“It’s time to abolish the MCAT”

[samac]

So I just thought this was interesting.

That’s the headline from doximity today.
Here’s the article: It's time to abolish the MCAT

While I do understand the point that it screens people I wonder what the alternative would be?
“To be sure, the MCAT simplifies the admissions screening process and is good at predicting student performance on other standardized tests. But the MCAT score correlates poorly with overall performance in medical school and beyond.”

I think the point against them would be “good at predicting student performance on other standardized tests”. I mean becoming a doctor is just a series of standardized tests no?

Anyway, thought y’all be interested and have an entertaining discussion.

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[907914]

I mean becoming a doctor is just a series of standardized tests no?

Receipt of your MD is boiled down to just a series of standardized tests, yes. However, these are not necessarily good predictors of who will become a good doctor, perform well as a student, and may not even be a good corollary for knowledge or critical thinking skills (As 'memorize and dump' is very common in medical school. Ask any M3 or M4 if they even remember half of what they zanki-d into their skull).

 

[samac]

Receipt of your MD is boiled down to just a series of standardized tests, yes. However, these are not necessarily good predictors of who will become a good doctor, perform well as a student, and may not even be a good corollary for knowledge or critical thinking skills (As 'memorize and dump' is very common in medical school. Ask any M3 or M4 if they even remember half of what they zanki-d into their skull).

To be fair I’m an OMS4 and you’re right. I have probably forgotten more than I know haha.
And I agree, it doesn’t necessarily correlate with being a good physician. But what would we do for competency?
Is there something better in place of the MCAT for admissions? I’m just pointing out if you can’t survive standardized tests (MCAT) you won’t make it through the steps

 

[throwaway1000000]

I don't have a problem with the concept of MCAT as much as I do with the content. It has been a while since I took it, but it felt more like a reading comprehension test than testing my knowledge of the basic sciences.

 

[libertyyne]

like any of this is highly correlative of patient care or meaningful for long term outcomes. There were also only ~300 medical students from a very specific organization.

Just because some people with poor MCAT scores are great doctors does not mean that those with great mcat scores are not great doctors at similar or greater rates.

 

[Goro]

So I just thought this was interesting.

That’s the headline from doximity today.
Here’s the article: It's time to abolish the MCAT

While I do understand the point that it screens people I wonder what the alternative would be?
“To be sure, the MCAT simplifies the admissions screening process and is good at predicting student performance on other standardized tests. But the MCAT score correlates poorly with overall performance in medical school and beyond.”

I think the point against them would be “good at predicting student performance on other standardized tests”. I mean becoming a doctor is just a series of standardized tests no?

Anyway, thought y’all be interested and have an entertaining discussion.

The MCAT is a weak predictor of med school performance and Boards. So there's that.

More importantly, the MCAT is an excellent predictor of doing POORLY in med school, especially with scores < 500. As per success, 510 = 528.

So as a weeding tool, I'm fine with it.

 

[Ho0v-man]

theres no way any of that will end well if it comes to fruition. Then you don’t get to go to med school unless you go to the right undergrad.

I remember when the new mcat came out. Aamc was basically like 500 mcat is GTG for med school. I didn’t believe that at the time but at this point I do. You don’t actually use much from the mcat in med school. I remember spending so much time teaching myself (bc my undergrad was trash) to solve over the top physics problems to try to pump up my score. Such a waste. I just needed to know pressure exists. CARS and to a lesser extent biology were the only useful parts.

If we really are in some kind of standardized test taking revolution, why not make the dang tests test us on more relevant stuff?

 

[Lawpy]

So I just thought this was interesting.

That’s the headline from doximity today.
Here’s the article: It's time to abolish the MCAT

While I do understand the point that it screens people I wonder what the alternative would be?
“To be sure, the MCAT simplifies the admissions screening process and is good at predicting student performance on other standardized tests. But the MCAT score correlates poorly with overall performance in medical school and beyond.”

