Any One else finding MCAT Rediculously hard And Impossible???

[Corpus Callosum]

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I have never worked as hard in my life like this before, and never felt that stupid about myself, for me months are not breaking it, and I have 2 science bachelors, 1 science masters, aviation associate, I am just losing confidence in my school abilities, and I am a good student 4.0 graduate gpa, 3.5 undergraduate
sometimes I just feel you have to have a phd in every single area on the mcat to really bomb the test, to be honest sometimes even after reading the explanation of the question, I still would not understand, if fact I get more confused and the next time I answer things that I previously knew, wrong, I don't know, I am just so stunned at this test and what people do to do well????
I really do not believe in the logic and fairness of this test the least, and the first thing I am planning to do if I ever make it up there is to protest and change this stupid test, maybe get rid of it?
you guys with me on that?

 

[BrokenGlass]

Not true.. medicine is full of high-stress situations. Think about surgery.. you have to make decisions in a flash.

Regardless, no standardized test rewards pure memorization... if it did, we'd see a lot more people with higher scores. There has to be a way of separating those who purely memorize and those who can memorize and think critically. I think a doctor who is faced with an unfamiliar disease and can deduce things from it would benefit society more than a doctor who knows every possible disease in the world but can't do anything with newer information.

I personally think Verbal is crap.. but what can ya do about it... just do your best!

Do you really think a person capable of knowing every disease out there is powerless when presented with new information? Why do so many people assume reasoning skills cannot be taught? Why do so many people assume reasoning skills is something you are born with? True, some people can learn with less effort than others, but almost everything can be taught, including reasoning skills.

The time pressure is a much more imporant factor than lack of reasoning skills (whatever "reasoning skills" means for the purposes of MCAT) for people who don't perform all that great on the MCAT. The vast majority of people would be able to figure out the right answer to an MCAT question if time were not an issue (assuming they seriously studied a couple of months for the test).

Once you get past a certain basic amount of science knowledge, there is a multitude of factors that will determine your MCAT score, with your reasoning ability being one factor among many. Many, many people can get 10s on the science sections. Their reasoning abilities are on par with the reasoning abilities of those who get 15s.

Lastly, people who score high on the VR section are almost always avid readers. It's not due to their superior reasoning abilities that they get these scores, but rather to the amount of practice they have had. Practice makes perfect. If they read more, they understand the passages quicker and better, which is why they can answer more questions correctly under intense time pressure.

If time was not an issue, all this BS about "superior reasoning abilities" will fly out the window and never come back.

 

[Team Zissou]

this thread is getting rediculous...

 

[Jman35]

Do you really think a person capable of knowing every disease out there is powerless when presented with new information? Why do so many people assume reasoning skills cannot be taught? Why do so many people assume reasoning skills is something you are born with? True, some people can learn with less effort than others, but almost everything can be taught, including reasoning skills.

The time pressure is a much more imporant factor than lack of reasoning skills (whatever "reasoning skills" means for the purposes of MCAT) for people who don't perform all that great on the MCAT. The vast majority of people would be able to figure out the right answer to an MCAT question if time were not an issue (assuming they seriously studied a couple of months for the test).

Once you get past a certain basic amount of science knowledge, there is a multitude of factors that will determine your MCAT score, with your reasoning ability being one factor among many. Many, many people can get 10s on the science sections. Their reasoning abilities are on par with the reasoning abilities of those who get 15s.

Lastly, people who score high on the VR section are almost always avid readers. It's not due to their superior reasoning abilities that they get these scores, but rather to the amount of practice they have had. Practice makes perfect. If they read more, they understand the passages quicker and better, which is why they can answer more questions correctly under intense time pressure.

If time was not an issue, all this BS about "superior reasoning abilities" will fly out the window and never come back.

Very true. It's probably a better thing that it is a timed test. That means you can train yourself to do better. If the mcat was a non timed test...we'd be f***d. Sorta like when my professor for differential topology would give us a take-home final....you can sit there for 4 days going over 4 problems, looking at notes, reading the book, but unless you had the natural ability (both innate, and gained through years of study) you were probably going to get maybe 30%.

 

[LadyLightning20]

We all really need to move on and stop feeding the troll.

 

[Corpus Callosum]

You must not be familiar with Step 1...Anatomy, Biochem., Immunology/Microbiology, Pathology, Pharmacology, Physiology, Neuroscience, Nutrition/Genetics/Aging. All on a test you can't even retake unless you absolutely fail. THAT's overwhelming. The MCAT is a cakewalk compared to what's coming.

Besides, if you give it a little thought, all those subjects are fair game and appear on the MCAT, and then add on top ORGANIC CHEMISTRY, GENERAL CHEMISTRY, AND VERBAL REASONING. Yes those subjects might not be as advanced as frequently encountered on step 1 and 2, which you would have been exposed to them much more in MED school anyways, that is why they are more tricky when they appear collectively or individually on the MCAT.

 

[Corpus Callosum]

We all really need to move on and stop feeding the troll.

👎

 

[Corpus Callosum]

While some of his/her comments are on par with a small, but outspoken portion of premeds, (s)he stands out in some ways that just make him/her seem like a troll.

• 1. He gave us a list of degrees in a first post, which is not typical.
  
  2. He gave a mailing address of a school where he is supposedly a flight instructor and then talks about research and talking to medical students at a school at a place about two hours away (in good weather).
  
