3.8 GPA and 35 on MCAT?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

pakbabydoll

Average student
10+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
Joined
Jun 23, 2007
Messages
1,431
Reaction score
1
whats average stats for a pre- med student to get in to medical school? I am talking regular in state universities not Harvard, JH, or Berkley or anything.
 
whats average stats for a pre- med student to get in to medical school? I am talking regular in state universities not Harvard, JH, or Berkley or anything.

the process is very random, so it's hard to say. but you should get into at least one medical school most likely.
 
Get an MSAR...the average/median matriculant GPA is around 3.64...the average/median matriculant composite MCAT is around 30 or maybe 31 now (guessing at these a bit)...and most schools have MCAT hurdles (no score less than 9 on any section) to keep in mind, so not all compositie scores are equal...most people here shorthand the average/median as "3.6/30," but I think in the last few years those numbers are heading up...won't be surprised if it isn't closer to "3.7/31" in this current cycle...
 
whats average stats for a pre- med student to get in to medical school? I am talking regular in state universities not Harvard, JH, or Berkley or anything.

Are you trying to torture (torcher? haha) us?
 
if 3.8 and 35 MCAT doesn't get u into a top 15, then what separates the one that do and ones that don't?

Name of undergrad college? I highly doubt many people have EC's that are that distinguishable. Most have the regular clinical, research, volunteer, shadowing, etc. So then ..O_O
 
if 3.8 and 35 MCAT doesn't get u into a top 15, then what separates the one that do and ones that don't?

Name of undergrad college? I highly doubt many people have EC's that are that distinguishable. Most have the regular clinical, research, volunteer, shadowing, etc. So then ..O_O

I think that some people definitely do have distinguishable ECs or background. Also, a really bad personal statement or bad LOR could tank an applicant with a 3.8 and a 35. Med school applications are not just about numbers, although they do get the door opened....
 
A 3.8 and a 35 are about the median for most of the elite schools (and actually a bit low for others.) If you want to have a better chance of acceptance at schools like that, you want to be above the median (averages don't really reflect reality as well as medians.) That, and your extracircs would also need to be above the median for the schools (something much harder to measure than a simple gpa/mcat comparison.)
 
yet while going through the MSAR, virtually no MD school has avg stats that low. disappointing 🙁

Yeah I noticed the same thing... I mean, the few uber-low stat schools like Morehouse and Meharry can't drag down the average that much. What's going on?
 
Yeah I noticed the same thing... I mean, the few uber-low stat schools like Morehouse and Meharry can't drag down the average that much. What's going on?

The 3.6/30 number is old. Its been floating around for a few years. Those "averages" are increasing. Honestly I'm not sure what the averages are anymore because MSAR doesn't provide them for overall acceptees. They just have the charts.

But yeah I'm willing to bet its creeping more towards 3.65 and 31 (or even 32).
 
Yep, forget the 3.6 gpa 30 MCAT being the average.

You definitely have a decent shot with around a 3.5/30 but the average nowadays must be 3.65/31.
 
The 3.6/30 number is old. Its been floating around for a few years. Those "averages" are increasing. Honestly I'm not sure what the averages are anymore because MSAR doesn't provide them for overall acceptees. They just have the charts.

But yeah I'm willing to bet its creeping more towards 3.65 and 31 (or even 32).

yea the 32 seems to be the average score according to the MSAR and I'd even put the GPA up to 3.7. the cumulative gpas and science gpas seem to be VERY close as well... less then 0.1 apart.
 
yea the 32 seems to be the average score according to the MSAR and I'd even put the GPA up to 3.7. the cumulative gpas and science gpas seem to be VERY close as well... less then 0.1 apart.

My mindset is that to be truly competitive, one needs an overall 3.7 with the BCPM very close by and no more than 0.1 points to the low side...the whole MCAT composite thing is more of a statistical conundrum, to me - those seem to get rounded upwards pretty liberally and somewhat misleadingly in the MSAR, so I still think that with a 3.7+, a balanced 30/31 on the MCAT still gets the job done...
 
