Does the new MSAR show that top schools are weighting the MCAT heavier?

[vy2005]

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Without jumping to too many conclusions it seems logical to me that the number of students with >520s stays roughly constant year to year. With the majority of T20s median MCATs climbing a point or two, it seems like they're focusing more on elite scores than holistic admissions than they used to. Maybe this is a return to what it was like on the old MCAT scale. Perhaps the new scoring system only worked temporarily to de-emphasize the score to adcoms.

 

[907914]

Without jumping to too many conclusions it seems logical to me that the number of students with >520s stays roughly constant year to year. With the majority of T20s median MCATs climbing a point or two, it seems like they're focusing more on elite scores than holistic admissions than they used to. Maybe this is a return to what it was like on the old MCAT scale. Perhaps the new scoring system only worked temporarily to de-emphasize the score to adcoms.

Now that they know what the new scores represent from their students it is same-ole-same-ole. Eeyup.

 

[manofsteel9]

I'm a little confused by your statement "focusing more on elite scores than holistic admissions." Wouldn't you agree that a lot of top-scorers also have stellar extracurriculars, research, LoR's?

 

[907914]

I'm a little confused by your statement "focusing more on elite scores than holistic admissions." Wouldn't you agree that a lot of top-scorers also have stellar extracurriculars, research, LoR's?

This is statistically likely as there is a direct correlation between increased family income, increased MCAT scores, and increased Undergrad resources. However, at the top brackets if everyone has superb ECs, superb is no longer a distinguishing factor.

 

[manofsteel9]

This is statistically likely as there is a direct correlation between increased family income, increased MCAT scores, and increased Undergrad resources. However, at the top brackets if everyone has superb ECs, superb is no longer a distinguishing factor.

I understand that. I guess what I'm saying is that the rising median in MCAT score has less to do with top schools' focus on stats but to do with the recent change in the nature of the application pool. With more people taking the MCAT and taking gap years, there are now more high-stat applicants in top schools' application pools.

 

[907914]

I understand that. I guess what I'm saying is that the rising median in MCAT score has less to do with top schools' focus on stats but to do with the recent change in the nature of the application pool. With more people taking the MCAT and taking gap years, there are now more high-stat applicants in top schools' application pools.

The nature of the applicant pool does not change. MCAT scores are based on percentiles so there are the same portion of high MCATs one year as the next. If there were half of the high stats last year that took a gap year then it is likely that half of the high stats applicants will take a gap year this year as well, thus the overall number/proportion of high stats applicants does not change.

There are not any significant higher number of people taking the MCAT year-on-year the last couple of cycles.

 

[manofsteel9]

The nature of the applicant pool does not change. MCAT scores are based on percentiles so there are the same portion of high MCATs one year as the next. If there were half of the high stats last year that took a gap year then it is likely that half of the high stats applicants will take a gap year this year as well, thus the overall number/proportion of high stats applicants does not change.

There are not any significant higher number of people taking the MCAT year-on-year the last couple of cycles.

When I wrote "nature of the applicant pool," I also meant that more people could be having better clinical experience, volunteering, research etc. Which means that in previous cycles, many 520+ scorers could have been rejected due to holes in other parts of their application, but now the high-stat applicants are becoming the full package and gaining more acceptances at top schools.

 

[907914]

When I wrote "nature of the applicant pool," I also meant that more people could be having better clinical experience, volunteering, research etc. Which means that in previous cycles, many 520+ scorers could have been rejected due to holes in other parts of their application, but now the high-stat applicants are becoming the full package and gaining more acceptances at top schools.

I doubt there is any significant difference in applicant quality. Gunners have always been gunning.

 

[manofsteel9]

I doubt there is any significant difference in applicant quality. Gunners have always been gunning.

Well, you never know...and we will never know, unless schools start to be very transparent with their admissions process and data. All I wanted to say is that simply with the MSAR data, we shouldn't be drawing out conclusions and proposing theories of how medical school admissions is changing...

 

[Walter Raleigh]

This is statistically likely as there is a direct correlation between increased family income, increased MCAT scores, and increased Undergrad resources. However, at the top brackets if everyone has superb ECs, superb is no longer a distinguishing factor.

Regarding superb ECs: things like Peace Corps, Teach for America, and military service will always be fairly uncommon, even at schools like Harvard.

 

[907914]

Regarding superb ECs: things like Peace Corps, Teach for America, and military service will always be fairly uncommon, even at schools like Harvard.

