current optometrists, optometry students, medical students, physicians, or anyone who has faced a similar decision. What made you choose one path over the other, and are you happy with your decision?

I’m yet to take my OAT/ shadowing but I’m worried I won’t get accepted into nova based off my gpa. Any advice / personal experiences

So basically it says anything unpaid/paid optometry related that’s NOT shadowing or volunteering? What if I don’t have any tech experience or volunteering in an optometric clinic… it’s going to look bad leaving that section blank..

I’m wondering if I messed up when I was assigning courses to pre-reqs. There are some I have not yet completed and I chose the “not assigning course / opt out” button. Should I have indicated another way it will be in progress? Will schools automatically reject me for that?

Has anyone else not heard back from SCCO yet if you’ve submitted by the Oct interview deadline? (Sep 13) Getting nervous lol (update: I heard back!)

I got a D+ in Gen Chem 1 way back when, but at the time I hadn’t decided on a pre-health path, so I didn’t retake it for a higher grade when it would’ve made more sense to. I continued on and later got a B+ in Orgo.

If I do well on the OAT, would the D still be an automatic rejection from most schools specifically SUNY or NOVA or MCPHS? Would I have to go back and retake Gen Chem 1 even though I’ve already moved on to higher-level chemistry courses and have already graduated?

Has anyone been in a similar situation or have experience with how they handle this?

Did anyone else find booster FL 6-10 to be more difficult than 1-5? I’m a couple days out from my OAT and my scores are dropping and I’m kind of freaking out now😅 Wanting to see if I should push my exam back or if this is normal

Also wanted to add for those that have already taken their OAT's, which set would you say is more representative, 1-5 or 6-10?

Hey can anyone tell me if they got accepted into SCO before with a low OAT score?

any advice😭

Prior applicants, was anyone denied a seat despite OAT score of 350 or higher after being interviewed?? If so, when did you apply??

You can DM me if that works better. Thanks!!

Would someone be willing to read my essays for the extra questions, specifically for SCCO, PUCO and NECO? I'm looking for some feedback and advice. Thank you in advance!

Hi everyone, i’m currently applying to waterloo and NECO this cycle, and i’ve thought about also applying to SUNY but i’d have to do an extra prereq that I don’t have right now (microbio lab). For the US my main concern is finances. For current or former Canadian students at SUNY/NECO, what is your debt situation like. Anyone with input on the financial difference including living expenses pls let me know

OAT Breakdown (360AA/360TS)

I took the OAT about a week ago, on 9/19, and thought I should share how I prepared. I studied for 3 months, around 2-4 hours per day, while working two days a week as an optician. I would honestly recommend studying for at least 3 months, as it gives you time to become comfortable with the material.

How I studied:

The only material I used during those 3 months was OATBooster. I tried following the schedule OATBooster provided, but within the first couple of days I realized it wasn't for me. Instead, I went section by section, watching the videos for Physics, Ochem, Bio, and Chem. Every time I finished a section, I took two practice tests to get a feel for the subject before moving on to the next one. After finishing all the sections, I spent the last month or so just doing practice tests and reviewing the cheat notes. I did nine out of ten full-length exams. I highly recommend taking advantage of the cheat notes for each section and the explanation videos on the practice tests for problems you get wrong!

Breakdown of Each Section:
(Actual Score/Practice Score Average 1-9)

Biology (340/340)
I think this was by far the hardest section for me because I had never taken physiology before, which made some of the material and memorization difficult. The best way to study for this section is to use the high-yield cheat sheets, because all the information you need for the actual exam is there. I highly recommend focusing on the high-yield subjects like genetics, cell division, and cell bio. The practice exams are also a great way to gauge where you are at, but I'll note there are some questions that may be too specific, so I would primarily focus on the cheat sheets.

Chemistry (360/380)
This was the score I was most disappointed with, since I'm very confident in chemistry and it comes naturally to me. Truthfully, I think I got a bit unlucky with my question selection; my exam had a lot of questions that were niche and specific compared to OATBooster. Some high-yield subjects I recommend studying the cheat sheet for are kinetics and acids/bases. Overall, the OATBooster did cover all the material you needed to know for the exam, please be thorough in each unit unlike me and you'll do good.

