Do MCAT Scores Older than 3-4 Years Hurt My Chances?

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meeninit

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As all MCAT scores are reported to the schools, even the ones exceeding the acceptable age limit for schools, do the adcoms of these schools judge a candidate on the expired MCAT?

Let's say an old MCAT score of 25 that is 4 years old and a newer 510-512 one. Would the 25 still be given weight?

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Do they hurt your chances? Yes
Do they help your chances? No

It's the unfortunate truth. If they get to see all MCAT scores then they will glance at the prior score and that WILL affect their judgement of you more negatively than if you took it once in your life and got a good score.

Though since it was the old MCAT that was taken it is not as bad. The new one will be used as the gold standard soon when the old is phased out.

But still, even though the policy is to consider MCAT scores within the past 2-4 years, depending on the school, how much can you trust mere humans to try to limit their biases when a subpar previous score is glaring at them?
 
I agree with anisole about it being better if it was in 1 attempt. But....
Let's draw a hypothetical situation:

Student with average ECs, a second/third author on a publication, 512 MCAT one attempt, 3.75 u/sgpa
Student with average ECs, a second/third author on a publication, 513 MCAT but with a 25 on MCAT 4 years ago, 3.75 u/sgpa

IF I was on an adcom I would still go with the second student because of the +1 MCAT score. But if the situation looked like this:

Student with average ECs, a second/third author on a publication, 512 MCAT one attempt, 3.75 u/sgpa
Student with average ECs, a second/third author on a publication, 512 MCAT but with a 25 on MCAT 4 years ago, 3.75 u/sgpa

I would go with the first. You have to think how it will look relative to your peers, because in the end of the day it's a competition game.
 
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