  3. He quotes numbers that just are even close to realistic.
  
  4. He gives his credentials (degrees, GPAs, who he works for, etc...) a little more than the average ranting poster.
  
  5. He talks about an example of working a place for five years and having a manager ask him to take a test. Would a premed think of a manager at a five-year job as the first example of a comparison to taking the MCAT?"

You might be right that he's just venting, but this just smells of trollness to me. Then again, look at how much time I wasted reading through it, so count me as being had.

Final Note:
With all due respect to people who have profiles, I always preffered not revealing mine although I had it, but today, here it is as a gift for you,
Point is: Never underestimate people.

 

[NRAI2001]

now to the good guys
Swimfan,
Thanks for the advice, appreciate it, that is exactly what I am doing. My story is different, I am scoring very well on sciences but too poor on verbal, I really don't know whether I will ever get better on verbal,, been practicing for a long time. I agree with you, but even if I do well on the mcat, that will not change my oppinion about this test, and the flaws it and the whole process carries within.

Is that you in the picture?

 

[Corpus Callosum]

Is that you in the picture?

that is me, I know picture is terrible but honestly this is the only picture I have on the computer.

 

[habman6]

You cant honestly believe that the mcat contains an "overwhelming" amount of material. If it takes you over 2 weeks to go over everything once then you seriously have to revamp your studying techniques. As people have said before, this is nothing compared to med school (hell, its nothing compared to my undergrad courses). Not to be insulting in any way, but at the same time completely bold...have you ever thought that the "problem" might lie within yourself, and not the mcat? There are countless people who do really well on the mcat, and there are reasons for that.

And also, again like people have said countless times, verbal reasoning is the most important part of the MCAT. If you do not understand why, then your approach to the whole test is completely wrong. The design of the MCAT is to present you with information you have never seen before, and to come to conclusions based on knowledge you have, and knowledge you have just learned. For verbal this is the hardest, since previous knowledge about the random subjects wont get you anywhere, so you have to rely on using whatever is presented to you, in a limited time span. They dont care if you know about the history of art. Instead, they GIVE you the history of art and tell you to answer questions based on what you were told.

To be brutally honest, the MCAT is mostly a filter. They dont want students who worked and studied 24/7 in undergrad to get 4.0s, since that will not work in med school (there arent enough hours in the day for those students to study and obtain the same results, due to increased amount of material). Instead, they want those people who study efficiently, and who can grasp new concepts quickly and apply them. How do they do that? They test people with a standardized test geared towards this goal.

 

[Corpus Callosum]

I do not understand why people keep picturing medical school like a beast that is out there to get people. about a month ago we had a meeting with a third year medical student from michigan state and I will qoute what he told me: "medical school is not very hard, it is just like college, with topics being expanded on, ya you might have more to study, but remember you don't work then as most people in undergraduates, there is more material, but at the same time, no art history and all those humanities that we were froced to take in college, so things average out, and I am not finding it harder than college, I always have the time to go out." now no offense but quess whom would I believe on that, pre-med students or medical students, hmmm, I think I will go with the medical student simply becasue he IS THERE and not speculating on the events but living them. By the way I heard conflicting and matching oppinions from other medical students, but positive ones by far outnumbered the negatives.

 

[bunnylove]

I have heard the same thing that premed is harder than actual medical school because in undergrad, they are trying to weed out all the weak people, and in med school, they want you to pass. A medical school does not want a student to fail. A university could care less if half a class is receiving F's in Biochemistry.

My dad is a doctor, and he has been telling me that the undergraduate part is the hardest, and to work hard in my pre-med classes and that medical school will not be as bad as undergrad. I'm sure he doesn't mean that medical school is easy or anything, but that once you have aced all those pre-med classes, taken your mcat, and have gotten into medical school, your future is a lot clearer. Getting into medical school is the hard part, but you do have to continue pushing yourself in medical school.

I am looking forward to medical school. No more of these useless classes that won't help us in medical school like philosophy, physics lab, and intro to jazz. 😀

 

[BrokenGlass]

I have heard the same thing that premed is harder than actual medical school because in undergrad, they are trying to weed out all the weak people, and in med school, they want you to pass. A medical school does not want a student to fail. A university could care less if half a class is receiving F's in Biochemistry.

My dad is a doctor, and he has been telling me that the undergraduate part is the hardest, and to work hard in my pre-med classes and that medical school will not be as bad as undergrad. I'm sure he doesn't mean that medical school is easy or anything, but that once you have aced all those pre-med classes, taken your mcat, and have gotten into medical school, your future is a lot clearer. Getting into medical school is the hard part, but you do have to continue pushing yourself in medical school.

I am looking forward to medical school. No more of these useless classes that won't help us in medical school like philosophy, physics lab, and intro to jazz. 😀

Oh come one. Intro to jazz could be quite useful for med school.

 

[habman6]

I do not understand why people keep picturing medical school like a beast that is out there to get people. about a month ago we had a meeting with a third year medical student from michigan state and I will qoute what he told me: "medical school is not very hard, it is just like college, with topics being expanded on, ya you might have more to study, but remember you don't work then as most people in undergraduates, there is more material, but at the same time, no art history and all those humanities that we were froced to take in college, so things average out, and I am not finding it harder than college, I always have the time to go out." now no offense but quess whom would I believe on that, pre-med students or medical students, hmmm, I think I will go with the medical student simply becasue he IS THERE and not speculating on the events but living them. By the way I heard conflicting and matching oppinions from other medical students, but positive ones by far outnumbered the negatives.

