Chances @ DO/AA (bad mcat 498)

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

anyusernamenottaken

Full Member
7+ Year Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2016
Messages
79
Reaction score
33
Hello everyone,
I just got my MCAT back today and I am pretty upset with it.

About me:
3.7 cGPA (business admin)
3.8 sGPA
about 250 vol hours coaching football
about 30 hours of shadowing
Worked full time through college and in a management role.
498 MCAT
been doing Brazilian jujitsu for like 6 month but I dont think thats an ec worth putting on an app.

126
122
124
126
thanks
Members don't see this ad.
 
Last edited:
Apply broadly and include newer schools - ARCOM, ICOM, RVU-Utah, MUCOM, etc.

Apply to VCOM's - they love high GPA's and will look past sub 500 MCAT's a lot
 
Members don't see this ad :)
You have little to no chance with a <500 MCAT and zero clinical experience and zero service-to-the-needy experience. Unless the football coaching was for a group of kids with developmental disabilities. Your Brazilian jiujitsu would have been an interesting addition to your ECs if you had a more solid app.

I'm going to guess that your low MCAT had less to do with your abilities and more to do with not taking enough time to study the material and working right up until test day. You need to take this year to start volunteering and get clinical experience, take some time off work while you study for the MCAT, and apply next cycle. You could try applying this cycle, but I think you'd be wasting your money. I can't imagine adcoms would think it's a good idea for you to apply right now with what you have.
 
Lack of clinical exposure is more damaging than anything. Even with the low MCAT you can land a new school if the rest of your application is pristine.

Are you going to tell them you watched the good doctor and that's how you decided on medicine?

This is seriously an easy "toss out" application
 
Low mcat, below 500 and low CARS is a red flag for me and would be a rejection. With collegiate grade inflation, high gpa' s are not that important unless from an upper tier school.
 
Give it another year.
Assuming it's important enough to you.

Not trying to be snarky here (OK - just a little) but your minimal ECs suggest maybe medicine isn't that important to you... Prove otherwise
 
Angus Avagadro said:
Low mcat, below 500 and low CARS is a red flag for me and would be a rejection. With collegiate grade inflation, high gpa' s are not that important unless from an upper tier school.
Click to expand...
How do high gpa's translate to a dismal, less than 500, mcat? I see this frequently with grade inflation and creative,(easy) course schedules. What you rarely see is low GPA, 2.8 science and 516 MCAT. I would consider this case bright and lazy. Also not a good fit for medical school. Remember, the MCAT is designed to correlate with Step 1 score, which is the MCAT for residency applications
 
Members don't see this ad :)
bedizen said:
they most certainly take into consideration the rigor of your institution, and some hold more weight than others
Click to expand...
Angus Avagadro said:
How do high gpa's translate to a dismal, less than 500, mcat? I see this frequently with grade inflation and creative,(easy) course schedules. What you rarely see is low GPA, 2.8 science and 516 MCAT. I would consider this case bright and lazy. Also not a good fit for medical school. Remember, the MCAT is designed to correlate with Step 1 score, which is the MCAT for residency applications
Click to expand...
They don't care about what school you went to as much as you think. You can search previous threads on it. I believe there was a chart ranking what adcoms look for in an applicant and the institution they went to was deemed to be "low priority". Also, it's very easy to score less than a 500 on the mcat if your cars score is not up to par, I've seen a lot of people kill the science sections and go on and tank cars (which has the lowest correlation to step 1, bio being the highest) and that obviously kills their overall score. I've also seen a lot of people kill cars and do below avg on the science section, but still managed above a 500.
 
chillingpanda said:
They don't care about what school you went to as much as you think. You can search previous threads on it. I believe there was a chart ranking what adcoms look for in an applicant and the institution they went to was deemed to be "low priority". Also, it's very easy to score less than a 500 on the mcat if your cars score is not up to par, I've seen a lot of people kill the science sections and go on and tank cars (which has the lowest correlation to step 1, bio being the highest) and that obviously kills their overall score. I've also seen a lot of people kill cars and do below avg on the science section, but still managed above a 500.
Click to expand...
Anything is possible. Anyuser has low scores across the board with decent GPA. Sorry, a 500 is still a dismal score, about 24 on old MCAT. And schools DO look at your school, my school has several they prefer.
 
chillingpanda said:
They don't care about what school you went to as much as you think. You can search previous threads on it. I believe there was a chart ranking what adcoms look for in an applicant and the institution they went to was deemed to be "low priority". Also, it's very easy to score less than a 500 on the mcat if your cars score is not up to par, I've seen a lot of people kill the science sections and go on and tank cars (which has the lowest correlation to step 1, bio being the highest) and that obviously kills their overall score. I've also seen a lot of people kill cars and do below avg on the science section, but still managed above a 500.
Click to expand...
I know I'm late to this party, but I believe this person is correct. I have a 3.5 cGPA a 3.6 sGPA a 3.73 "true undergrad gpa" and a 498 mcat and have 6 IIs at DO schools so far. Granted my Bio was 128 and chem 125. Pretty generic ECs though.
 
