(US News) By Delece Smith-Barrow-
Every medical school applicant seems to ask, “What score do I need to get on the MCAT to be a competitive candidate?” One student was told by his teacher that he must rank in the 95th percentile on the new test – which is not the case.
All the admissions officers that I know are using the percentile rank, but I don’t know anyone who is looking only at 95 and up – a raw score of 516-528. From a statistical standpoint, it makes no sense to look only at the raw score and try to split hairs. The percentile rankings are much more realistic.
The medical school admissions requirements on the Association of American Medical Colleges website no longer include the mean score for any school. The unsanctioned lists on the Web are using only the old scores from the prior test.
Remember that between 25 and 26 was the 50th percentile rank before 2015. With the current admissions season ending only now, no one knows the percentile ranking, range or mean that other schools considered this year.
The AAMC encouraged all schools to consider that students who rank in the 50th percentile – a raw score of roughly 500 – and above should be able to handle the work of a medical student successfully and pass the United States Medical Licensing Exam.
This is not to say that a student with a score of 500 will be accepted into every school. However, it does mean that admissions committees were encouraged not to get fixated on a cutoff number. Our school did have a broader range if one compared percentile rankings from the prior year. Hopefully others did the same. The raw scores remain from 472 to 528.
With the numbers for the next season – May 1, 2016, to April 30, 2017 – 500 is now the 53rd percentile rank. The AAMC reports that “79% of total scores were equal to or less than 508” from April through September last year.
Every May 1, the AAMC updates the numbers. Next year, two years of results will be analyzed, and the following year, three years of results will be included. The more exam results they include, the more helpful the statistics should be.
The four subscales remain in place:
1. Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems (59 questions in 95 minutes)
2. Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems (59 questions in 95 minutes)
3. Psychological, Social and Biological Foundations of Behavior (59 questions in 95 minutes)
4. Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills (53 questions in 90 minutes)
For students who haven’t practiced interpreting data, the fourth subscale may be the hardest. The data can be displayed in graphs, figures, tables or another format. The questions are much more about using what you know rather than memorizing facts.
Schools can teach you a lot of facts, but can you untangle what they mean and accurately make sense of them? Students should not only practice with research data, but also take a statistics class.
Many schools are looking closely at the fourth subscale. We have seen a few students do well on it and not as well on the others, though, generally, this one has been tougher.
The other three subscales require you to know chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, biology and physics. Many schools, including ours, recommend taking psychology and sociology.
If you haven’t read extensively in these areas, completed a lot of Khan Academy courses or otherwise prepared, don’t take the MCAT until you have done so. All four subscales score from 118 to 132, with the percentile rank of 50 between 124 and 125.
Prepare well, take lots of practice exams and then give it your best. Don’t take the MCAT until you are happy with your practice scores or see that you are plateauing and are unlikely to move higher.
Eat healthy foods, exercise and get good sleep. Literature supports these healthy habits to enhance learning and test performance. You might even have to analyze some of that data on the exam!