They aren't rounded in the MSAR, they're medians. The reason the numbers in the MSAR are much higher than those on US News (for example) is that they measure different things. Medians are a much truer sense of what the average accepted applicant brings to the table than an average. Averages are far too easily swayed by outliers. That's why the MSAR gives you a better idea of how you stack up to the "average" medical school student at a school.
 
Why are there so many threads with people who SHOULD be smart (35 mcat) yet are completely unable to find this information out directly from sources on their own (eg MSAR.. it isn't that hard to read).
 
Why are there so many threads with people who SHOULD be smart (35 mcat) yet are completely unable to find this information out directly from sources on their own (eg MSAR.. it isn't that hard to read).


you read my mind...
 
They aren't rounded in the MSAR, they're medians. The reason the numbers in the MSAR are much higher than those on US News (for example) is that they measure different things. Medians are a much truer sense of what the average accepted applicant brings to the table than an average. Averages are far too easily swayed by outliers. That's why the MSAR gives you a better idea of how you stack up to the "average" medical school student at a school.

Wow, am I sick of people spouting this misconception. The msar numbers are inflated for a few reasons, one being that it reports the median numbers of the ACCEPTED students, not those that matriculate. This results in number inflation because people w/ higher numbers will get into multiple schools; if they reported the matriculant numbers the median would be lower. Also, the msar doesn't actually say what the median cumulative mcat scores are, it just reports each section score. Adding the median section scores doesn't result in getting the actual median cumulative score. Finally, although the median is often a more useful value than the mean, I'm not convinced that this is the case for reporting mcat (and other test) scores. Frankly, there are not really many true outliers in this case (nobody gets into med school w/ an mcat score of 7, for instance)
 
Wow, am I sick of people spouting this misconception. The msar numbers are inflated for a few reasons, one being that it reports the median numbers of the ACCEPTED students, not those that matriculate. This results in number inflation because people w/ higher numbers will get into multiple schools; if they reported the matriculant numbers the median would be lower. Also, the msar doesn't actually say what the median cumulative mcat scores are, it just reports each section score. Adding the median section scores doesn't result in getting the actual median cumulative score. Finally, although the median is often a more useful value than the mean, I'm not convinced that this is the case for reporting mcat (and other test) scores. Frankly, there are not really many true outliers in this case (nobody gets into med school w/ an mcat score of 7, for instance)

Thanks - this is what I meant or was trying to say when I said the MCAT numbers in the MSAR are "rounded up" - I should have been more explicit about the accepted versus matriculated scores which is a big factor - and I agree that the component scores, when first averaged (and rounded) and then added together results in a "high" composite median...just look at any individual med school's website and compare the matriculated MCAT and GPA numbers to those reported in the MSAR, and they will be lower on the website...and the MCAT scores are usually carried out to the hundredths place a la 11.53, not rounded to 12 as on the MSAR...GPAs are already carried out to the hundredths place and except for the "accepted vs matriculated" difference, are less prone to being inflated...
 
Pull out the MSAR and look at the elite universities and see the low scores they have in various sections of the mcat. A 7 or an 8 will influence their average a lot more than a 14 or a 15 will. The difference between the median and the average score won't be that dramatic, but the reported average accepted scores are always lower than average accepted medians for that very reason. The same holds for GPA.

If you want to say that the average matriculant has lower stats than the average accepted student, that's fine, but where's the data? Unless there is a solid source for average matriculant data and median matriculant data, we're forced to draw conclusions from what we have- the accepted data. And the simple fact is that medians do a better job of portraying what the average applicant looks like than "averages" do.

As far as the MCAT scores go, you do have to frankenstein a number together out of the MSAR. Still, those are the median scores for each section. They didn't round the numbers up.

I'm not saying this is a perfect science and it's not without flaws. It does, however, seem to have less distortions than a simple use of averages.
 
okay so i need some clarification!!

why does everyone keep saying that the cutoff is a 9 and none gets into school with a physics of 7 or lower..well i agree these aren't very competetive at all... the MSAR has a range of accepted scores and ALOT of schools completely cover the scale from a 5 - 15... i can't imagine how it could happen, I am sure that was probably just one person out of a hundred for each low score..but it could happen...

but i think the average is a 3.6/30 but this varies with circumstance and EC's...i think a 3.8/35 too high for an average...
 