Interestingly, however, among the T5 schools, Harvard has consistently had a higher proportion of military students (>3% the last 4 years, 2% this year) suggesting they may value the superb ECs a little higher than the other T5 schools.

 

[efle]

Weighting it heavier relative to when? Prior to the rollout of the new MCAT, there were a whole bunch of top schools with 37-38 medians (520+ on the new scale).

After the new scores came out, a bunch of schools had a small drop in their percentiles, likely because people didn't have a good grasp on how to translate between the scales. This affected some schools more than others. One famous example was UCLA, which had a matriculant median of 507 the year of the rollout. Clearly they made a mistake, because they just announced a new MCAT minimum of 512 going forwards.

So really what we're seeing now is schools correcting themselves back up to where they were before.

 

[efle]

We did some back of the envelope estimations in the bigger MSAR thread. Math works out to ~1500 applicants per year with a 520+ who get in somewhere, and ~500 people with a 520+ who matriculate to the cohort of schools with a 520+ median.

You can read that in one of two ways, depending whether you see the glass half empty or full:

• If you have a 520+ you are in a very sought after demographic with an insanely high 33% matriculation rate overall to this cohort of a bunch of top 20s

BUT

• Even with a 520+, there's 2 other premeds with that same score per 1 seat at these schools. Assuming most 520+ students apply to most of these schools, that means it's still only a minority ending up there.

 

[Goro]

IT appears that there is indeed a race to the top,, and even the Drexel/Albany class schools are raising their floors.

 

[907914]

We did some back of the envelope estimations in the bigger MSAR thread. Math works out to ~1500 applicants per year with a 520+ who get in somewhere, and ~500 people with a 520+ who matriculate to the cohort of schools with a 520+ median.

You can read that in one of two ways, depending whether you see the glass half empty or full:

• If you have a 520+ you are in a very sought after demographic with an insanely high 33% matriculation rate overall to this cohort of a bunch of top 20s

BUT

• Even with a 520+, there's 2 other premeds with that same score per 1 seat at these schools. Assuming most 520+ students apply to most of these schools, that means it's still only a minority ending up there.

So on another post, all of the ADCOMS suggested that “Too top heavy” was definitely a thing. For the 520+ group, would applying only T20 plus state schools be too top heavy? If a third of those folks go to T7, then I wonder what portion end up in/out of T20

 

[Goro]

So on another post, all of the ADCOMS suggested that “Too top heavy” was definitely a thing. For the 520+ group, would applying only T20 plus state schools be too top heavy? If a third of those folks go to T7, then I wonder what portion end up in/out of T20

Yes, because there are some 30 schools in the "Top 20".

One needs to have a good, realistic mix of Keck/Emory/Einstein class schools along with the Harvard/Stanford class, along with one's state schools

 

[deleted938090]

Without jumping to too many conclusions

it seems like they're focusing more on elite scores than holistic admissions than they used to.

So which one is it?

 

[efle]

So on another post, all of the ADCOMS suggested that “Too top heavy” was definitely a thing. For the 520+ group, would applying only T20 plus state schools be too top heavy? If a third of those folks go to T7, then I wonder what portion end up in/out of T20

If you have a truly killer application with 3.9+/520+ and strong ECs especially research, I think top ~20 + state programs is fine. It really comes down to how limited you are in time and money though. It can't ever hurt you to apply to more places in the 20-30 range, it's just a lot of essays to write and a lot of secondary fees to pay. If you're risk-averse then apply to a huge list. If you're like me and you're broke, hate writing essays, and are a little cocky, you can just pick your favorite dozen of the top programs and add state schools.

 

[efle]

There used to be a table by AAMC (perhaps @efle can pull it up) that showed a 10 year trend where GPA was up for matriculants from 3.6 to 3.7 and MCAT was up from about 30 to 31.5 on old scale. These numbers have been rising for years and is nothing new

Lawper made a very nice graph here showing the trend in LizzyM over the last 25 years. In spite of fluctuations in the number of applicants per seat, the average LizzyM has marched steadily upwards all the way from ~62 to ~69

Spoiler: LizzyM over the years

 

[Walter Raleigh]

If you have a truly killer application with 3.9+/520+ and strong ECs especially research, I think top ~20 + state programs is fine. It really comes down to how limited you are in time and money though. It can't ever hurt you to apply to more places in the 20-30 range, it's just a lot of essays to write and a lot of secondary fees to pay. If you're risk-averse then apply to a huge list. If you're like me and you're broke, hate writing essays, and are a little cocky, you can just pick your favorite dozen of the top programs and add state schools.