Maybe its a bit different since Im canadian. The requirements to get in are even harder, which means the students are tier 1 caliber, making the program also quite difficult. The people Ive talked to in med do find it hard, and get absolutely run down in the later years.

And regardless, my argument was about the amount of material.

 

[Corpus Callosum]

I have heard the same thing that premed is harder than actual medical school because in undergrad, they are trying to weed out all the weak people, and in med school, they want you to pass. A medical school does not want a student to fail. A university could care less if half a class is receiving F's in Biochemistry.

My dad is a doctor, and he has been telling me that the undergraduate part is the hardest, and to work hard in my pre-med classes and that medical school will not be as bad as undergrad. I'm sure he doesn't mean that medical school is easy or anything, but that once you have aced all those pre-med classes, taken your mcat, and have gotten into medical school, your future is a lot clearer. Getting into medical school is the hard part, but you do have to continue pushing yourself in medical school.

I am looking forward to medical school. No more of these useless classes that won't help us in medical school like philosophy, physics lab, and intro to jazz. 😀

exactly right, they want you to pass because now to them you are money and they do not want to loose it, imagine that grades in med school are P and F!!!!!!!!(most med schools) I mean who would think the ALLEDGED hardest graduate school out there does not even have letter grades, all you have to do is pass???
that sounds easier than strugling for an A or BA in biochemistry. speaking of biochemistry believe it or not one medical student from wayne state told me the biochemistry he took there was less work and easier than the undergraduate biochemistry he took at my school (he was undergraduate here)
I think not only that pre-med could me harder but any science undergraduate is very challenging, look here is my case
my UNDERGRADUATE is in engineeering, physics and math, gpa: 3.4 altogether
my GRADUATE (BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES) 4.0
Keep in mind, with all honesty, that the undergraduate was 5x more effort if not more
Draw your own conclusions.

 

[Corpus Callosum]

Maybe its a bit different since Im canadian. The requirements to get in are even harder, which means the students are tier 1 caliber, making the program also quite difficult. The people Ive talked to in med do find it hard, and get absolutely run down in the later years.

And regardless, my argument was about the amount of material.

I think that people make all those claims about med school out of FEAR being MED SCHOOL (who would think otherwise) and to bolster their arguments.
I am confident I will do in med school better than I did on my undergrad, not to say I did not do well on undergrad, that is pretty good considering the subjects involved, I know with similar effort I will perform even better in med school.

 

[angli524]

this thread is sooooo pointless. i just spent the last 15 minutes reading the same complaints and same arguments over and over. while hilarious and very addictive, this thread has no real value other than providing entertainment during my MCAT study break.

 

[Corpus Callosum]

this thread is sooooo pointless. i just spent the last 15 minutes reading the same complaints and same arguments over and over. while hilarious and very addictive, this thread has no real value other than providing entertainment during my MCAT study break.

so long you are being entertained, then that could be a point,
might have been of value then afterall

 

[shepdogg2]

LOL....

Undergraduate HARDER than medical school?!?!?!

I am currently taking medical school courses at Georgetown....it is SO much harder and more work than undergraduate. It isn't even close. (I went to a top 25 college, just for comparison sake)

The amount of work and material and the difficulty of that material in one week of my embryology course is equivalent to an entire semester of a bio class as an undergraduate.

The MCAT is ONE extremely important measure that medical schools use (GPAs, ECs, interview, etc). It is necessary and a terrificly correlated to success in medical school. It isn't perfect, but it is a heck of a lot better than GPA.

If you are hoping medical school will be easier than college...wow. Yeah, you aren't competing necessarily and just trying to pass...But the amount of work to pass is massive.

 

[Corpus Callosum]

LOL....

Undergraduate HARDER than medical school?!?!?!

I am currently taking medical school courses at Georgetown....it is SO much harder and more work than undergraduate. It isn't even close. (I went to a top 25 college, just for comparison sake)

The amount of work and material and the difficulty of that material in one week of my embryology course is equivalent to an entire semester of a bio class as an undergraduate.

The MCAT is ONE extremely important measure that medical schools use (GPAs, ECs, interview, etc). It is necessary and a terrificly correlated to success in medical school. It isn't perfect, but it is a heck of a lot better than GPA.

If you are hoping medical school will be easier than college...wow. Yeah, you aren't competing necessarily and just trying to pass...But the amount of work to pass is massive.

This is your own personal opinion. Like I stated if you read my previous threads, many medical school students would disagree with you, read about 5 threads above, bunnylove's dad is a doctor and said that undergrad is harder. Even doctors agree on that.
And if you want my personal opinion on difficulty, nothing is more DIFFICULT than engineering, whether grad or undergrad.

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

LOL....

Undergraduate HARDER than medical school?!?!?!

I am currently taking medical school courses at Georgetown....it is SO much harder and more work than undergraduate. It isn't even close. (I went to a top 25 college, just for comparison sake)

The amount of work and material and the difficulty of that material in one week of my embryology course is equivalent to an entire semester of a bio class as an undergraduate.

The MCAT is ONE extremely important measure that medical schools use (GPAs, ECs, interview, etc). It is necessary and a terrificly correlated to success in medical school. It isn't perfect, but it is a heck of a lot better than GPA.

If you are hoping medical school will be easier than college...wow. Yeah, you aren't competing necessarily and just trying to pass...But the amount of work to pass is massive.