Angus Avagadro said:
Anything is possible. Anyuser has low scores across the board with decent GPA. Sorry, a 500 is still a dismal score, about 24 on old MCAT. And schools DO look at your school, my school has several they prefer.
Click to expand...

If 500 is a dismal score why is it close to the median MCAT for a number of DO schools? If the AA in Op's post refers to his/her URM status he should be able to get some medical and underserved volunteering in and be totally fine for DO schools and HBCs
 
JBruinW said:
If 500 is a dismal score why is it close to the median MCAT for a number of DO schools? If the AA in Op's post refers to his/her URM status he should be able to get some medical and underserved volunteering in and be totally fine for DO schools and HBCs
Click to expand...

Right. And why did 27% of DO matriculants in 2017 have MCAT scores of 500 or lower? And why did the average African-American DO matriculant in 2017 have an MCAT score of 497?

@Angus Avagadro, I get that you're proud of being a DO, and I think that that's great and commendable... but do you think you're maybe slightly exaggerating the academic standards for admission at a majority of DO schools? I'm sure you'd agree that, for the purpose of DO admission, a 500 isn't a "dismal score," especially for an African-American applicant.
 
Osminog said:
Right. And why did 27% of DO matriculants in 2017 have MCAT scores of 500 or lower? And why did the average African-American DO matriculant in 2017 have an MCAT score of 497?

@Angus Avagadro, I get that you're proud of being a DO, and I think that that's great and commendable... but do you think you're maybe slightly exaggerating the academic standards for admission at a majority of DO schools? I'm sure you'd agree that, for the purpose of DO admission, a 500 isn't a "dismal score," especially for an African-American applicant.
Click to expand...
Not sure why AA is now a question. OP didn't mention anything about that.Maybe dismal is not a very encouraging word, but498 is in the 42 percentile, so 6 out of 10 people scored better than OP. And that's all takers, not just people who applied. Dismal, maybe not, but I wouldn't call it good. 500 is our schools supposed cutoff. Other schools have 498 as their median? Probably the newer ones I would think. Their board scores should also be lower. Why did 27%of matruculants have MCAT less than 500? New schools have to fill seats is my only answer. I would want to see a retake with a higher result. Our students success is our highest priority. Having to repeat a year or remediate a class would be another obstacle to successfully matching.
 
If OP isn't African American and AA is referring to anesthesiology assistant programs, then yes a 498 is average
 
justanotherpremed1 said:
If OP isn't African American and AA is referring to anesthesiology assistant programs, then yes a 498 is average
Click to expand...

Ahh that makes more sense. Based on what I've seen (obviously the DOs/Adcoms would know more than me) there seems to be a fair number of DO schools where a subpar mcat score would not totally hinder you from earning an acceptance.

If OP is serious about medicine I would strongly recommend taking time from work (work 20 hours a week if you can) to obtain more clinical experience and retake the MCAT. You can easily improve your science and psych/scores by doing a ton of practice problems and religiously using anki. I'm sure you could gain a couple of points on CARS but I wouldn't expect any huge jumps as it seems to be the section that responds the least to studying ( I did no dedicated CARS studying and did well on it). If you even got a 505 that would greatly improve your chances and it is well worth the effort. I'm sure you would be much more satisfied working as a DO than an AA
 
Osminog said:
Read the title of this thread carefully. This detail is important.
Click to expand...
As I said, 498 is 42 percentile. OP did as well as 4 out of 10 initial test takers.6 out of 10 did better. It would be worse compared to students who matriculated. It's not a good score. They need to retake, do better and buff up the ECs. IMO.
 
First off, I strongly recommend you not apply this year. Your app is not ready.

Without question you need clinical experience. Get it however you can, scribing, patient care assistant, etc.

A 498 is obciuksy a bad score but if you spend time on here or talk to DO students you'll find a lot of people with lower scores can still get in. A friend of mine had a 499 and 3.9 and is at Pcom. The difference between you guys is she also had killer Ecs.

So whether or not a retake is warranted is subjective. Regardless, you should not apply now anyway so I would encourage you do retake the mcat sometime this year if you think you can improve. But again the clinical hours are a must.
 
Last edited:
Since the MCAT (especially B/B & C/P subsections) is very strongly correlated with success on boards, I would think most adcoms would be hesitant to accept students with sub 500 score. The AAMC "encouraged all schools to consider that students who rank in the 50th percentile and above should be able to handle the work of a medical student successfully and pass the United States Medical Licensing Exam." This is not to say that students who score <500 won't be able to pass boards, it just seems like it's more of a risk for adcoms to accept them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Y
DO Application Timing Question (retaking MCAT)
Replies
5
Views
432
Faha
F
T
How bad is no research?
Replies
2
Views
127
Goro
Goro
W
Is ICOM still on the DO bad boy list?
Replies
3
Views
2K
TUWEST_509
T
A
Multiple DO As with low MCAT & "late" application
Replies
1
Views
956
Mr.Smile12
Mr.Smile12
H
how do DO schools look at multiple mcat scores?
Replies
2
Views
1K
Goro
Goro
Top