Pull out the MSAR and look at the elite universities and see the low scores they have in various sections of the mcat. A 7 or an 8 will influence their average a lot more than a 14 or a 15 will. The difference between the median and the average score won't be that dramatic, but the reported average accepted scores are always lower than average accepted medians for that very reason. The same holds for GPA.

If you want to say that the average matriculant has lower stats than the average accepted student, that's fine, but where's the data? Unless there is a solid source for average matriculant data and median matriculant data, we're forced to draw conclusions from what we have- the accepted data. And the simple fact is that medians do a better job of portraying what the average applicant looks like than "averages" do.

As far as the MCAT scores go, you do have to frankenstein a number together out of the MSAR. Still, those are the median scores for each section. They didn't round the numbers up.

I'm not saying this is a perfect science and that it's not without flaws. It does, however, seem to have less distortions than a simple use of averages.

There undoubtedly is a difference between the median or average GPA and MCAT stats for accepted students versus matriculated students at any school...the pool of "accepted" students is larger than the "matriculated" students for any school...schools have to accept more students than they have spots in the class (to get a class filled)...logic tells me that people with the "better stats" tend to be the ones who get multiple acceptances, but they can only matriculate at one school...therefore, the reported stats for "accepted" students will almost always be higher than the stats for the matriculants at any school (and the supposition is that this difference is greater at lower tier schools than at say a Top 10 school)...
 
okay so i need some clarification!!

why does everyone keep saying that the cutoff is a 9 and none gets into school with a physics of 7 or lower..well i agree these aren't very competetive at all... the MSAR has a range of accepted scores and ALOT of schools completely cover the scale from a 5 - 15... i can't imagine how it could happen, I am sure that was probably just one person out of a hundred for each low score..but it could happen...

Well, I have an 8 in PS (30 MCAT and 3.78 gpa), and I've gotten a bunch of interviews so far, so I don't really believe that "under a 9 will tank your app" opinion I've seen all over SDN. I'm sure it'll hurt me at reach schools, but otherwise it doesn't seem to have had that much of a negative impact on my application in general. And I've seen a bunch of people with under a 9 in a section get interviews and acceptances in past years as well.

As for the really 5s you've seen, some schools do take URMs with lower scores, so perhaps that accounts for some of it. Otherwise, you never know. It could be a single non-URM with truly amazing ECs, and an otherwise competitive app that bombed one section that got accepted at a bunch of schools. *shrug* I have no idea.
 
okay so i need some clarification!!

why does everyone keep saying that the cutoff is a 9 and none gets into school with a physics of 7 or lower..well i agree these aren't very competetive at all... the MSAR has a range of accepted scores and ALOT of schools completely cover the scale from a 5 - 15... i can't imagine how it could happen, I am sure that was probably just one person out of a hundred for each low score..but it could happen...

but i think the average is a 3.6/30 but this varies with circumstance and EC's...i think a 3.8/35 too high for an average...

I agree, and am not sure "who" is claiming these are the averages, but I do think that "3.6/30" is a bit dated - the average matriculant GPA in the most recent MSAR was 3.64 (I think)...
 
I agree, and am not sure "who" is claiming these are the averages, but I do think that "3.6/30" is a bit dated - the average matriculant GPA in the most recent MSAR was 3.64 (I think)...

As far as I can tell no one in this thread said 3.8 and 35 were the averages. People are just saying its higher now than 3.6 and 30.

I think even the OP was just listing his stats and trying to find out where he was compared to the average.
 
I agree with you, in principle, that it makes sense for matriculated students to have lower stats (both in median and average) than accepted students. The difference will probably be more pronounced at less prominent and mid-tier schools than it will at elite schools, as I'd imagine that schools like Harvard and John Hopkins tend to hold on to their more qualified applicants more effectively than Wright State does. Once again, however, it's impossible to measure the difference unless we have stats for both matriculated and accepted students. Without numbers to crunch, it's all speculation.
 
