MCAT2015 vs old MCAT in admissions

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Is there a consensus on how the old and new MCATs will be viewed by adcoms? How will the behavioral science section be assessed? Will the new MCAT be given more or less credibility?

I tried to find information from the AAMC regarding this issue but wasn't able to find any. Thanks!

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Is there a consensus on how the old and new MCATs will be viewed by adcoms? How will the behavioral science section be assessed? Will the new MCAT be given more or less credibility?

I tried to find information from the AAMC regarding this issue but wasn't able to find any. Thanks!
Adcoms are going to have to find a way to compare apples to apples, so presumably they will adjust the old test to a similar scale. No idea how they will compare new sections or just look at the lump numbers but certainly the latter is easier to do.
 
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Thanks @efle I appreciate you taking the time to put together the conversion chart.

I'm glad to hear that the old and new MCATs are going to be viewed similarly. I'm very curious to know how the behavioral sciences section will be assessed and how the new MSAR will take the new and old MCAT scores into account when reporting them for each school
 
On another note, how much of the applicant pool have scores from the new, old, and new+old MCAT?

If old and new MCAT scores are reported on the MSAR, I wonder how that'll affect the 10th and 90th percentile ranges for the different sections.
 
Thanks @efle I appreciate you taking the time to put together the conversion chart.

I'm glad to hear that the old and new MCATs are going to be viewed similarly. I'm very curious to know how the behavioral sciences section will be assessed and how the new MSAR will take the new and old MCAT scores into account when reporting them for each school
Composite score has always been the strongest predictor for prelim grades and step score, so I'd guess it will continue to be. For the subsections on the old one, correlations were BS slightly > PS >> Verbal >> Writing (so useless it was removed). My guess would be Bio continues to be king of the subsections, but no idea how psych/socio could fare against CARS and PS. Gyngyn has stated elsewhere that he was impressed by psych/socio and thought it more relevant to medicine than the other sections.
 
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I don't recall typing that!
I do think that applicants dismiss it at their peril.
Odd, I distinctly recall you praising the new section when someone asked whether admissions will care about it
 
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I don't recall typing that!
I do think that applicants dismiss it at their peril.
Found it

Someone asked about how adcoms will use psych/socio and you said

Having reviewed content from all these subsections, I was surprised to find this one formulated questions in a manner much more consistent with the practice of medicine than either of the science sections.
 
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Found it

Someone asked about how adcoms will use psych/socio and you said
Yes, that is true. The questions in the MCAT description were much more like day to day problems in medicine than the "hard" science questions are.
The sub-section score is not likely to be viewed as more indicative of academic promise in the pre-clinical years, though.
 
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Yes, that is true. The questions in the MCAT description were much more like day to day problems in medicine than the "hard" science questions are.
Do you think that will make it a new favorite for many in admissions? Since IIRC you've also said most people have a pet subsection they especially love to see excellence in
 
Do you think that will make it a new favorite for many in admissions? Since IIRC you've also said most people have a pet subsection they especially love to see excellence in

Pet subsections will never die.
 
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That's pretty personal...
Ok, verbal.

I would actually argue the type of skills the MCAT is trying to test would be best evaulated with a test that is like the LSAT or something which requires no outside knowledge, just like the verbal section.

The SDN dogma is to give bio the most weight. If I ever find myself on an admissions committee that is actually the section I would pay the least attention to given how many bio related classes people take in college.

The psych/soc section is a mess right now. But if the AAMC can fix it in theory it is the section I would give the most weight to.
 
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Would have to be PS for me, doesn't suffer from the ambiguity in some Verbal or draw so heavily on rote memorization like Bio. But the overall weight given to the MCAT just seems silly even though I understand why it happens. That your score is worth as much as 3-4 years of performance in your full time job as a student just feels wrong
 
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Would have to be PS for me, doesn't suffer from the ambiguity in some Verbal or draw so heavily on rote memorization like Bio. But the overall weight given to the MCAT just seems silly even though I understand why it happens. That your score is worth as much as 3-4 years of performance in your full time job as a student just feels wrong
It's the ambiguity that makes it so much like medicine...
I did like PS, but mine didn't include chemistry.
 