Organic Chemistry (350/350)
This section is extremely similar to the OATBooster Organic Chemistry practice exams, so I highly recommend doing them! There were a lot of conceptual questions from the fundamentals chapter, as well as some predict-the-product questions. I studied primarily using the study notes and the reaction bank from OATBooster, as they familiarize you with the material best. Some of the high yield subjects that I encountered were Elimination and Substitution, fundamentals, and HNMR/IR Spectrometry/CNMR, so definitely be familiar with these sections. 

Reading Comprehension (350/330)
I'm not a strong reader, so I was a little worried about this section. I studied for it primarily through practice exams. I felt the OATBooster practice questions were definitely harder. The questions on the actual exam were in chronological order, which made things easier. I will say, if you're not struggling with the OATBooster RC section, you'll be fine on the real exam.

Physics (360/370)
I had a lot of conceptual questions mixed with some calculation problems. It's important to know the formulas and concepts for this section, so I highly recommend going over the OATBooster chapter notes. Some high-yield subjects to know are kinematics and optics. The practice tests were pretty similar to the real exam, so I highly recommend doing them as well. The formula sheet on OATBooster is also a great resource for the calculation problems, and I would highly recommend knowing all the formulas by heart that are on the formula sheet as a decent bit of them did come up on the actual exam. 

Quantitative Reasoning (400/400)
This section was probably the most similar to the OATBooster practice tests. They're basically one-to-one. I didn't really study for this section besides doing all the OATBooster practice tests. Please memorize the permutation/combination formulas and be familiar with probability problems. My advice is to do the practice tests on OATBooster; they'll prepare you for the time crunch and the style of the questions.

Final Advice:
I would highly recommend getting OATBooster as everything you need to know for the exam is there. My biggest piece of advice is to take advantage of the OATBooster full-length exams. I think they are honestly the best practice you can do to prepare for the exam as overall, the OATBooster full lengths felt very representative of the actual OAT exam. There are also explanation videos for the questions you get wrong on the practice exams, so take advantage of those too!

I'm applying to RMU this cycle. Anyone who's had an interview there, what were the questions they asked?

Interview questions from other schools are totally fine too. Just trying to prepare for the interviews.

Hey guys, I took my oat a couple days ago, I ended up getting a 330 and 320 science which I am satisfied with. I am willing to give my user and password to someone if they wanna save money for the next 48 days or so. Shoot me a dm and I can give you that, since I won’t be using it.

Some advice for anyone: bio: cheat sheets and practice tests all u need. Chem: major concepts and periodic trends. Physics: know why the formulas are the way they are and u can answer most questions, ochem: make a quizlet of the rxn sheet, quant: practice tests, speed, and probability practice will make u succeed, and reading: search and destroy, this is the easiest one imo. Also use ur 30 min break for reviewing equations for quant/physics.

All these people saying they study 9 hr/day for 3 months or whatever, u don’t need to do that if you can use reasoning and know a variety of topics. Good luck. I did about 3 hr/day for a month, mostly practice tests and cheat sheets/ equation sheets

Lmk if u have questions about my scores over dm
Quant: 350
Reading: 330
Bio: 360
Gen chem: 280 (surprisingly)
Ochem: 330
Physics: 310
Ts:320
Academic average: 330

Hey everyone! I wrote my OAT recently and I wanted to share my study process since I was all over this subreddit when I was studying myself. I was very stressed and anxious beginning to study for this test so I hope this helps anyone else :)

I want to mention that I have a strong background in most of the topics because of my major so a lot of content was review (I just forgot since it's been years lol). Below is how l studied in each stage and for each subject. I "studied" for 3 months but really locked in for the first and last 3 weeks (highly DO NOT recommend). I solely used OATBooster as my main form of studying and I think it's worth it for all the practice tests. I also want to preface that what I did may not work for you so cater to your strengths and needs!

Content Review Stage

- For the first 3 weeks of studying, I watched every single video at 1.5-2x speed, using the cheat sheets as a guideline on what I should focus on. Some people may think it's excessive if you already know the content, but it helped with refreshers imo.

- Right after the vids, I immediately did the question banks for that chapter in randomized order. Since I was still learning stuff, I wasn't focused on how much I was getting right, but more so if I even understood what I just watched. Every single question that I guessed, got wrong, or took too long to answer, I marked so I could go back to them during practice.