There was a famous article in the New York Times about a study at Harvard or something how medical school is super easy and you only play games and have fun. And just because you are taking medical school classes and see first hand the relative difficulty, I am going to completely disregard that fact and tell you that I heard from my neighbor's cousin's best freind's hairdresser's uncle who has a sister who's dating a guy who delivers baked goods to an office across the street from a medical school that medical school is super easy. The AAMCAAASS, David Stern, all of the NBA referees, and Trilateral Commission have been squelching this top secret information because they don't want anyone to find out. haha Further, medical school is so easy in fact that most medical students have to take art history just to make their load challenging.

 

[Corpus Callosum]

There was a famous article in the New York Times about a study at Harvard or something how medical school is super easy and you only play games and have fun. And just because you are taking medical school classes and see first hand the relative difficulty, I am going to completely disregard that fact and tell you that I heard from my neighbor's cousin's best freind's hairdresser's uncle who has a sister who's dating a guy who delivers baked goods to an office across the street from a a mechanic who married a woman whose 1st husband used to fix a car for a wealthy bussessniss man that resided on the same street of the governor whose sister inlaw dated a pornstar who used to deliver pizza to a construction crew that was fixing the sewerage at medical school that medical school is super easy. The AAMCAAASS, David Stern, all of the NBA referees, and Trilateral Commission have been squelching this top secret information because they don't want anyone to find out. haha Further, medical school is so easy in fact that most medical students have to take art history just to make their load challenging.

hahahahaha, not funny at all,

 

[NRAI2001]

I do not understand why people keep picturing medical school like a beast that is out there to get people. about a month ago we had a meeting with a third year medical student from michigan state and I will qoute what he told me: "medical school is not very hard, it is just like college, with topics being expanded on, ya you might have more to study, but remember you don't work then as most people in undergraduates, there is more material, but at the same time, no art history and all those humanities that we were froced to take in college, so things average out, and I am not finding it harder than college, I always have the time to go out." now no offense but quess whom would I believe on that, pre-med students or medical students, hmmm, I think I will go with the medical student simply becasue he IS THERE and not speculating on the events but living them. By the way I heard conflicting and matching oppinions from other medical students, but positive ones by far outnumbered the negatives.

I did an SMP at RFU, we took all the 1st year med courses with the med students (besides anatomy/histo); it was much much harder than undergrad, and I come from Cal Berkeley a tuff school in the sciences.

That person is either BSing to look cooler, from a wierd random easy school, doesnt remember the time he put into his studies the first two years bc his mind has just repressed that chapter of his life.

That whole BS theory about how you dont take courses in history, english..etc making med school easier is not true. You take other science courses in their places and they arent easy. In med school you dont just learn only what you need to know; professors routinely interject their random research into the lectures and slides, and when you have like 6 or 7 guest lectures per class this can add up quickley. Plus you do take random non med classes in med school: ethics, biostats, epidimiology, patient society, ...etc.

 

[Corpus Callosum]

I did an SMP at RFU, we took all the 1st year med courses with the med students (besides anatomy/histo); it was much much harder than undergrad, and I come from Cal Berkeley a tuff school in the sciences.

That person is either BSing to look cooler, from a wierd random easy school, doesnt remember the time he put into his studies the first two years bc his mind has just repressed that chapter of his life.

That whole BS theory about how you dont take courses in history, english..etc making med school easier is not true. You take other science courses in their places and they arent easy. In med school you dont just learn only what you need to know; professors routinely interject their random research into the lectures and slides, and when you have like 6 or 7 guest lectures per class this can add up quickley. Plus you do take random non med classes in med school: ethics, biostats, epidimiology, patient society, ...etc.

That guy that I quoted is a University of Michigan Graduate pre-medicine and anthropology major. I did not say that he said med school was easy, he said it is not hard as people try to make it look. He did not think that it was much harder than undergrad, but he never said it is supercake, he does study long hours he mentioned, but trying to minimize the MONSTER IMAGE that people attribute to med school, he said that takes lots of effort to pass but indicated that is all he has to do, pass, versus struggle for higher grades in undegrad. Also I heard the same thing from other medical school student just quoted him as an example.
As for the difficulty of the undergrad, it has to do with both the subject and the school, I agree, but the field of study is much more relevant. I did my undergrad in engineering in a regular school (not a top school) and it was very challenging.

 

[RoadRunner17]

There was a famous article in the New York Times about a study at Harvard or something how medical school is super easy and you only play games and have fun. And just because you are taking medical school classes and see first hand the relative difficulty, I am going to completely disregard that fact and tell you that I heard from my neighbor's cousin's best freind's hairdresser's uncle who has a sister who's dating a guy who delivers baked goods to an office across the street from a medical school that medical school is super easy. The AAMCAAASS, David Stern, all of the NBA referees, and Trilateral Commission have been squelching this top secret information because they don't want anyone to find out. haha Further, medical school is so easy in fact that most medical students have to take art history just to make their load challenging.

Seriously, there is no point to this thread. You can go back and forth about how difficult medical school is, but the only thing that matters is how difficult YOU find it, not how difficult other people have found it... and the only way to find out is to get into medical school yourself... which means we should be studying for the MCAT instead of posting in this thread 😉

 

[endofevangelion]

That guy that I quoted is a University of Michigan Graduate pre-medicine and anthropology major. I did not say that he said med school was easy, he said it is not hard as people try to make it look. He did not think that it was much harder than undergrad, but he never said it is supercake, he does study long hours he mentioned, but trying to minimize the MONSTER IMAGE that people attribute to med school, he said that takes lots of effort to pass but indicated that is all he has to do, pass, versus struggle for higher grades in undegrad. Also I heard the same thing from other medical school student just quoted him as an example.
As for the difficulty of the undergrad, it has to do with both the subject and the school, I agree, but the field of study is much more relevant. I did my undergrad in engineering in a regular school (not a top school) and it was very challenging.

dont you have to take the MCAT in 3 weeks or something? what are you doing here?