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I actually thought PS was the most memorization heavy section. Memorize the tricks you need, memorize the formulas you need, memorize the key trends in chemistry, and you are good to go. Bio to me was all experimental interpretation; it's a skill to a lesser extent than verbal.

I look at it the other way with the GPA vs MCAT. Why do we give so much weight to the GPA? I know why we do but to me that is what feels kind of wrong.

It's consistently been shown there is more correlation with performance in medical school to the MCAT vs GPA(although neither is a very good indicator). It's in many ways an incredibly subjective evaluation. If you ask me which factors are more to a concern of a medical school admission committee; the factors that influence a good GPA or the factors that influence a good MCAT score, the latter wins IMHO. In other countries, you dont see this type of weight on GPA's and professors classes. The standardized tests are king and tell all.

This does kind of get to that discussion we had earlier where I wish there was more than one standardized test for medical school admission like we have with UG admission. It's just really hard to standardize applicants based off one test.
 
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It's the ambiguity that makes it so much like medicine...
I did like PS, but mine didn't include chemistry.

You would appreciate this article: http://www.studentdoctor.net/2012/09/best-methods-to-improve-your-mcat-verbal-reasoning-vr-score/

It is not an exaggeration to say that performing your best on this section is likely the most important part of the MCAT experience. Schools weigh it more, possibly because it mirrors many aspects of the experience of hearing patients’ stories, evaluating the evidence for and against a diagnosis, and assessing the logic behind a particular plan for treatment. You need to develop skills to put together clues, follow a complex argument, and tell the difference between a reasonable inference and an illogical jump to conclusions. If VR passages strike you as annoyingly convoluted and the authors difficult to follow, remember that in real life, the patient stories you’re likely to encounter will be equally convoluted. The patient may well be too distracted by illness to worry about presenting things in precisely the way that you would prefer, and you may have to contend with language barriers, time pressures, and the difficulties of assessing other doctors’ opinions and recommendations as well.
 
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I actually thought PS was the most memorization heavy section. Memorize the tricks you need, memorize the formulas you need, memorize the key trends in chemistry, and you are good to go. Bio to me was all experimental interpretation; it's a skill to a lesser extent than verbal.

I look at it the other way with the GPA vs MCAT. Why do we give so much weight to the GPA? I know why we do but to me that is what feels kind of wrong.

It's consistently been shown there is more correlation with performance in medical school to the MCAT vs GPA(although neither is a very good indicator). It's in many ways an incredibly subjective evaluation. If you ask me which factors are more to a concern of a medical school admission committee; the factors that influence a good GPA or the factors that influence a good MCAT score, the latter wins IMHO. In other countries, you dont see this type of weight on GPA's and professors classes. The standardized tests are king and tell all.

This does kind of get to that discussion we had earlier where I wish there was more than one standardized test for medical school admission like we have with UG admission. It's just really hard to standardize applicants based off one test.
Grades are extremely important in the selection process of a lot of other countries! It gets at responsibility / work ethic much more than a one day test, and that's still very important. At the very least I'd expect prereq GPAs to be as good a predictor as the MCAT, since it's similar material but much more in-depth and difficult
 
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Grades are extremely important in the selection process of a lot of other countries! It gets at responsibility / work ethic much more than a one day test, and that's still very important. At the very least I'd expect prereq GPAs to be as good a predictor as the MCAT, since it's similar material but much more in-depth and difficult
Grades are important here too.
We are such a heterogeneous society that another tool needs to be employed, though.
 
Grades are extremely important in the selection process of a lot of other countries! It gets at responsibility / work ethic much more than a one day test, and that's still very important. At the very least I'd expect prereq GPAs to be as good a predictor as the MCAT, since it's similar material but much more in-depth and difficult

The studies out there havent specificed pre-req grades vs MCAT but I highly doubt the results would be much different even if they did this. sGPA and cGPA are usually very similar for applicants(within 0.1-0.2 of each other).

I think the bigger problem I have is how we try to assess that work ethic and how superficially we look at GPA, not that we need to assess "work ethic".

