A 518 will not limit you at any school in the context of an otherwise extraordinary application. On here there is bias for stats, just keep in mind however that statistically there cannot be more than 1600 applicants with 520+, only 800 of those are 521+, only around 200 of those are 524+. SDN has sampling bias.
If you’ve been invited to interview this early on, you are not low on the staircase.
Reported. Nobody can be this neurotic and function in daily life enough to do so well academically.
I think Calipremed is genuine, if ill informed and over-the-top.
You were never, ever like him.
Again, with the caveat that you are serious (which is very difficult to believe, given how out there and extremely amusing many of your posts have been), you are worried about the wrong thing. Forget the staircase in August. Your stats, ECs and essays are the first screen at this stage. At this point in the process, few receive IIs and Rs, many are put aside to see what else comes in. As @EmbryonalCarcinoma has pointed out, if you are receiving IIs at this stage, you are not low on the staircase. But, if your interview skills suck as much as you think, your initial position on the staircase is not going to help you, so focus on that rather than on how your MCAT is below the median at top schools that have already decided to interview you. Disclaimer: all of this is contingent on your stats being what you say and your IIs being what you say, which I seriously doubt, even though I am choosing to feed you anyway. 🙂
TBH I think 518 is the new 505, good luck even getting into a carib school with that score
It’s pretty much staying that applicants who receive an interview invite are not on even level. Best applicants on paper are at the top of the staircase while the poorer applicants on paper are at the bottom of the staircase. A bad interview will cause an applicant to fall several steps on the staircase, which is why top applicants can be denied acceptance. A mediocre interview will remain ones position on the staircase (good for the best applicants, not good for the poorer applicants). A great interview will raise someone’s position, thus that a poorer applicant could gain an acceptance over someone with a better app on paper. Pretty much, an interview is just one metric. It’s an important metric, but it’s not the end all be all.
Apply Occam's Razor. That's why my trolldar is up
The farther I go along in medical school the more I understand this. Take note folks.
Can Walter be unbanned yet? He was a major part of the life of this forum.
Did you note that Walt has been removed as a user. That looks like a perma-Ban to me, and rightly so.
Where is this data from? I'm pretty sure from MSAR the numbers are higher, like 522 average MCAT for accepted students.
MSAR displays medians, which are different than averages.
It would be nice if it gave both Medians and averages. From the disparity we can see that they love high stats (high median) but they tolerate lower stats (drops the average).
ahh gotcha. Where can you get the data with averages? is it in MSAR?
Vandy tolerated my <10th percentile GPA with an II. I'll gladly bring down that average with an A.
UChicago did the same for me. I agree - will gladly lower their average.
medicalschooladmission.com
There are 80,000 test takers every year. 520 is the 98%, so 80,000*0.02 is 1600. 521 is 99% so 80,000*0.01 is 800. Then it is just a matter of statistical guesswork based on the distribution of the bell curve to get 523 - 528.
Thanks.. This make sense.
You should be proud. 514 is above the matriculant average and above like 92% of people who take the test. Calipremed is just......A little extra concerned. That is all.
Thank you! I am definitely proud (still in shock, too!). I got a 503 the first time I took it, so I'm still pinching myself hah. Seeing posts like this always adds some perspective about who I'm up against for admission, though. 🙁
OP is almost certainly a troll. If they're like this IRL they're not getting through any interviews so you don't need to worry about them anyway 😛
Phew! Thanks for clarifying. I've been a longtime lurker, so I'm still trying to sort out who's serious and who's not haha