Well, I have an 8 in PS (30 MCAT and 3.78 gpa), and I've gotten a bunch of interviews so far, so I don't really believe that "under a 9 will tank your app" opinion I've seen all over SDN. I'm sure it'll hurt me at reach schools, but otherwise it doesn't seem to have had that much of a negative impact on my application in general. And I've seen a bunch of people with under a 9 in a section get interviews and acceptances in past years as well.

As for the really 5s you've seen, some schools do take URMs with lower scores, so perhaps that accounts for some of it. Otherwise, you never know. It could be a single non-URM with truly amazing ECs, and an otherwise competitive app that bombed one section that got accepted at a bunch of schools. *shrug* I have no idea.

The reported range of MCAT scores is meaningless to an individual applicant - only the central tendency stats tell you anything useful...
 
I agree with you, in principle, that it makes sense for matriculated students to have lower stats (both in median and average) than accepted students. The difference will probably be more pronounced at less prominent and mid-tier schools than it will at elite schools, as I'd imagine that schools like Harvard and John Hopkins tend to hold on to their more qualified applicants more effectively than Wright State does. Once again, however, it's impossible to measure the difference unless we have stats for both matriculated and accepted students. Without numbers to crunch, it's all speculation.

I remember when I spoke with someone in admissions at Northwestern a month or so ago, that she said 34 was their MCAT average/median (I can't remember which!) for matriculating students. Sorry I can't be more specific (and of course I could be remembering this wrong), but in my mind the difference of one point between what she said and what the MSAR showed (35), was accepted vs. matriculating.
 
out of curiosity... what if a school offers 100 spots for a class size of 48 (random example). what happens is, one year, like 80 students decide to matriculate at that particular school?
 
I agree with you, in principle, that it makes sense for matriculated students to have lower stats (both in median and average) than accepted students. The difference will probably be more pronounced at less prominent and mid-tier schools than it will at elite schools, as I'd imagine that schools like Harvard and John Hopkins tend to hold on to their more qualified applicants more effectively than Wright State does. Once again, however, it's impossible to measure the difference unless we have stats for both matriculated and accepted students. Without numbers to crunch, it's all speculation.

Well, I haven't done the leg work myself, but I think that schools tend to report on their website the "matriculated" averages or medians whereas the MSAR reports the "accepted" averages or medians...so there is one possible source for quantifying the differences...

Bottom line for me: score no less than 30 on the MCAT, and have a GPA no lower than 3.7, and APPLY BROADLY and EARLY...and I think I will have a decent chance with my ECs, etc...
 
out of curiosity... what if a school offers 100 spots for a class size of 48 (random example). what happens is, one year, like 80 students decide to matriculate at that particular school?

Didn't this happen recently at MCW? I thought I remembered reading about that somewhere on SDN. And someone said that they offered those that chose to defer a year $10,000 off their first year tuition. I've also heard of schools (MCW the year before that?) that offered acceptances to too few people, and had to call a couple of people who had already been rejected post-interview to offer them a spot. It happens.
 
out of curiosity... what if a school offers 100 spots for a class size of 48 (random example). what happens is, one year, like 80 students decide to matriculate at that particular school?

Usually they don't offer 100 at the same time. They'll wait until some people withdraw to offer more spots.

Otherwise they have to accommodate the students they accepted. I think it happened at GWU a few years ago - they had like 5 too many students or something.

In general schools know how many people will accept or deny an acceptance and they are pretty careful to not over accept.
 
Usually they don't offer 100 at the same time. They'll wait until some people withdraw to offer more spots.

Otherwise they have to accommodate the students they accepted. I think it happened at GWU a few years ago - they had like 5 too many students or something.

In general schools know how many people will accept or deny an acceptance and they are pretty careful to not over accept.

It does happen, though, and as another poster mentioned, they will offer a one year deferral to any accepted students and then sweeten the deal with a big tuition break.