There are many many ways of assessing someone's work ethic beyond GPA(ie ECs and work experience). And IMHO they are often more important than what the numerical GPA shows. Someone with a 3.9 who just spends his time studying in college and is just a EC box checker doesnt necessairly come across to me as someone with a "better work ethic" than your 3.5 candidate who has alot more to offer EC wise. Schools however, will nitpick GPAs like this. Youll see people say a 3.4-3.5 is too low and a 3.5/38 indicate "smart but lazy"( I hear these things when I talk to ADCOMs I know personally). People IMO are too quick to attach a certain work ethic to a numerical GPA.

A 3.5/34 vs 3.9/34 pass boards at almost the exact same rate historically. The data shows the limitations of using the uGPA in assessing medical school performance. But yet we are still often so attached to it.

I think as much as anything you arent just trying to identify people who will do well on tests in medical school. You're trying to assess/find people who will do well in the clinic, from MS3 and beyond. I think a big part of identifying that is through someone's accountability and reliability in a work setting, which can often come by their ECs and their work history/producitivty. So if someone possesses those skills even with a low GPA, I think there is a fair chance they have just as likely a chance as the work ethic for medicine as your 3.9 box chcker.
 
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The studies out there havent specificed pre-req grades vs MCAT but I highly doubt the results would be much different even if they did this. sGPA and cGPA are usually very similar for applicants(within 0.1-0.2 of each other).

I think the bigger problem I have is how we try to assess that work ethic and how superficially we look at GPA, not that we need to assess "work ethic".

There are many many ways of assessing someone's work ethic beyond GPA(ie ECs and work experience). And IMHO they are often more important than what the numerical GPA shows. Someone with a 3.9 who just spends his time studying in college and is just a EC box checker doesnt necessairly come across to me as someone with a "better work ethic" than your 3.5 candidate who has alot more to offer EC wise. Schools however, will nitpick GPAs like this. Youll see people say a 3.4-3.5 is too low and a 3.5/38 indicate "smart but lazy"( I hear these things when I talk to ADCOMs I know personally). People IMO are too quick to attach a certain work ethic to a numerical GPA.

A 3.5/34 vs 3.9/34 pass boards at almost the exact same rate historically. The data shows the limitations of using the uGPA in assessing medical school performance. But yet we are still often so attached to it.

I think as much as anything you arent just trying to identify people who will do well on tests in medical school. You're trying to assess/find people who will do well in the clinic, from MS3 and beyond. I think a big part of identifying that is through someone's accountability and reliability in a work setting, which can often come by their ECs and their work history/producitivty. So if someone possesses those skills even with a low GPA, I think there is a fair chance they have just as likely a chance as the work ethic for medicine as your 3.9 box chcker.

The way I see it is that GPA and MCAT were never intended on predicting clinical performance from MS3 and beyond, and are more useful for predicting academic performance in the first 2 years of medical school classes and Step 1. Arguably, even ECs and work experience won't do a great job of predicting performance 3+ years into the future. The main weakness of GPA is the variability between university rigor, majors/classes, and grading scales. Work experience and ECs are expected to have just as much variability: different PI's will have different publication frequencies, a job at one clinic may be more/less demanding than another clinic, one university's Habitat for Humanity is more active than another one's, etc.
 
The way I see it is that GPA and MCAT were never intended on predicting clinical performance from MS3 and beyond, and are more useful for predicting academic performance in the first 2 years of medical school classes and Step 1. Arguably, even ECs and work experience won't do a great job of predicting performance 3+ years into the future. The main weakness of GPA is the variability between university rigor, majors/classes, and grading scales. Work experience and ECs are expected to have just as much variability: different PI's will have different publication frequencies, a job at one clinic may be more/less demanding than another clinic, one university's Habitat for Humanity is more active than another one's, etc.

This is all true but the problem is the statistics show the level of GPA/MCAT needed to have a 90+% pass rate for Step 1 are quite low. Basically, there is nothing that really suggests out there that the 3.9/34 is really more likely to have academic success in MS1 and MS2 than the 3.5/34. The data repeatedly shows undergrad GPA as a poor predictor itself and compared to the MCAT(although the MCAT is hardly some great predictor either). With the URM discussion we see this as the rationale behind accepting the 3.1/25's of the world; well the stats show they are very likely to graduate so no problem. Well, why cant we be willing to adhere to a similar level of logic when not discussion ORMs/whites? This isn't saying admit a bunch of 3.1/25 ORMs rather, there is no need to look at a 3.9/34 vs 3.9/39 as significantly different or a 3.5/38 vs a 3.9/38. But yet, we do in many cases.