There are a very few applicants that can get away with applying top-20 only, even. I think we had a PhD with a first-author Nature paper, a 3.9, and a 519 MCAT that tried this successfully.

 

[efle]

Found the table I was looking for
View attachment 255620

View attachment 255620

Looks like it lines up with Lawper's plot, if the table went back another 10 years could see another 2 point change in LizzyM!

Also funny that the current average accepted MCAT is 511.2, which is almost exactly the same as 31.4 before the change. Looks like the big AAMC initiative to reset expectations around 500, had exactly 0% impact on admissions committees.

 

[NYCVillain]

We did some back of the envelope estimations in the bigger MSAR thread. Math works out to ~1500 applicants per year with a 520+ who get in somewhere, and ~500 people with a 520+ who matriculate to the cohort of schools with a 520+ median.

You can read that in one of two ways, depending whether you see the glass half empty or full:

• If you have a 520+ you are in a very sought after demographic with an insanely high 33% matriculation rate overall to this cohort of a bunch of top 20s

BUT

• Even with a 520+, there's 2 other premeds with that same score per 1 seat at these schools. Assuming most 520+ students apply to most of these schools, that means it's still only a minority ending up there.

How do you think the data changes when you include 520+ with 3.8+


I'm thinking maybe 1200 apply with a 520+ 3.8+


Edit: Tried doing the math myself... From my estimation there are around 600-630 (took 1/2 of class size minus ten for each school to estimate) students who matriculate into those 12 schools with a 520+ 3.8+.... There's probably around 1100-1200 students applying each year with a 520+3.8+, so chances are a little bit better than 50/50. That's not even including schools like Cornell, Sinai, Duke, the Cali Powerhouses, etc which probably each average around 30-40+ students with stats of this caliber.

 

[efle]

How do you think the data changes when you include 520+ with 3.8+


I'm thinking maybe 1200 apply with a 520+ 3.8+


Edit: Tried doing the math myself... From my estimation there are around 600-630 students who matriculate into those 12 schools with a 520+ 3.8+.... There's probably around 1100-1200 students applying each year with a 520+3.8+, so chances are a little bit better than 50/50. That's not even including schools like Cornell, Sinai, Duke, the Cali Powerhouses, etc

I'm too lazy to do it right now but it would be pretty easy for anyone with an MSAR subscription to get a very accurate estimation. Since we know how many people score 520+ each year:

All you need is the top 20 schools' class sizes, and their matriculant distributions on the MSAR.
If they have a 520 median, count 50% of the class. 520 as their 75th, count 25% of the class. Etc.

Add them all up, and you can see exactly how many total people with a 520+ end up at the "top 20" med schools. I'm guessing when you compare to the total numbers of 520+ scores, it'll be about half.

 

[NYCVillain]

I'm too lazy to do it right now but it would be pretty easy for anyone with an MSAR subscription to get a very accurate estimation. Since we know how many people score 520+ each year:

All you need is the top 20 schools' class sizes, and their matriculant distributions on the MSAR.
If they have a 520 median, count 50% of the class. 520 as their 75th, count 25% of the class. Etc.

Add them all up, and you can see exactly how many total people with a 520+ end up at the "top 20" med schools. I'm guessing when you compare to the total numbers of 520+ scores, it'll be about half.

Yup I calculated it to be around 50-50 for those 12 schools.

 

[Lucca]

If you have a truly killer application with 3.9+/520+ and strong ECs especially research, I think top ~20 + state programs is fine. It really comes down to how limited you are in time and money though. It can't ever hurt you to apply to more places in the 20-30 range, it's just a lot of essays to write and a lot of secondary fees to pay. If you're risk-averse then apply to a huge list. If you're like me and you're broke, hate writing essays, and are a little cocky, you can just pick your favorite dozen of the top programs and add state schools.

Never forget that @efle applied to only 12 schools lmao

I think more people should apply to fewer schools but people, including myself, are too neurotic to let themselves even if their app is strong. I could’ve got away with 15 on my list.

 

[efle]

Never forget that @efle applied to only 12 schools lmao

I think more people should apply to fewer schools but people, including myself, are too neurotic to let themselves even if their app is strong. I could’ve got away with 15 on my list.

In hindsight my cockiness saved a lot of time and money. I didn't even get interviewed, let alone admitted, to anywhere ranked below the teens. Hell I'm from Southern california and USC wouldn't even give me an interview! Yield protection is very real, or I put something really bad in that secondary.