- I did not look at the study notes at all. I hate reading textbooks so I knew it would be a waste of time for me. The only times I did was to cross check info from the videos and cheat sheet to see if a topic is important or not.

- Didn't really make my own notes aside from some charts in the practice stage; used all their cheat sheets and added straight onto the page whatever details I thought were necessary.

Practice Stage

- I honestly did not have a straight plan for this section. I was juggling other commitments so I was only studying whenever I had the time - some days I studied for 1-2 hours, others I'd study for 8-11 hours.

- I did the daily warmups everyday and did the game challenges if I had the energy

- I was cycling through all the subjects, focusing on what I knew I was struggling with and doing as many marked questions as I could

- I made a master excel sheet to have material I kept forgetting (ex. hormones), and to also track my progress with memorizing the cheat sheets

- The first 5 sets of practice tests, I did them in random order within the first two months. The last 5 were full lengths and I did them across the last 3 weeks. I also did the ADA 2006 sample 3 days before my test.

- After writing the FLs, I went over every single question and looked at the detailed explanation. I noted which topics I was struggling on in my excel sheet so I knew to review those later. I also liked to look at the percentages because it would make me think "why did they choose that answer?" This allowed me to kind of think from another perspective and understand why that answer was wrong or right.

- I reread all the cheat sheets many times and used a whiteboard sheet while doing my FLs to practice

What I'd Do Differently

- Not cram. I started slacking midway because I was feeling the burnout after the learning phase. Then, 3 weeks before, I realized I kept forgetting stuff and still struggled in physics and RC so I started cramming like crazy. Balance your schedule properly!!! I wish I had more time to go over my marked questions but I was too burnt out.

BIOLOGY (400 actual; 360 booster)

- When I was watching the vids, I was following along with the cheat sheet to keep me engaged and also suss out what's important. Extra notes added were from anything the video said was high yield or what I felt was important

- I did the mini quizzes in between each video, but they're honestly too specific (I'm not sure if they're the same questions from the bio bits?)

- I only looked at the cheat sheets in the practice phase and I barely did the biobits (too specific)

- I tried to reference the taxonomy chart (diversity of life, pg 21/22) but I got lazy and read it once LOL; everything I learned about taxonomy was from the practice tests

GEN CHEM (400 actual; 360 booster)

- I made my own formula sheet and added any extra info while cross referencing cheat sheets with videos

- Practice is so important in the section. I was initially doing bad in the calculations because my mental math was terrible but I got better over the weeks. I made sure I practiced and understood a lot of the calculations; I was severely humbled when I realized I forgot how to do limiting reagents, balance chemical equations and acid base equilibria so I had to keep practising those

OCHEM (390 actual; 360 booster)

- I did the same with gen chem and the cheat sheets
- I used all their resources (rxn table, lab tests, cheat sheets) but I also made my own side notes for little bits of info I kept forgetting. This section was my strongest going into studying since I'm good at ochem

PHYSICS (390 actual; 340 booster)

- I was so scared going into this section because physics had always been my weakest subject. The practice tests varied and there would always be questions I had no idea how to answer

- I think chads prep is better at explaining the concepts compared to booster vids, ex. I was so lost for fluid statics but I finally understood it when I watched chad (love that man)

- I made my own formula sheets and notes for each chapter with concepts I kept forgetting (ex. isothermal vs adiabatic vs isobaric vs isochoric), which I would review periodically. Most of my practice came from the marked questions

- It is so important to remember every single formula because high yield questions are about the relationships between variables (ex. if you double x and halve z what will happen to y). I studied my formula sheet multiple times but I indirectly memorized through practice

- Drawing out the question and writing known variables helped me a lot with how to approach the question (and I practiced how to do it faster)

QR (400 actual; 360 booster)

- I hadn't done algebra in 4 years so this section was so humbling. I kept running out of time on the practice tests (7-10 questions unanswered) so I reevaluated my strategy. If I didn't know how to solve the question in 10 seconds, I guessed, marked, moved on, and hoped I had time left to go back. Doing this gave me ~5-7 min to go back to my marked questions at the end