What you are saying is true about how it can be difficult to predict MS3 and MS4 success. But trying to figure out ways to do so really should be the focal point of admission given how likely any applicant is historically to pass Step 1 and graduate. Often its the clinical years where medical students find themselves having the most problems.
 
The studies out there havent specificed pre-req grades vs MCAT but I highly doubt the results would be much different even if they did this. sGPA and cGPA are usually very similar for applicants(within 0.1-0.2 of each other).

I think the bigger problem I have is how we try to assess that work ethic and how superficially we look at GPA, not that we need to assess "work ethic".

There are many many ways of assessing someone's work ethic beyond GPA(ie ECs and work experience). And IMHO they are often more important than what the numerical GPA shows. Someone with a 3.9 who just spends his time studying in college and is just a EC box checker doesnt necessairly come across to me as someone with a "better work ethic" than your 3.5 candidate who has alot more to offer EC wise. Schools however, will nitpick GPAs like this. Youll see people say a 3.4-3.5 is too low and a 3.5/38 indicate "smart but lazy"( I hear these things when I talk to ADCOMs I know personally). People IMO are too quick to attach a certain work ethic to a numerical GPA.

A 3.5/34 vs 3.9/34 pass boards at almost the exact same rate historically. The data shows the limitations of using the uGPA in assessing medical school performance. But yet we are still often so attached to it.

I think as much as anything you arent just trying to identify people who will do well on tests in medical school. You're trying to assess/find people who will do well in the clinic, from MS3 and beyond. I think a big part of identifying that is through someone's accountability and reliability in a work setting, which can often come by their ECs and their work history/producitivty. So if someone possesses those skills even with a low GPA, I think there is a fair chance they have just as likely a chance as the work ethic for medicine as your 3.9 box chcker.
It's a case of sufficiency but not necessity - if I find out someone has a 3.9+ I'd bet the farm they have an impressive work ethic. A 3.5 might also impress me by running five student groups, but GPA is the way to check ethic in academics and show you can really handle staring at pages/screens for hours and still be productive.
 
more likely to have academic success
Not more likely to pass, but there is correlation to higher grades and scores. As LizzyM once put it iirc, sometimes you take the 3.1/30 knowing they are less likely to be the best, but more likely to be good enough somewhere they're needed.
 
It's a case of sufficiency but not necessity - if I find out someone has a 3.9+ I'd bet the farm they have an impressive work ethic. A 3.5 might also impress me by running five student groups, but GPA is the way to check ethic in academics and show you can really handle staring at pages/screens for hours and still be productive.

Meh I guess that's just where I kind of disagree. I know plenty of people with 3.9's who I would describe their work ethic as "meh". They dont have lots of additional responsibilities at all, they are fortuante enough where school is really their only focus. It just doesnt impress me all that much in many cases when I see somebody can just focus solely on school with some EC box checking on the side and end up with a 3.9, particularly when they dont go to a very competitive school. I think those non academic responsibilities just changes the discussion significantly.

The other point is why do we care about that 3.5 vs 3.9 distinction? The stats show 3.5/34 vs 3.9/34 pass boards at the same rate, just like they would with 4.0/30 vs 4.0/35.
 
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Not more likely to pass, but there is correlation to higher grades and scores. As LizzyM once put it iirc, sometimes you take the 3.1/30 knowing they are less likely to be the best, but more likely to be good enough somewhere they're needed.

The correlation just isnt that strong. gyngyn has said this in the past, others I know as well have told me this, there are a number of high end schools who have lower Step 1 averages than you would suspect. It's just a whole different ball game in medical school.

So I dont really buy the 3.9/34 is statistically much more likely to have a significantly better showing in medical school than 3.5/34. If you want to argue the 3.1/38 or 4.0/38 is more likely to do better than the 3.9/38 or 3.9/26 that's one thing. But admission doesnt work like that; we discriminate agains the 4.0/33 when faced vs 4.0/38 or the 3.55/38 vs 3.85/38.
 