Schools that are suddenly "hotter" and getting a higher yield than expected may take a different approach the next year (fewer interviews, for instance)...I thought someone reported that Pitt Med is ratcheting down the number of interview invitations this year...
 
yea the 32 seems to be the average score according to the MSAR and I'd even put the GPA up to 3.7. the cumulative gpas and science gpas seem to be VERY close as well... less then 0.1 apart.

Well the MCAT is still scored so that the national average performance on each section receive an 8...so a totally average MCAT taker would get a 24.

Not that this is the only factor in admission, but if MCAT scores remain unchanged by virtue of how they score it, there will be fewer people accepted overall. Because a 30 puts you somewhere in the 80s for percentile and a 35 at about 95th percentile overall.

If there are only ~15 percent of people scoring high enough to be accepted each year before you even consider GPAs and ECs (which probably eliminates some more people), there is probably only 10% still "qualified" to be accepted.

Since nationally about 45% of applicants are accepted each year and I think they are trying to increase the numbers of doctors being trained in the US over the next 10 years, that leads me to think the score is not over 30 you might see on SDN or even in MSAR. Just food for thought.
 
Well the MCAT is still scored so that the national average performance on each section receive an 8...so a totally average MCAT taker would get a 24.

Not that this is the only factor in admission, but if MCAT scores remain unchanged by virtue of how they score it, there will be fewer people accepted overall. Because a 30 puts you somewhere in the 80s for percentile and a 35 at about 95th percentile overall.

If there are only ~15 percent of people scoring high enough to be accepted each year before you even consider GPAs and ECs (which probably eliminates some more people), there is probably only 10% still "qualified" to be accepted.

Since the national percent average of those accepted each year is in the 40s...that leads me to think the score is not over 30 you might see on SDN or even in MSAR. Just food for thought.
Your whole logic goes out the window if we assume that the number of applicants (or even just people who sit for the MCAT) is increasing.

If there are more people taking it then there are more people with 31+ and more "qualified" applicants to be accepted.

Also no one said you needed a 31 or 32 to get an acceptance. We simply said the average is increasing - which it is probably if the number of applicants is increasing (which it was at least in 2004 according to AAMC). Also, instead of GPAs and ECs "eliminating" people it probably more often makes up for lower than average scores.
 
out of curiosity... what if a school offers 100 spots for a class size of 48 (random example). what happens is, one year, like 80 students decide to matriculate at that particular school?

Albany had a much higher yield than expected this year and ended up having to over-enroll. That's why no one got in from the waitlist last year, and I'm sure they will adjust accordingly for 2008.
 
Good point. But if the % accepted isn't changing (more apply, but schools are accepting more to produce more doctors), there is still a large discrepancy between the 15% of test takers or so that score 31+ and the 45% accepted.

Also, someone up there mentioned a very good point that the highest scorers get more than one acceptance, which inflates the average MCAT scores reported by schools. I think with competitive grades 3.65+ and a 29/30 on the MCAT, you've still got a shot at most med schools.
 
Well the MCAT is still scored so that the national average performance on each section receive an 8...so a totally average MCAT taker would get a 24.

Not that this is the only factor in admission, but if MCAT scores remain unchanged by virtue of how they score it, there will be fewer people accepted overall. Because a 30 puts you somewhere in the 80s for percentile and a 35 at about 95th percentile overall.

If there are only ~15 percent of people scoring high enough to be accepted each year before you even consider GPAs and ECs (which probably eliminates some more people), there is probably only 10% still "qualified" to be accepted.

Since nationally about 45% of applicants are accepted each year and I think they are trying to increase the numbers of doctors being trained in the US over the next 10 years, that leads me to think the score is not over 30 you might see on SDN or even in MSAR. Just food for thought.

Strongly flawed logic here,

First of all, Not everyone who takes the MCAT applies to medical school. A lot of people take it, get a 24, and immediately realize that they don't have a chance. Hell, a lot of people get 30, and don't apply because they don't feel confident (I know a few people personally). I know I personally would have taken a year off rather than applying had I gotten anything less than 35, and believe me there are plenty of people in my situation who might have messed up, but know they can score above 35. To us, waiting a year, working, building up ECs is better than halfassing the app with a low, or even average, MCAT.