 

[Corpus Callosum]

dont you have to take the MCAT in 3 weeks or something? what are you doing here?

less than 2 weeks now,, Sept 7th,

 

[PreMD86]

Exactly right, I feel your pain, this is how I feel about the mcat too. I do well on the sciences now after months of practice, but I still think this test is crap (we had long arguments about that in my thread) most people only defend the mcat because they do well on it, and they are proud. However there is nothing we can do, it is there and it is the KEY to getting to med school regardless of everything else you or I might have. Biggest advice: understand the principles do not memorize, and do as much PRACTICE TESTS as you can. MCAT does not measure how much you know, and how smart you are, it is a measure of how fast you think, retain knowledge and recall most details in the passage (in my oppinion that is why I hate it).
good luck.

I agree that the MCAT doesn't test how much you know, but to group empirical knowledge with intelligence is just wrong. I got a 29, which in my opinion is not a good score and one I'm certainly not pround of, and I still defend the MCAT. I think it's the closest thing to an IQ test you can get.
I also think the only reason this thread exists is to protect the bruised egos of those who thought they were hotshots for having 4.0s, and later discovered GPA has little to do with intelligence.

While I'm sure plenty of smart people end up being disappointed on score release day, I've never heard of a "dumb" or somewhat less intelligent individual score over a 30, and certainly not 35 or 40. I have however been a witness to hoards of dumb, socially inept individuals with a complete lack of common sense score 4.0s.

While we can agree to disagree, I think we should all agree that if you find the first hoop to jump through so obnoxious, you will find medicine unbearable. Not only do you have 3 more of these to jump through, but you will also have to find meaning and thrive in a system plagued with inefficiency, set up to deliver the least medicine possible to the masses.
If it helps, learn to see the MCAT as a measure of your ability to handle bullsh*t that won't improve your ability to help others- God knows that'll be the story of our lives.

 

[BrokenGlass]

I agree that the MCAT doesn't test how much you know, but to group empirical knowledge with intelligence is just wrong. I got a 29, which in my opinion is not a good score and one I'm certainly not pround of, and I still defend the MCAT. I think it's the closest thing to an IQ test you can get.
I also think the only reason this thread exists is to protect the bruised egos of those who thought they were hotshots for having 4.0s, and later discovered GPA has little to do with intelligence.

While I'm sure plenty of smart people end up being disappointed on score release day, I've never heard of a "dumb" or somewhat less intelligent individual score over a 30, and certainly not 35 or 40. I have however been a witness to hoards of dumb, socially inept individuals with a complete lack of common sense score 4.0s.

While we can agree to disagree, I think we should all agree that if you find the first hoop to jump through so obnoxious, you will find medicine unbearable. Not only do you have 3 more of these to jump through, but you will also have to find meaning and thrive in a system plagued with inefficiency, set up to deliver the least medicine possible to the masses.
If it helps, learn to see the MCAT as a measure of your ability to handle bullsh*t that won't improve your ability to help others- God knows that'll be the story of our lives.

The only reason we have MCAT is because not all 4.0 GPAs mean the same thing. I don't think anybody in their right mind would claim that a 4.0 at Caltech can be earned by a dumb person.

 

[PreMD86]

The only reason we have MCAT is because not all 4.0 GPAs mean the same thing. I don't think anybody in their right mind would claim that a 4.0 at Caltech can be earned by a dumb person.

If Bush can graduate from Yale, everything is possible.

 

[BrokenGlass]

If Bush can graduate from Yale, everything is possible.

Bush didn't have a 4.0 at Yale. I have more respect for a 4.0 GPA from any top 10 school than a 35 score on the MCAT. Due to the wild fluctuations in difficulty of the recent MCAT administrations a good MCAT score could mean any number of things, but a 4.0 GPA at a top 10 school means that you are very intelligent and you work hard. Hell, try getting a 4.0 at Berkeley if you are not smart enough...you'll get your ass handed to you no matter how hard you work.

 

[chad5871]

If Bush can graduate from Yale, everything is possible.

Classic.

 

[Corpus Callosum]

If Bush can graduate from Yale, everything is possible.

exactly my point all along....A hard working student will shine anywhere, and if the slope becomes steeper, so will the effort.

 

[BrokenGlass]

exactly my point all along....A hard working student will shine anywhere, and if the slope becomes steeper, so will the effort.

Obviously you have never taken a course at a competitive school. Take a course at MIT or Caltech and try shining there if you can. You'll be crying your eyes out 5 minutes into your first day of school.

 

[PreMD86]

Obviously you have never taken a course at a competitive school. Take a course at MIT or Caltech and try shining there if you can. You'll be crying your eyes out 5 minutes into your first day of school.

I get the sense a certain someone has failed a course at caltech and now has the urge to put others down?
Seriously, I'm not impressed much of grades from uber competitive schools.
Because they are so hard to get admitted to, they must maintain their reputation. It is practically impossible to get less than C's in ivy's.

As someone who has taken courses in both a state school and a top-5 school, I can tell you the level of difficulty has more to do with the professor than with the insititution.