I think the point against them would be “good at predicting student performance on other standardized tests”. I mean becoming a doctor is just a series of standardized tests no?

Anyway, thought y’all be interested and have an entertaining discussion.

Great. We already have several threads arguing about Step 1 going pass/fail and now we have this brilliant article arguing for abolishing the MCAT. I think people just want to place a much stronger emphasis on school name for med school or residency applications without having to openly admit their elitism.

 

[ace_inhibitor111]

Her entire argument is that it prevents URMs from getting into medical school since they have lower scores. But admissions already takes that into account by giving them an advantage. So really she has no point.

 

[Ho0v-man]

Great. We already have several threads arguing about Step 1 going pass/fail and now we have this brilliant article arguing for abolishing the MCAT. I think people just want to place a much stronger emphasis on school name for med school or residency applications without having to openly admit their elitism.

I don’t like it, but I can at least see some logic to the mcat thing. Plenty of folks go for something else before catching the medicine bug and set themselves up terribly for the mcat. Then if you don’t have money for a prep course and/or tons of time you’re kinda in a tough spot.

But yeah if this stuff happened and keeps going, our grandkids shot at derm will be determined by the tier of preschool we get them into lol.

 

[Lawpy]

I don’t like it, but I can at least see some logic to the mcat thing. Plenty of folks go for something else before catching the medicine bug and set themselves up terribly for the mcat. Then if you don’t have money for a prep course and/or tons of time you’re kinda in a tough spot.

But yeah if this stuff happened and keeps going, our grandkids shot at derm will be determined by the tier of preschool we get them into lol.

Your argument would work better for low GPAs than the MCAT. The MCAT is a test that should only be taken if someone is serious in pursuing medicine and completed (and did well in) the prereqs

 

[Ho0v-man]

Your argument would work better for low GPAs than the MCAT. The MCAT is a test that should only be taken if someone is serious in pursuing medicine and completed (and did well in) the prereqs

I agree with you. Not saying I agree with the article, but as someone who made the switch to premed after most of my pre reqs were 5+ years old I’m just saying I get it more than the step 1 thing.

 

[efle]

The year is 2030.

The Step1 is Pass/fail.
All preclinical curriculums are Pass/Fail.
The MCAT is Pass/fail.
College GPAs are heavily inflated so the most common grade is an A.

Admissions to medical school is now 90% based on the quality of your diversity essay.

Dystopian? Utopian? All depends on who you ask, I guess

 

[Lawpy]

The year is 2030.

The Step1 is Pass/fail.
All preclinical curriculums are Pass/Fail.
The MCAT is Pass/fail.
College GPAs are heavily inflated so the most common grade is an A.

Admissions to medical school is now 90% based on the quality of your diversity essay.

Dystopian? Utopian? All depends on who you ask, I guess

dont forget school name becoming super important. in such a climate, if you don’t go to HYPSM, say goodbye to med school and becoming a doctor

 

[907914]

The year is 2030.

The Step1 is Pass/fail.
All preclinical curriculums are Pass/Fail.
The MCAT is Pass/fail.
College GPAs are heavily inflated so the most common grade is an A.

Admissions to medical school is now 90% based on the quality of your diversity essay.

Dystopian? Utopian? All depends on who you ask, I guess

Peace corps and the US Army Reserves medical corps see their highest recruitment numbers in decades.

 

[BorderlineQueen]

Peace corps and the US Army Reserves medical corps see their highest recruitment numbers in decades.

Midlevels are busy running the whole hospital by themselves.

 

[Lawpy]

Midlevels are busy running the whole hospital by themselves.

Yeah i forgot about that. With AI also in the rise and meded curriculum getting watered down by neutralizing or getting rid of standardized tests, who wants to go to med school in such a climate?

 

[BorderlineQueen]

Yeah i forgot about that. With AI also in the rise and meded curriculum getting watered down by neutralizing or getting rid of standardized tests, who wants to go to med school in such a climate?

