How important is the writing sample

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pault

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I took the april test and got a V11, P10, and B11, but got an M on the writing sample. I don't know what happened. Perhaps my opinions where different from the grader's, who knows? Is this going to be of any serious consequence?

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I got a 'T' on the writing and no one cared. So I wouldn't sweat it that much.
 
Some schools look at the writing sample as very important. When I went to the university of Western Ontario, I know they had a cut off of an R in the writing sample just to get an interview.
I doubt US schools will do that, maybe just ivy league, but who cares your other scores are decent and you did alright in the VR.
 
I'm kinda in the same position too. I got V10-P11-B12 and an M in WS. I spoke to an admissions counsellor at one of the schools and they relayed to me that since my other numbers were good, the WS wouldn't be that important to look at. :)
 
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Yeah. I got an N on the writing sample. what the heck. I don't care. But then I hear stories about how some schools put of lot of emphasis on it. dammit.

So, for people who did well on the WS, how did you write your essays? is there a specific format that they like to see? not that i'm ever taking the test again, but for the benefit of others...
 
Are med schools able to read the content we write in our writing sample?
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by lady bug:
•Are med schools able to read the content we write in our writing sample?•••••No.
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by pault:
•I took the april test and got a V11, P10, and B11, but got an M on the writing sample. I don't know what happened. Perhaps my opinions where different from the grader's, who knows? Is this going to be of any serious consequence?•••••If you look at the curve for the writing sample grades it is bi-modal, most people either get an "M" or a "Q". They grade it like this - 2 people read your essay, each person assigns a score of 1-6. If both graders assign the same score to your essay, they get a bonus or something :) . Anyway, obviously to keep things moving along (they have 50,000 essays to grade here) they give pretty good essays a "4" and essays that need a little work a "2". The scale of j-t is really a numeric scale of 1-16. If you got 2's from your graders, for a total of 4, you get a j,k,l,m... If they gave you 4's, total of 8, you get a j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q.

All that being said, I don't think that an M can hurt your application, a J or K may cause a second glance or an S or T may elicit a comment from an interviewer, but all other scores are basically a non-issue.
 
O.K. here's what many schools actually use the writing sample for. It is a tie-breaker. If 2 students have similar records/apps, etc., they will look at the writing sample score when deciding who to give priority for an interview. So for excellent applicants with high MCAT scores the writing sample score shouldn't be an issue. For borderline applicants, as most people are, the writing sample score may come into play at some point down the application line when schools are reading through thousands of similar applications.
 
I also got an 11 on Verbal and an M on the writing sample. I applied to 10 schools, received interview invitations at 4 schools, attended two interviews, was accepted at one school (Mayo) and placed on an alternate list for the other school (the small 10-person Alaksa program at U of Washington). Don't worry too much about an M.

An interviewer at Mayo asked about the writing sample. 'With a nice MCAT verbal score and a high GRE verbal score, why do you think you received an M on the writing sample?' I replied that I really had no idea and I felt that I wrote coherent essays in the manner described. She replied that she didn't place much emphasis, if any, on the writing sample score.

Don't fret about the M. It is the most common score, or at least it was on last year's MCAT.
 
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