Highest MCAT score?

[The Madden Bus]

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Surely someone in the history of the MCAT must have got a 45. The highest I've seen on MD applicants and on this board is a 43. I also heard that last year no one got a 45 or 44. Anyone ever heard of anyone ever who got a 45? or even a 44? I'm just curious.

 

[Fermata]

It doesn't matter.

Anything 38ish and over is plenty high and involves a lot of variation in luck.

 

[The Madden Bus]

It doesn't matter.

Anything 38ish and over is plenty high and involves a lot of variation in luck.

I know, I was just wondering if anyone has ever heard of such things.

 

[futureMD222]

I know, I was just wondering if anyone has ever heard of such things.

Yes, someone at my university got a 45.

 

[ND2005]

Yes, someone at my university got a 45.

Someone at your school may be lying...unless it's an old score (and most relevantly, a no longer valid score after this application cycle)

No one has gotten a higher score than 43 since 2003. Ask the resident MCAT expert (QofQuimica).

 

[jebus]

You can email/call the AAMC and ask. Someone did that a while ago and yes, they said 43 was the highest score received. Search the forums and you'll see the thread.

 

[DrBowtie]

Only recently was the top verbal score a 15. It used to be reported as 13-15.

 

[QofQuimica]

You can email/call the AAMC and ask. Someone did that a while ago and yes, they said 43 was the highest score received. Search the forums and you'll see the thread.

This was true for Aug. 2004, which was when I took the test. I don't know if anyone has asked about the 2005 administrations. As far as I know, no one has scored higher than 43 since 2003.

 

[t33sg1rl]

before the curves were adjusted to make 45 impossible. You have to look at it from the med school adcom perspective-if 45 is actually achievable, then they can't compare applicants. I took it in 2004 and they did tell us that 43 was the highest score that year.

Anyway, I agree with the above people that high scores are mostly based on luck. In my five Kaplan practice exams, my highest cumulative score was 34, and I never got above 12 in ANYTHING. On the real MCAT day, I just lucked out. My Bio section had only one Orgo passage, and it was one of those where you could answer the questions just by reading the passage. I talked to other people after the test who had up to HALF their questions on Organic. So I ended up with Physics-11 (reflecting my actual natural abilities), Bio-13 (reflecting graduate work in Biology and no background knowledge of Organic), and Verbal-14. Not sure what happened on Verbal, I scored 12's on all five Kaplan practices, so I didn't do any prep for it at all. It's probably the same as Orgo-the other people taking the test had harder passages than I did.

Aside from dumb luck, I just woke up feeling really pumped on MCAT day. I felt like my chance had finally come. I listened to happy, energetic, inspirational music during all the breaks, ate a well-planned lunch, stayed positive and confident, talked to NO ONE but my family, and re-committed my life to Jesus about a dozen times that day.

So just remember-your high score can only happen if lots of other people get crappy scores!

 

[ND2005]

before the curves were adjusted to make 45 impossible.

I don't think the curves have been adjusted to make a 45 impossible. The sections of the test are curved independently of one another, without consideration of how individual test-takers have performed on the other two sections.

Getting a 45 would just mean a "perfect storm" of 3 individually highly improbable 15's.

And if there were 45s "back in the day", I don't think it was a major concern of Adcoms on comparing them (at least not on the basis of their MCAT). Since there would have been, at best, only a couple of them per application cycle.

 

[DrBowtie]

I don't think the curves have been adjusted to make a 45 impossible. The sections of the test are curved independently of one another, without consideration of how individual test-takers have performed on the other two sections.

Getting a 45 would just mean a "perfect storm" of 3 individually highly improbable 15's.

And if there were 45s "back in the day", I don't think it was a major concern of Adcoms on comparing them (at least not on the basis of their MCAT). Since there would have been, at best, only a couple of them per application cycle.

You are correct. The sections are curved independently so it is possible. You just have to bring your A++ game to every section.

 

[The Madden Bus]

This was true for Aug. 2004, which was when I took the test. I don't know if anyone has asked about the 2005 administrations. As far as I know, no one has scored higher than 43 since 2003.

So in 2002 someone got a 45?

 

[DrBowtie]

So in 2002 someone got a 45?

As I said earlier, in 2002 the top score would be listed as 15 13-15 15 for a composite of 43-45. There was no individual 13,14,15 verbal score thus no one would get a "45".

If you are really that interested in this, contact the MCAT people yourself.

 

[Mr. Tee]

Only recently was the top verbal score a 15. It used to be reported as 13-15.