 

[cheezer]

exactly my point all along....A hard working student will shine anywhere, and if the slope becomes steeper, so will the effort.

incorrect, intelligence plays a factor in it. gawd i hate this thread, it's the longest bitch-fest i have ever read. why don't you go study. perhaps its just your anxiety talking and you'll perform better than you think.

 

[RoadRunner17]

Just because you can crack a joke about Bush graduating from Yale doesn't mean your argument is any more valid than it already is.

BrokenGlass has made a very salient point. A 4.0 from a lesser-known school with a lower level of competition is very much different from a 4.0 at Caltech or MIT. The 4.0 from Caltech or MIT says a lot more about a person than a 4.0 from a less-competitive university. Which is not to say that the 4.0 from the less-competitive university isn't smart enough, but simply that there isn't enough information about how well that student compares to other students at a high level.

That's like scouting two players who are otherwise similar but play against different competition. One plays at the highest level in college basketball. Say for example, an powerhouse ACC school like UNC or Duke that plays a high level of competition. The other guy is playing in a Division III university. Assuming all else is equal, and that both do well in their respective divisions, you are going to look more favorably upon the track record of the guy who's played well against the toughest competition as opposed to the guy who plays against weaker competition. The second guy just hasn't proved himself as much as the first guy. That's the main point to be made here.

Then they have the NBA scouting combine where players from all over the country go to get measured, poked, prodded, do drills and play against each other with the scouts and coaches watching. This is the equivalent of the MCAT. While you can't just prove that you're a supremely awesome basketball player in the two or three days that you're at the combine, it gives scouts a standard way to compare people by their speed, strength, agility and other factors as well as how they look in the drills. This is the MCAT here. It's not perfect because you have your workout warriors and the underlooked less-athletic performers, but it is an invaluable tool for scouts and general managers all around.

It's not a 100% perfect analogy, but surely you get what I'm trying to say here. And yes, I watch too much sports.

 

[chad5871]

....That's like scouting two players who are otherwise similar but play against different competition. One plays at the highest level in college basketball. Say for example, an powerhouse ACC school like UNC or Duke that plays a high level of competition. The other guy is playing in a Division III university....

I just wanted to take this opportunity to remind everyone that we knocked Duke out of the NCAA March Madness Tournament this past spring. 👍 I apologize for the digression. Please continue....

 

[Corpus Callosum]

I get the sense a certain someone has failed a course at caltech and now has the urge to put others down?
Seriously, I'm not impressed much of grades from uber competitive schools.
Because they are so hard to get admitted to, they must maintain their reputation. It is practically impossible to get less than C's in ivy's.

As someone who has taken courses in both a state school and a top-5 school, I can tell you the level of difficulty has more to do with the professor than with the insititution.

Absolutely, there is no such thing as hard class and easy class, there is a hard professor and easy one, and those can be found in either... You can test the easiest topics with the hardest most confusing questions (MCAT) and you can test the most difficult principles with straight forward easy questions. Listen to this, I had a girl in my organic chemistry class who was a University of Michigan student, but for research purposes she took org 2 in my school, always crying after every and each test. After the semester was over, she told me it is the only C on her transript. Unless you don't consider University of Michigan a top school, seems like your theory is working backwards here...

 

[Corpus Callosum]

incorrect, intelligence plays a factor in it. gawd i hate this thread, it's the longest bitch-fest i have ever read. why don't you go study. perhaps its just your anxiety talking and you'll perform better than you think.

Love michael meijer movies, nice photo, Halloween best movies

 

[PreMD86]

Just because you can crack a joke about Bush graduating from Yale doesn't mean your argument is any more valid than it already is.

It doesn't? Damn, I guess all my public school education has gone to waste.

BrokenGlass has made a very salient point. A 4.0 from a lesser-known school with a lower level of competition is very much different from a 4.0 at Caltech or MIT. The 4.0 from Caltech or MIT says a lot more about a person than a 4.0 from a less-competitive university. Which is not to say that the 4.0 from the less-competitive university isn't smart enough, but simply that there isn't enough information about how well that student compares to other students at a high level.

That's like scouting two players who are otherwise similar but play against different competition. One plays at the highest level in college basketball. Say for example, an powerhouse ACC school like UNC or Duke that plays a high level of competition. The other guy is playing in a Division III university. Assuming all else is equal, and that both do well in their respective divisions, you are going to look more favorably upon the track record of the guy who's played well against the toughest competition as opposed to the guy who plays against weaker competition. The second guy just hasn't proved himself as much as the first guy. That's the main point to be made here.

Then they have the NBA scouting combine where players from all over the country go to get measured, poked, prodded, do drills and play against each other with the scouts and coaches watching. This is the equivalent of the MCAT. While you can't just prove that you're a supremely awesome basketball player in the two or three days that you're at the combine, it gives scouts a standard way to compare people by their speed, strength, agility and other factors as well as how they look in the drills. This is the MCAT here. It's not perfect because you have your workout warriors and the underlooked less-athletic performers, but it is an invaluable tool for scouts and general managers all around.

It's not a 100% perfect analogy, but surely you get what I'm trying to say here. And yes, I watch too much sports.

Ok so let's stay on the sports analogy. Compare for example the best minor league baseball player and the best major league player. While both are the best in their leagues, the major league managers might turn a blind eye to steroid abuse, batt quarking, and unethical behavior for the sake of profit.
True, the competition is stiffer in ivy leagues, but these schools will also go above and beyond to protect their reputation and produce successful alumni that will propagate their name.
Like I said, I'm not impressed by a school's rank. Premed prereqs courses are pretty standardized anyway, so the content covered is almost equivalent. Also, you are assuming that grades are distributed compared your performance in relation to others (for ex, top 10% gets an A), which isnt the case in my school and many others.