Meh I guess that's just where I kind of disagree. I know plenty of people with 3.9's who I would describe their work ethic as "meh". They dont have lots of additional responsibilities at all, they are fortuante enough where school is really their only focus. It just doesnt impress me all that much in many cases when I see somebody can just focus solely on school with some EC box checking on the side and end up with a 3.9, particularly when they dont go to a very competitive school. I think those non academic responsibilities just changes the discussion significantly.

The other point is why do we care about that 3.5 vs 3.9 distinction? The stats show 3.5/34 vs 3.9/34 pass boards at the same rate, just like they would with 4.0/30 vs 4.0/35.
Do you think schools like WashU or Penn are really interested in just high passing rates though? They want people that will murder steps and fill fancy residencies.

The correlation just isnt that strong. gyngyn has said this in the past, others I know as well have told me this, there are a number of high end schools who have lower Step 1 averages than you would suspect. It's just a whole different ball game in medical school. So I dont really buy the 3.9/34 is statistically much more likely to have a significantly better showing in medical school than 3.5/34. If you want to argue the 3.1/38 or 4.0/38 is more likely to do better than the 3.9/38 or 3.9/26 that's one thing. But admission doesnt work like that; we discriminate agains the 4.0/34 vs 4.0/38 or 3.6/38 vs 3.9/38.
Curriculum is a huge variable, but within the various schools I would guess a significant predictor. An individual 34 beating a 38, sure, doesn't surprise me. The top half of the students by LizzyM having a mean lower than the bottom half? That I do not think would be a coinflip.
 
Do you think schools like WashU or Penn are really interested in just high passing rates though? They want people that will murder steps and fill fancy residencies.


Curriculum is a huge variable, but within the various schools I would guess a significant predictor. An individual 34 beating a 38, sure, doesn't surprise me. The top half of the students by LizzyM having a mean lower than the bottom half? That I do not think would be a coinflip.

Well for WashU or Penn they wont take the 3.5/38 or the 4.0/33 when in reality there just isnt any good evidence out there those people are significantly likely to do much worse on Step 1. It's not like you are comparing 3.4/28 to 4.0/38 with those schools. Both the LizzyM 72 and LizzyM 77 will pass Step 1 95+% of the time but the evidence of the 4.0/33 being significantly more likely to do worse than the 4.0/38 is murky.

In terms of predicting Step 1 it's a string of correlations. You might be able to say MCAT predicts some pre-clinical grades. You might be able to say pre-clinical performance predicts another variable and that other variable predicts Step-1 performance. Each individual correlation is fine. But adding them up, you get an overall correlation of MCAT to Step 1 not being that great or convincing.
 
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Well for WashU or Penn they wont take the 3.5/38 or the 4.0/33 when in reality there just isnt any good evidence out there those people are significantly likely to do much worse on Step 1. It's not like you are comparing 3.4/28 to 4.0/38 with those schools. Both the LizzyM 72 and LizzyM 77 will pass Step 1 95+% of the time but the evidence of the 4.0/33 being significantly more likely to do worse than the 4.0/38 is murky.

In terms of predicting Step 1 it's a string of correlations. You might be able to say MCAT predicts some pre-clinical grades. You might be able to say pre-clinical performance predicts another variable and that other variable predicts Step-1 performance. Each individual correlation is fine. But adding them up, you get an overall correlation of MCAT to Step 1 not being that great or convincing.
Agree to disagree indeed, the correlations become important when the population size grows. Working to move your median GPA and MCAT by even + .2 / 2 won't get lost in the noise when it's a sample of 100+ people, that's why they do it.
 
Agree to disagree indeed, the correlations become important when the population size grows. Working to move your median GPA and MCAT by even + .2 / 2 won't get lost in the noise when it's a sample of 100+ people, that's why they do it.

Yeah we agree to disagree. I dont buy at all that's why they do it. Ask UCSF or Mayo how they are doing with their 34 and 35 MCAT medians. Or Duke with their 3.49 10th percentile GPA(meaning they take on more low GPA applicants). UCSF could easily make their MCAT median 38 if they choose to and thought it would help them. When we talk about scores that high it's a "bragging tool" as much as anything. Same goes with GPA, although to a lesser extent considering there arent really that many 3.5/39 candidates compared to 4.0/33.