IDK know lol. Med-ED is already pretty weak if you browse some threads. Spending MS1-MS2 studying high yield stuff to do good on Step 1. Most interns can't even do a proper HP that's pretty concerning.

 

[Lawpy]

IDK know lol. Med-ED is already pretty weak if you browse some threads. Spending MS1-MS2 studying high yield stuff to do good on Step 1. Most interns can't even do a proper HP that's pretty concerning.

sad that hundreds of thousands of dollars are flushed down the meded toilet and graduates are stuck with crippling debt that’ll affect their future and quality of life

 

[907914]

sad that hundreds of thousands of dollars are flushed down the meded toilet and graduates are stuck with crippling debt that’ll affect their future and quality of life

What is meded?

 

[BorderlineQueen]

What is meded?

Medical education

 

[Lawpy]

What is meded?

Talking about med school curricula

 

[BorderlineQueen]

sad that hundreds of thousands of dollars are flushed down the meded toilet and graduates are stuck with crippling debt that’ll affect their future and quality of life

That's also true in pharm, dentistry, optometry, podiatry and unfunded Psychology Psyd problems. Students have crushing debt without MD/DO salary

 

[Lawpy]

Sorry for getting suddenly cynical but going back on topic, that article is absurd and the MCAT isn’t going anywhere

 

[BorderlineQueen]

Sorry for getting suddenly cynical but going back on topic, that article is absurd and the MCAT isn’t going anywhere

Of course why get rid of it? It's a money maker same like COMLEX DO schools could get rid of it and have students be equal and take STEP 1. But the makers of COMLEX make too much off of it. Same with Step 2 CS it's such a garbage test but they won't get rid of it because $$$$

 

[Lawpy]

I am applying to internal medicine this season and even with pretty good stats, I anticipate I won't be matching into top programs because of my low-tier MD school.
With my stats, I probably would be a strong contender for top programs if I went to a better school.
Without standardized tests, my chances would be exponentially worse.
Sure, I could have gone to a better undergrad school and then a better med school (but didn't want to pay exorbitant amount of money to go to an out of state undergrad which determines my chances at a good medical school)

Wait is school name that much a hindrance/importance for top IM? Thought AOA, straight Honors, and strong research can help.

 

[ace_inhibitor111]

sad that hundreds of thousands of dollars are flushed down the meded toilet and graduates are stuck with crippling debt that’ll affect their future and quality of life

This is why barriers need to be in place to limit the amount of people entering professional school. Not everyone who wants to be a doctor/lawyer/whatever should be able to get in or else you have a situation where grads waste 7 years with half a million in debt with no job. At least the MCAT and GPA have some semblance of meritocracy, better than a lottery system lol.

What do you call a person who went through medical school and can’t get a residency? Someone who’s life is basically ruined

What do you call a person who couldn’t get into medical school? Someone who still has their entire life ahead of em

 

[BorderlineQueen]

This is why barriers need to be in place to limit the amount of people entering professional school. Not everyone who wants to be a doctor/lawyer/whatever should be able to get in or else you have a situation where grads waste 7 years with half a million in debt with no job. At least the MCAT and GPA have some semblance of meritocracy, better than a lottery system lol.

What do you call a person who went through medical school and can’t get a residency? Someone who’s life is basically ruined

What do you call a person who couldn’t get into medical school? Someone who still has their entire life ahead of em

That's a whole other issue but plenty of schools accepting sub 500 MCATS. Plenty of schools where someone gets in with a 2.5 gpa. Realistically schools dont' care more students equals more money. It's up to the student to make a good decision.

 

[ace_inhibitor111]

That's a whole other issue but plenty of schools accepting sub 500 MCATS. Plenty of schools where someone gets in with a 2.5 gpa. Realistically schools dont' care more students equals more money. It's up to the student to make a good decision.