So you're assumption that only 10% of applicants are above the MSAR average is way off. Check the number of applicants versus MCAT takers, you'll see approximately 80K (not sure exact number) of MCAT takers versus approximately 40K applicants. So really, you're only looking at the top 50% of MCAT scorers applying, which places the median at approximately 75 percentile. Now you cut that in half, with only 17K matriculants, MCAT matriculant median should easily be in the 80th or maybe even 90th percentile.

The average applicant (white) has a MCAT of 28.5 for 2006, average white matriculant has 31.8
 
I never said that everyone who takes the MCAT applies. All I said is that if the MSAR claims a 31 average for those accepted, that means that about 15% of people taking the MCAT have that score each year. So only 15% each year have a score that qualifies as average or better. I said nothing about people applying with old scores either, which would increase that number.
 
Good point. But if the % accepted isn't changing (more apply, but schools are accepting more to produce more doctors), there is still a large discrepancy between the 15% of test takers or so that score 31+ and the 45% accepted.

That discrepancy is easy. A huge number of people take the MCAT but don't apply. HUGE. I mean if 50% are getting less than 8 in each section then a lot of people aren't even going to bother applying.

Plus people take the MCAT multiple times more often than they apply multiple times - so they are counted more often in the test taker percentage than the acceptee percentage.

So that discrepancy really isn't an issue.

If 50% of people who take the MCAT never apply (these people have scores less than 7 in any given section so thats likely), now we're at 30% of those who apply are above the "average," now take into account that average is just that and you will have lots of people below the average getting in and its very easy to get to 45% of applicants.
 
Strongly flawed logic here,

First of all, Not everyone who takes the MCAT applies to medical school. A lot of people take it, get a 24, and immediately realize that they don't have a chance. Hell, a lot of people get 30, and don't apply because they don't feel confident (I know a few people personally). I know I personally would have taken a year off rather than applying had I gotten anything less than 35, and believe me there are plenty of people in my situation who might have messed up, but know they can score above 35. To us, waiting a year, working, building up ECs is better than halfassing the app with a low, or even average, MCAT.

I don't think it's quite fair to call those of us who applied with a 30 MCAT as "halfassing" our apps.
 
That discrepancy is easy. A huge number of people take the MCAT but don't apply. HUGE. I mean if 50% are getting less than 8 in each section then a lot of people aren't even going to bother applying.

Plus people take the MCAT multiple times more often than they apply multiple times - so they are counted more often in the test taker percentage than the acceptee percentage.

So that discrepancy really isn't an issue.

That is exactly what I said,

Just look at the numbers:
75-80K mcat takers
40K applicants
17K acceptances........17/80=.21
Based soley on MCAT scores top .21 MCAT scorers are accepted.
 
I don't think it's quite fair to call those of us who applied with a 30 MCAT as "halfassing" our apps.

If thats your potential, no

but if had been getting 39s, 40s, 42s on all your AAMC prac tests, and you get a 32,even 33, what would you do?
 
Look, I'm not trying to get into a fight. But we all know people who get in with low stats. There are still many schools that will indicate an average mcat score of 9.X per section. I think that out of people who apply including the crazy ones at 26/27 through the most concentrated area in 29-31 and then the higher scorers...obviously there's more room at the top for the freaks who get 38+ and throw off the average. Does any one know the MEDIAN accepted or matriculated? I'd be curious to see, I bet it's lower than the average.

and there is no reason to call my logic flawed. i got a 99.8th percentile in VR and a 176 on the LSAT. I've got something going on in the logical department. I'm just discussing possibilities. Thanks.
 
That is exactly what I said,

Just look at the numbers:
75-80K mcat takers
40K applicants
17K acceptances........17/80=.21
Based soley on MCAT scores top .21 MCAT scorers are accepted.

Ok then how did that lead you to the conclusion that the averages couldn't possibly be on the rise?
 
Top