Perception is everything for medical schools(and for everybody really). Big stats which help lead to prestige and big US News rankings amongst many other things, are for the benefit of the school, and not necessairly for their intended purposes in medicine or for the better of medicine. That's why you gotta tip your hat to those type of schools who are willing to look past these stats and to a greater goal.
 
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I'm not sure why you guys are disputing, but you should realize that GPA and MCAT aren't meant to be used as direct opposition to each other. The two serve as very nice complements.

GPA backed by a rigor of a transcript and undergrad institution shows long-term work ethics. MCAT is a one-day deal that standardizes the applicant pool and accurately measures the aptitude of the test taker. Doing well on the MCAT requires strong content mastery in prereqs/review as well as strong critical thinking skills harnessed in humanities/social science classes.

That's why the GPA and MCAT complement, not oppose, each other. Arguing over which is better is a pointless exercise because the dissonance between the two brings its own set of problems, which the adcom (of many people) of one school (of many schools the applicant applies) will have to assess
 
Yeah we agree to disagree. I dont buy at all that's why they do it. Ask UCSF or Mayo how they are doing with their 34 and 35 MCAT medians. Or Duke with their 3.49 10th percentile GPA(meaning they take on more low GPA applicants). UCSF could easily make their MCAT median 38 if they choose to and thought it would help them. When we talk about scores that high it's a "bragging tool" as much as anything. Same goes with GPA, although to a lesser extent considering there arent really that many 3.5/39 candidates compared to 4.0/33.

Perception is everything for medical schools(and for everybody really). Big stats which help lead to prestige and big US News rankings amongst many other things, are for the benefit of the school, and not necessairly for their intended purposes in medicine or for the better of medicine. That's why you gotta tip your hat to those type of schools who are willing to look past these stats and to a greater goal.
That is why they do it. Your disagreement here is with whether that should be their goal, not whether selecting for high GPAs and MCATs helps achieve what their goal is.
 
That is why they do it. Your disagreement here is with whether that should be their goal, not whether selecting for high GPAs and MCATs helps achieve what their goal is.

No the whole point is there are top schools that achieve these same very goals that all top schools have without focusing on stats as much like Mayo, UCSF and Duke. Nobody would argue that a school like UCSF or Duke struggles to have their students match into those top residencies or achieve the goals other top schools also strive for; not in the slightest.

What a school's goal is, that's a separate discussion. But it's pretty clear that top schools with the 34/35 MCAT median or lower 10th percentile GPA can achieve the same goals as the Pearlman's and WashU's of the world.
 
I'm not sure why you guys are disputing, but you should realize that GPA and MCAT aren't meant to be used as direct opposition to each other. The two serve as very nice complements.

GPA backed by a rigor of a transcript and undergrad institution shows long-term work ethics. MCAT is a one-day deal that standardizes the applicant pool and accurately measures the aptitude of the test taker. Doing well on the MCAT requires strong content mastery in prereqs/review as well as strong critical thinking skills harnessed in humanities/social science classes.

That's why the GPA and MCAT complement, not oppose, each other. Arguing over which is better is a pointless exercise because the dissonance between the two brings its own set of problems, which the adcom (of many people) of one school (of many schools the applicant applies) will have to assess

I think the GPA suffers from significantly more confounding factors than the MCAT does. Despite how poor of an indicator it is to future success, the GPA is unfortunately the only tool (in addition to the MCAT) used to assess students.

GPA is an especially poor measure of things related to work ethic, academic readiness, etc. because it is so significantly variable from institution to institution...

Yet, when opponents are confronted with this argument, the argument basically comes down to "well, student A at rigorous institution X was able to pull off a 3.9, and student B at institution X was only able to pull off a 3.3", while completely ignoring whether they even studied the same majors, let alone took the same courses or courseloads, etc...

The major problem with this argument is that it says nothing about how student B would have done at less-rigorous-institution Y, where another student C at institution Y was able to pull off a 4.0 and get an equal or even slightly lower MCAT score and get into med school without any headaches. Obviously, we don't live in a perfect world, but there's clearly a logical fallacy at play here, and unfortunately student B gets screwed by the system.