Of course, the schools themselves don’t care. They are all about increasing medical school enrollment and increasing residency positions. Make more money and push the competition down the pipeline where they don’t have to be responsible for them anymore. I’m saying limits should be in place to prevent this from happening, by limiting class sizes and using the MCAT/Step 1/volunteering/whatever to keep the supply of doctors from ballooning.

 

[throwaway1000000]

Wait is school name that much a hindrance/importance for top IM? Thought AOA, straight Honors, and strong research can help.

100% school name matters for IM. If you have AOA, that can help a lot coming from a low-ranked school. But AOA can be hard and kind of random to get and I missed it very closely. IM probably has the most number of 250+ step 1 scorers applying cumulatively.
Not just for IM, top med school plays a very big role in residency selection provided you have the stats. But the residency name probably matters the most for IM and peds programs because you have the options of fellowships which can be hard to get.
My point is even with these scores and everything, the playing field is still not equal. If you take these standardized tests out, everything will be heavily skewed towards students from prestigious schools even if they are mediocre med students.

 

[kfcchikin]

I sure hope not. It's comforting to have as a "I promise I don't suck at gen chem, I was just a drunk freshman" insurance to demonstrate a final, accumulated competency at the end of your studies. And it's inherently a better comparison tool between students than GPA. Yes it's a flawed, lucrative business but removing it entirely would be is ridiculous

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Wait is school name that much a hindrance/importance for top IM? Thought AOA, straight Honors, and strong research can help.

Top tier IM is one of the most prestige whoring groups in medicine. Those things you mention definitely help, but nothing gets you top tier IM like graduating from Hopkins or Penn.

 

[907914]

Top tier IM is one of the most prestige whoring groups in medicine. Those things you mention definitely help, but nothing gets you top tier IM like graduating from Hopkins or Penn.

Are all schools basically equivalent T20 or will a Hopkins graduate have a bigger boost than Mayo who has a bigger boost than CCLCM or Case?

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Are all schools basically equivalent T20 or will a Hopkins graduate have a bigger boost than Mayo who has a bigger boost than CCLCM or Case?

Top 5 will have a bigger boost than the rest of the top 20. Harvard, Penn, Hopkins etc.

 

[Lawpy]

Top tier IM is one of the most prestige whoring groups in medicine. Those things you mention definitely help, but nothing gets you top tier IM like graduating from Hopkins or Penn.

Are you referring to the super top IM (MGH, BWH, Hopkins, UCSF) or any top IM programs?

 

[notretired]

Abolishing the US news rankings would go a long way towards abolishing the emphasis on tippy-top mcat scores. I think I saw a chart on here that showed schools like Harvard, Stanford, et. al had averages around 33 prior to US news. Beyond 510 or so can't imagine there's much difference between students academically - and I think recent AAMC data basically confirms this. Even the step correlation is moderate at best.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Are you referring to the super top IM (MGH, BWH, Hopkins, UCSF) or any top IM programs?

Tip top

 

[Lucca]

Unlike Step 1 the MCAT CI is narrow enough for a score to actually be more or less accurately representative of a student’s test taking ability on test day. Weird score jumps/dives happen, sure, but the data is pretty clear that scores don’t change very much for the vast majority of exam writers after a single attempt. Like Step 1, serious selection happens above the "competency" benchmark (510+ as opposed to everything above 500 being treated the same) mostly as a result of competition and *not* because anyone seriously believes that scoring a 518 as opposed to a 513 means you will be a better doctor. Also like Step 1, the test writers and selection committees are using the test in different ways, indeed there is variation between selection committees (Baylor may to an extent want students that will help them keep that #1 Step average in the nation, while UC Davis wants students who are very unlikely to struggle in med school so they can go on to fulfill their mission of serving central California -- I'm just speculating).