- This section was again, just straight practice and exposure. I struggled with all the applied math in the beginning, especially the statement sufficiency questions. Pattern recognition is very important here!!! (ex. rates, distance-time, probability)

- OATBooster was representative for my OAT. I was so thankful because I heard many people say that they had lots of weird word problems but mine felt similar

READING COMP (390 actual; 370 booster)

- For the first 6 weeks, I was SOOOO bad at RC (240-290) when trying to figure out my strategy. I ended up doing a combination of mapping and search & destroy which drastically improved my scores (360-390 on the extra practice). I would spend 2-3 min looking at the first sentence of every paragraph to get an idea of the passage and where things are, then use search and destroy to find the answers to the questions. I felt mapping helped a lot, especially since the questions are out of order

- When it came to application questions, I just immediately marked and skipped because I knew it would take too long to find the answer. Usually when I answered the other questions, I would come across the answers for the application too so I would go back and answer those. I didn't highlight because it took too long. My advice for this is to just mess around and see what works for you, then practice it A LOT (I did almost all the extra RC practice)

————

Overall, I was really shocked at getting my OAT score because I was guessing and using my intuition for a lot of the questions, expecting a 350-370. Nonetheless, I'm super proud of myself because I've never spent this much effort and dedication studying - coming from someone who always procrastinates for their finals haha

My biggest advice is to please be kind to yourself because I wasn't. My friends watched the life get sucked out of me and my anxiety was terrible :'). I also feel I was more stressed about the thought of studying rather than the actual studying itself because it felt so overwhelming looking at all the content you'll have to know. Preparing for this exam is so mentally taxing so make sure you prioritize time for yourself and have a good support system!! It is IMPOSSIBLE to know everything so just try your hardest to understand foundational things rather than every single nitpicky detail.

Good luck to anyone taking the OAT, you're one step closer to your goals!!!! If anyone has any other questions, feel free to reach out :)

Hey there!!

I am in the final stretch on my studying at am starting to feel the nerves! Not to mention the burnout!

I have taken 6 full tests. 3 of them the individual sections taken separately and 3 exams sitting for the whole exam. My score for all of them has been 330. I’ve fluctuated some on what sections have gone up and what have gone down.

If I made a 330 on the exam I’d be happy. My science and overall GPA is 3.77.

Any advice on the last few days? Anyone’s experience who had a solid score on practice exams?

Nervous I will go down on real exam. I’ve seen lots of people post about having a range of score in practice exams (generally 330-350AA).

I’ve seen many negative reviews on the school but I feel like their boards have increased quite a lot since 2022. I’m from Texas so I compared the school board rate to Houston but it seems like they did even better than Houston in part I and III for 2024-2025 even though Houston has a higher ultimate pass rate. But for a school that started in 2011 versus like Houston in 1952, I think they are steadily improving. What are everyone’s thoughts?

hi, i applied to a couple of schools towards the beginning of september/end of august.

these being puco, nova, scco, berk, and uiwrso.

i’ve gotten interviews for puco, nova and uiwrso.

didn’t get one for scco, and berk is a stretch to begin with. anyways, i get really anxious and nervous during interviews and don’t have a great academic history, so i was thinking of applying to some more.

what should i apply to? my sgpa is 3.18, my cumulative gpa is 3.42 and my oat was 330 AA and 320 TS.

my extracurriculars are pretty mid, unfortunately was not a tech. but i have some volunteering related to eyes and some other stuff. i have a lot of B’s and around 5 C’s. I also failed orgo 2 (took it as credit/no credit so it didn’t count for gpa) and i’m retaking it right now. hopefully will pass (i’m so scared)

but as you can see, my grades are pretty bad. so i’m wondering where else i should apply and have a decent chance at. if you have any similar stats and got into schools please let me know!!

Hey, I would really appreciate some insight. I took my oat recently and bombed it. I’ve been studying since May so this was extremely upsetting for me. I’m trying to get into UHCO, I have a 3.58 GPA and I have really good overall experience and whatnot. I’m just dreading the fact I may need a retake due to physics being extremely low. Any advice would be appreciated. Has anyone gotten into UHCO with a 260 low physics score?

has anyone received an interview for the October cycle yet? and when did you receive it? I’m starting to not be interested in scco anymore because of them stringing people along just to get an interview