 

[Corpus Callosum]

Obviously you have never taken a course at a competitive school. Take a course at MIT or Caltech and try shining there if you can. You'll be crying your eyes out 5 minutes into your first day of school.

5 minutes into the first day, that is hardly fair, give me a semester at least,

calm down, what have Caltech done to you

 

[Corpus Callosum]

It doesn't? Damn, I guess all my public school education has gone to waste.



Ok so let's stay on the sports analogy. Compare for example the best minor league baseball player and the best major league player. While both are the best in their leagues, the major league managers might turn a blind eye to steroid abuse, batt quarking, and unethical behavior for the sake of profit.
True, the competition is stiffer in ivy leagues, but these schools will also go above and beyond to protect their reputation and produce successful alumni that will propagate their name.
Like I said, I'm not impressed by a school's rank. Premed prereqs courses are pretty standardized anyway, so the content covered is almost equivalent. Also, you are assuming that grades are distributed compared your performance in relation to others (for ex, top 10% gets an A), which isnt the case in my school and many others.

I was wondering the same thing, do they talk about Phenols in ORG 2 at ivy's and we don't? Most of the times all schools use the same books (Wade😳rgo, serway😛hysics...) You take control of your educational journey, not the school. You can learn and excell no matter where you are.

 

[majik1213]

I understand what you are saying, but I have verified with many sources that medical admission committees wieght more than 60% on the MCAT, WHICH IN MY OPINION IS PROPOSTRROUS AND INCOMPREHENSIBLE. Like you said, 4 years worth of hard work, projects, tests, and struggle (in my case 7 years college) and yet 1 EXAM on 1 SINGLE DAY gets to decide whether we are smart and deserve to go to graduate school. Logical reasoning here just does not add up and makes me sick in the stomach!!!!

no, i disagree. I feel the issue is the abundance of competition. With so much competition for jobs, they have to seek fine-tuned cream-of-the-crop individuals. And the MCAT is good at identifying those people. It just does NOT mean your a bad person or whatknot, and until people who are used to succeeding see this, they will always fele the MCAT is ridiculously hard and inaccurate at judging their abilities, when in fact it most cetainly is.

 

[RoadRunner17]

There's a difference between what you refer to as Ivy League schools and the schools that we are talking about. Note that Caltech or MIT or Johns Hopkins are not considered Ivy League schools, but as competitive schools in their own right. I think you are also nitpicking with the steroids argument as well.. we could look at how minor league players are more likely to do steroids than major league players, as their desire to make it in the major league may trump their desire to keep clean, but that is irrelevant to the conversation at hand. Okay, there are two things I wanted to clear up/argue about... 1) the misconception just discussed, and 2) the role of the MCAT in this whole thing, which is the original argument. And then I'm done. Today was my day off from MCAT studying and I spend it arguing about the MCAT. Just my rotten luck. Well, onto the first part..

At the more competitive schools, not necessarily referring solely to the Ivies (Brown in particular has one of the worst cases of grade inflation, for instance) or just to any school highly ranked by the US News, you get graded relative to how you do compared to others. I'm assuming this is the case at the more highly regarded schools as almost all of the professors at my school did this. I apologize for making the assumption that grades were a reflection of a curved distribution at most schools.

High ranking doesn't mean much to me either especially when you're talking about Ivy Leaguers; however given that more highly ranked schools tend to attract more overachievers than the typical state school, it is the competition that you're compared to that will put your work in context, if it is indeed being graded in that manner. That's the main point here that I'm getting at. At the schools like Caltech, MIT, Johns Hopkins, A's are harder to come by. Your GPA is put in context here.. agree or disagree, whatever. Finish reading this post first.

When you are at a school that does not predominantly curve, such as the ones some of the people in this thread have posted, then you may be an extremely intelligent student who worked hard in classes, and gotten A's and excelled academically. This I do not dispute. The point here is that there's no real basis for evaluators to compare your record to that of other applicants who are competing for the same spot. If you get a 4.0 at a school that attracts higher quality students from all over the country and grades in terms of how well you do compared to other students, it means more. How much more? I don't know. But you at least have a context, however important or slight, to put your GPA in with respect to your ability to learn, work hard, and all of those other characteristics that adcoms look for in an applicant.

Anyway, onto the second and most important point: It is however not a perfect measure and doesn't give the admissions committee the whole picture in that doesn't solve the problem of comparing GPAs across different schools. There are hundreds of different universities represented by medical college applicants in a given year. It would be an abysmal failure for admissions committees to try to compare GPAs from different schools, context or not. Even if you could, you have thousands of applicants to sift through for each school. It's not doable.

The MCAT is the equalizer, the standardized test that is supposed to be able to compare peoples' reasoning abilities and whatever else they look for in medical college admissions. This is the scouting combine. Not everyone plays against each other in college basketball since there are so many universities and conferences. Hence the role of the combine. It's not perfect, and mistakes are made (just look at the biggest busts in the NFL/NBA, and look at the very frequent occurrences of people who were overlooked because their 40 yard dash time wasn't high enough but were still successful in the pros). But it is the tool that provides an evaluation of certain characteristics of the applicant that the GPA doesn't provide in a standardized context, however imperfectly it accomplishes this task.

