ADCOMS-Voiding MCAT

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GrayArea

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So, I have read a thread that covered wether or not schools will see voided attempts but there seems to be no clear answers.

Can anyone here who is an ADCOM, has been accepted, or simply has knowledge of this clarify if medical schools can see voided attempts or not, please? If they can or cannot, do they ask during interviews if you have voided an exam before?

I am kind of freaking out after reading the prior thread that states medical schools can see voided attempts...

The reason for my slight panic is because I have voided twice, and for good reason! I will explain.

The first time I voided was still when the old MCAT was being administered. I was almost two months into my studies when my grandmother passed away. She did not live in the US so my family had to make an emergency international trip. This obviously interfered with my studies, focus, etc. so there was no way I was going to be prepared. At this point I could not reschedule/cancel so I decided I would just go in and take a really expensive practice exam.

The second time was with the new MCAT, which was this year. I was dealing with my own personal health issue this year but decided to still sign up for the exam and simply do my best because I really wanted to apply this year and matriculate next fall. I studied for about 2.5 months, and for the most part felt ok. People did tell me to just sign up for the test when I felt better, but I was motivated to test and apply. Test day came and I realized that my health had indeed conflicting with my capacity. I was not able to finish a section and HAD to void.

I just signed up for the last time, but now I am worried about medical schools seing the voids. If asked, I would be honest and explain my bad luck. Hopefully that does not have to be the case though.

Should I be worried? It took a while to accept what happened on the last attempts, especially not being able to apply this year. But I did not let it keep me down, this is my dream.

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(not an Adcom)

Things come up, and it happened. Crush your future test and be honest / ready to talk about it if it does. You can't change it and you can only tell them the truth- don't worry :)
 
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Answer straight from AAMC. Last bullet point on page 24. This is their "MCAT essentials" document.
 
View attachment 210075

Answer straight from AAMC. Last bullet point on page 24. This is their "MCAT essentials" document.

I have read that bullet point before but the correct interpretation is not clear to me. Does it mean that in order to see a voided attempt the schools needs to actively go onto the system and look? Would schools actually spend time to do that if that is the case? I would think they would not considering they have thousands of applications to review.

And if they do, I am just worried as to what type of disadvantage it places me. I am not ashamed of my voided attempts, I had good reason for them. They were not something I planned for at all and if asked, I could whole heartedly explain them. I now am putting the majority of my energy into the MCAT and have gave myself a good frame of time to study to counteract any "surprises".

I really hope it does not place me at a disadvantage... Things happen in life.
 
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I have read that bullet point before but the correct interpretation is not clear to me. Does it mean that in order to see a voided attempt the schools needs to actively go onto the system and look? Would schools actually spend time to do that if that is the case? I would think they would not considering they have thousands of applications to review.

And if they do, I am just worried as to what type of disadvantage it places me. I am not ashamed of my voided attempts, I had good reason for them. They were not something I planned for at all and if asked, I could whole heartedly explain them. I now am putting the majority of my energy into the MCAT and have gave myself a good frame of time to study to counteract any "surprises".

I really hope it does not place me at a disadvantage... Things happen in life.


Don't think this will affect you at all. People void exams for many reasons. Maybe they were not feeling well, maybe a tragedy in their lives leads to a bad test day, maybe even voiding it because they didn't feel it was a fair/comfrotable testing environment. This is purely off my own speculations, but I doubt adcoms would give much weight to a voided exam as there are a multitude of reasons why a person would void, a lot of them legitimate.
 
I'm no adcom, but I personally believe that a void > bad score.

You should be fine. If they somehow know about the voids, your reasons for them are legitimate. Just make sure you do your best when you score your next exam!
 
I only took the MCAT once and didn't void any scores previously but I never had any questions regarding my score or even the test itself during all of my interviews.
 
I only took the MCAT once and didn't void any scores previously but I never had any questions regarding my score or even the test itself during all of my interviews.
What was your score? Was it so good it was not worth talking about, or is it that if you get an interview you have the numbers and so it is a moot point?
 
What was your score? Was it so good it was not worth talking about, or is it that if you get an interview you have the numbers and so it is a moot point?

I got between a 506-512. It wasn't spectacular by any means. Getting an interview indicates you can perform well enough academically so the interview serves to see if you can perform well enough socially.
 
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