I think the old verbal score of "13-15" was still considered a 15. Check out the blurb in the back of your Examkrackers book about Teri R-. She got a 13-15 VR, 14 PS, 14 BS, and her score is considered to be a 43.

 

[QofQuimica]

You are correct. The sections are curved independently so it is possible. You just have to bring your A++ game to every section.

Brett is correct on both counts. Pre-2003, the highest VR was 13-15, which meant that someone who scored anywhere in that range could report his/her VR score as "15." And, we did ask the AAMC last year whether scoring a 45 is possible post-2002. They told us that it *is* possible to do so on every test form. A few people get 15s on any one section (VR, BS or PS), but so far apparently no one person has gotten 15s on all three of them. There are three months until April....maybe one of you will be able to do it.

 

[basfan2000]

Brett is correct on both counts. Pre-2003, the highest VR was 13-15, which meant that someone who scored anywhere in that range could report his/her VR score as "15." And, we did ask the AAMC last year whether scoring a 45 is possible post-2002. They told us that it *is* possible to do so on every test form. A few people get 15s on any one section (VR, BS or PS), but so far apparently no one person has gotten 15s on all three of them. There are three months until April....maybe one of you will be able to do it.

Counting my AAMC diagnostics and my actual MCAT, I've been able to get a "Tiger" 45. 15 once on PS (AAMC 6), 15 once on BS (AAMC 8), and a 15 in VR (August 05 MCAT). Just never in the same administration.

 

[Mr. Tee]

Counting my AAMC diagnostics and my actual MCAT, I've been able to get a "Tiger" 45. 15 once on PS (AAMC 6), 15 once on BS (AAMC 8), and a 15 in VR (August 05 MCAT). Just never in the same administration.

If I could choose only one section to get a 15 in, I would choose the VR section. Awesome job!!! 👍

 

[QofQuimica]

Counting my AAMC diagnostics and my actual MCAT, I've been able to get a "Tiger" 45. 15 once on PS (AAMC 6), 15 once on BS (AAMC 8), and a 15 in VR (August 05 MCAT). Just never in the same administration.

Wow, that's awesome. 👍 Too bad it was on three different tests! I scored a 15 in BS once on a practice test, and then again on the real test. I never scored a 15 on the other two sections on any of my practice tests. lorelei, who had a 43 total, also scored her 15 on the VR section. She was an April '04 MCATer.

 

[Dreaming]

do you think the people who scored 43 got in?

 

[DiverDoc]

do you think the people who scored 43 got in?

NO

 

[QofQuimica]

do you think the people who scored 43 got in?

If you're asking about lorelei and me, yes, we did. She's currently an MSI, and I'll be starting this summer. I don't know about anyone else.

 

[The Madden Bus]

If you're asking about lorelei and me, yes, we did. She's currently an MSI, and I'll be starting this summer. I don't know about anyone else.

Where do you guys go, just out of curiosity?

 

[QofQuimica]

Where do you guys go, just out of curiosity?

I can't remember whether lorelei has ever posted where she goes, so I hope you'll understand if I don't post her school. I have not decided for sure yet where I will be going.

 

[Dreaming]

Did they make any comments or ask you about your 43 during the interview?

 

[QofQuimica]

Did they make any comments or ask you about your 43 during the interview?

Sometimes. Usually it was in passing; the interviewer would comment something to the effect that s/he had never seen a score that high before or that it was impressive. One interviewer and I got into a more philosophical discussion about whether it is possible for anyone to score that high on the test, and whether test prep courses work. (I teach for Kaplan, so I get asked about teaching fairly often.) Some interviewers didn't mention it or didn't know about it because the interview was closed-file. Student interviewers generally do not have access to applicants' MCAT scores, so of course they did not say anything about it.

The most common question that I get in interviews has nothing to do with the MCAT. It's, "Tell me about yourself/explain why you want to go into medicine."

 

[jebus]

I can't remember whether lorelei has ever posted where she goes, so I hope you'll understand if I don't post her school.

I believe it's on her username profile.

 

[BillyBuckets]

so now that they are revamping the whole test after august, the 2003-2006 scores are irrelevant to this statistic all over again.

 

[GoGoPandaBot]

http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/examineedata/table0406.pdf

you can see the results per section here. Obviously 15s were achieved on the PS and BS parts. On verbal, not sure. It says 0.0, but at rounding of 1 digit, with 31000 takers, it could be up to 13 people getting a 15, and it would still read 0.0.