That's the role of the MCAT. Embrace and face it. It's a flawed process, and rightfully so when you consider the daunting task the admissions committees have in front of them, every single year. Just do your best.

 

[RoadRunner17]

no, i disagree. I feel the issue is the abundance of competition. With so much competition for jobs, they have to seek fine-tuned cream-of-the-crop individuals. And the MCAT is good at identifying those people. It just does NOT mean your a bad person or whatknot, and until people who are used to succeeding see this, they will always fele the MCAT is ridiculously hard and inaccurate at judging their abilities, when in fact it most cetainly is.

Christ. I had to write an entire book to get to the point majik made. I feel ashamed now. At least I got to write something about the tangential topic of GPA.

 

[cheezer]

Love michael meijer movies, nice photo, Halloween best movies

i'm glad you like halloween. go study.

 

[Corpus Callosum]

i'm glad you like halloween. go study.

Ya thanks for reminding me, let's see, what have I been doing for the last 5 months,hmmmmm🙄 watching Halloween

 

[brianoflee]

Just finished reading this thread in its entirety, and have a few things I wanted to say:

1) Corpus, you asked at one point how best to study for the VR section. I like EK's method the most: while reading through the passage, skim over the fine details and focus primarily on what the passage's main idea is. Try to picture who the author is, what her/his motivations and points of view are, and most importantly, what s/he is trying to say. Then when answering the questions, instead of searching through the passage for something that closely matches one of the possible answers, imagine yourself as the author and try to imagine how s/he would answer the question. It's not a perfect method, but it's the one that gave me the biggest increase in VR score.

2) Corpus, you argue that good students at non top-ten schools would be good students anywhere. This is best proven by MCAT results: your score is nothing but a percentile, and as such, your score is but a reflection of how you compare against students from all schools. So if you (not you specifically, Corpus -- just a hypothetical, general 'you') are one of these good-students-from-a-non-top-ten-school-that-would-do-well-anywhere, then you'll score well on the MCAT. That's exactly what a strong MCAT score means, irrespective of how hard the test is.


3) The argument that med school is 'hard' or 'not hard' is the same as the OP's original question. It's not absolute. Some people find the MCAT easy, and some find it hard. Similarily, some people (surprisingly) will say med school is easy, and some will say it's hard. That said, when I was told by a friend in medicine at McGill that her first year was basically all of the material from her 3-year McGill physiology degree condensed into one, I'd imagine that the only people who claim med school is easy are very, very strong students.

It's like debating if pizza is tasty. Most will say it's delicious, some will say it's not, and even then, it depends on the quality of the restaurant 😉


4) littlealex, are you still reading this thread, or have you long since given up? Your posts were among the most coherent on this thread.


Corpus (and to all of those yet to take the MCAT), best of luck in your studies and on the test come the big day. I wish you all the best. 👍

 

[Corpus Callosum]

Just finished reading this thread in its entirety, and have a few things I wanted to say:

1) Corpus, you asked at one point how best to study for the VR section. I like EK's method the most: while reading through the passage, skim over the fine details and focus primarily on what the passage's main idea is. Try to picture who the author is, what her/his motivations and points of view are, and most importantly, what s/he is trying to say. Then when answering the questions, instead of searching through the passage for something that closely matches one of the possible answers, imagine yourself as the author and try to imagine how s/he would answer the question. It's not a perfect method, but it's the one that gave me the biggest increase in VR score.

2) Corpus, you argue that good students at non top-ten schools would be good students anywhere. This is best proven by MCAT results: your score is nothing but a percentile, and as such, your score is but a reflection of how you compare against students from all schools. So if you (not you specifically, Corpus -- just a hypothetical, general 'you') are one of these good-students-from-a-non-top-ten-school-that-would-do-well-anywhere, then you'll score well on the MCAT. That's exactly what a strong MCAT score means, irrespective of how hard the test is.


3) The argument that med school is 'hard' or 'not hard' is the same as the OP's original question. It's not absolute. Some people find the MCAT easy, and some find it hard. Similarily, some people (surprisingly) will say med school is easy, and some will say it's hard. That said, when I was told by a friend in medicine at McGill that her first year was basically all of the material from her 3-year McGill physiology degree condensed into one, I'd imagine that the only people who claim med school is easy are very, very strong students.

It's like debating if pizza is tasty. Most will say it's delicious, some will say it's not, and even then, it depends on the quality of the restaurant 😉


4) littlealex, are you still reading this thread, or have you long since given up? Your posts were among the most coherent on this thread.


Corpus (and to all of those yet to take the MCAT), best of luck in your studies and on the test come the big day. I wish you all the best. 👍

Thank you very much. Now this is whom I call mature objective debater.
Although I may disagree with you on point 2) because again I do not believe the MCAT measures how much you know or how inteligent you are, but how fast you think, retain passage information (in other words memorize it within minutes), and be able to spit it out when questioned about the details (this mostly applies to VR and the Biology section lately).
I do stipulate to point 3) however. I do believe anything is relative, so is 'easy' and 'hard', just like UNDERGRAD can be easy to some and hard for others. I never claimed that medical school was easy, and I know it is not. I was trying to question the vast level of difficulty that others are attributing to medical school, supported by medical school students when clearly many of them disagree.
As for the pizza that is my favorite part, chicken, green olive, and green pepper, , and as for the place how about Pizza Hut👍
just kidding but I do love pizza
Thanks again for the verbal advice too, I will try that with the little time I have remaining, and good luck to you.
by the way this is a long thread, must have taken you the whole night to read