Mind you, the MCAT is not perfect, but it's much better controlled and if a student is dissatisfied with his/her score, s/he can take it multiple times.
 
I think the GPA suffers from significantly more confounding factors than the MCAT does. Despite how poor of an indicator it is to future success, the GPA is unfortunately the only tool (in addition to the MCAT) used to assess students.

GPA is an especially poor measure of things related to work ethic, academic readiness, etc. because it is so significantly variable from institution to institution...

Yet, when opponents are confronted with this argument, the argument basically comes down to "well, student A at rigorous institution X was able to pull off a 3.9, and student B at institution X was only able to pull off a 3.3", while completely ignoring whether they even studied the same majors, let alone took the same courses or courseloads, etc...

The major problem with this argument is that it says nothing about how student B would have done at less-rigorous-institution Y, where another student C at institution Y was able to pull off a 4.0 and get an equal or even slightly lower MCAT score and get into med school without any headaches. Obviously, we don't live in a perfect world, but there's clearly a logical fallacy at play here, and unfortunately student B gets screwed by the system.

Mind you, the MCAT is not perfect, but it's much better controlled and if a student is dissatisfied with his/her score, s/he can take it multiple times.

I'm not sure what's the issue here. I stated in my post that GPA backed by rigor of transcript and undergrad institution is a strong metric of an applicant's work ethic. This is why transcripts are sent to schools: to provide a context to the GPA.
 
I'm not sure what's the issue here. I stated in my post that GPA backed by rigor of transcript and undergrad institution is a strong metric of an applicant's work ethic. This is why transcripts are sent to schools: to provide a context to the GPA.

There's no issue with your post. Instead, I digressed into another argument about how much more flawed a GPA is compared to an MCAT score.

What irks me about comparing GPAs from institution to institution is how a numerical value such as a GPA is made even more ambiguous and somehow used to assess the candidate in any meaningful way. If that makes any sense.
 
Why is PS favored over Verbal?


PS in 2015 seems very bull-**** and luck-based for a standardized test.

It includes: 1 semester of biology, 2 semesters of gen-chem, 2(1?) semesters of orgo, 2 semesters of physics, and 1 semester of biochem in ONE FREAKING SECTION WITH ONLY TEN PASSAGES


There are so many possible concepts to test people on and maybe someone's good at 28/30 possible Physics concepts but they are unlucky and 2 of their 3 Physics passages on test day evaluate the concepts they are weak at.
 
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Why is PS favored over Verbal?


PS in 2015 seems very bull-**** and luck-based for a standardized test.

It includes: 1 semester of biology, 2 semesters of gen-chem, 2(1?) semesters of orgo, 2 semesters of physics, and 1 semester of biochem in ONE FREAKING SECTION WITH ONLY TEN PASSAGES


There are so many possible concepts to test people on and maybe someone's good at 28/30 possible Physics concepts but they are unlucky and 2 of their 3 Physics passages on test day evaluate the concepts they are weak at.

Everything in the universe is dictated by physics. Verbal is also a roulette based on what you enjoy reading
 
It's the ambiguity that makes it so much like medicine...
I did like PS, but mine didn't include chemistry.
Just gonna add one point that the BS and PS sections got a LOT more verbal-y in the new MCAT. These sections, especially BS (and psych/soc) require quite a bit of reading between the lines. I think it would be very, very difficult to get 128+ on either section by solely relying on thorough outside knowledge and preconceived schematics.
 
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I've had students come to me & say "well adcoms are going to see that I took the new MCAT & didn't do as well & not care because it's new, right?"

:smack:

No...no that is not what's going to happen. It changed for a reason.
I don't get where the idea that the new psych section is going to be ignored or valued less...if it's a part of the test now it's legitimate.
 
Everything in the universe is dictated by physics. Verbal is also a roulette based on what you enjoy reading

That's not true. I wouldn't say I particularly enjoyed any of my Verbal readings on my actual MCAT except for maybe one about Proust. Liking / disliking has nothing to do with reasoning.
 
That's not true. I wouldn't say I particularly enjoyed any of my Verbal readings on my actual MCAT except for maybe one about Proust. Liking / disliking has nothing to do with reasoning.
Really? I just picked the answers that I liked best
 
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