MCAT Scores are more or less already used in the broader context of an application. There is also a greater diversity in what applicants look like to med schools as opposed to residencies where all applicants are more or less going to have a highly similar CV at the time of application with few differentiating factors. Yes, premeds have a set of universal expectations to meet but I dont think anyone will argue there are many, many more ways to meet those expectations as a premed than there are as a medical student applying to meet the expectations of residencies.

You can also retake the MCAT, which means you have potentially multiple opportunities to improve and you have more flexibility in when you take the exam compared to Step 1 (you can take it sophomore year of UG...you can take it the year you graduate...you can have an entirely separate career and take it 5 years out of UG, etc.).

This is not to say the MCAT doesn't have problems, it does. It's also not to say that there arent structural facts which can make a big difference in how well a student is able to score that have very little to do with a student's actual ability, like paying 10,000 $ for a personal expert tutor to literally spoon feed you everything you need to know, being able to take time off work / making money to fully focus on studying for the exam, having the kind of educational foundation where you've been raised from birth to destroy standardized exams, etc.

The format of the exam is also ultimately pretty contrived. Having 1 min + X s / question will inherently advantage people who are able to eliminate wrong answers quickly at the expense of those who would never get a question wrong provided they had enough time to read and properly think about the question. Why should we value one type of reasoning above another when both, if well developed, could make for good docs? Revisionist History recently did a series in the new season thinking about this problem wrt the LSAT that was pretty interesting.

All in all, given that MCAT studying has not yet completely bulldozed the UG experience as Step 1 has done to preclinical education I think it should remain as is for now but we should definitely always be thinking about how to make better, more varied measurements of students that capture more dimensions of their talent and ability than a single format, single-day standardized multiple choice exam.

 

[Lawpy]

Standardized tests aren't perfect. Getting rid of them entirely like the article absurdly proposes will only exaggerate the importance of school name and underline the author's elitism.

 

[Goro]

Plenty of schools where someone gets in with a 2.5 gpa. Realistically schools dont' care more students equals more money. It's up to the student to make a good decision.

Maybe in the Caribbean.

 

[BorderlineQueen]

Maybe in the Caribbean.

I've seen some of these threads here on SDN and I've had several American grads tell me they got in with a 2.5 undergrad at a DO school. But still schools don't care it's all about the $$$$.

 

[Chibucks15]

I've seen some of these threads here on SDN and I've had several American grads tell me they got in with a 2.5 undergrad at a DO school.

maybe after several years of post-bacc and other circumstances. Nobody is getting in with a 2.5 on its own cmon now the averages are 3.5-3.6 it isnt THAT easy to get into DO

 

[BorderlineQueen]

maybe after several years of post-bacc and other circumstances. Nobody is getting in with a 2.5 on its own cmon now the averages are 3.5-3.6 it isnt THAT easy to get into DO

I mean plenty of new DO schools popping up that will lower their standards to fill a class. Maybe these people are lying are to me?

 

[Goro]

I've seen some of these threads here on SDN and I've had several American grads tell me they got in with a 2.5 undergrad at a DO school. But still schools don't care it's all about the $$$$.

You're either dealing with a handful of extreme outliers or people who went through SMPs/post-bacs.

 

[BorderlineQueen]

You're either dealing with a handful of extreme outliers or people who went through SMPs/post-bacs.

That's probably true.

 

[efle]

I think we need to abolish recommendations from t10 schools for obvious reasons

Only they have to gain from all these “modifications”

? The author went to Rochester more than two decades ago

 

[efle]

I do find her choice of anecdotes pretty weird though.

"I know a PhD student who took formal review courses, hired a tutor, took the test 3x and still can't score above 500"

??? Sounds like someone who should not go to med school

 

[Lawpy]

? The author went to Rochester more than two decades ago

she's a Yale doc tho.

 

[Wilf]

The article is ridiculous. Working with third year medical students, I can tell you that the admissions standards to medical schools should be increased if anything. I understand that some people feel like someone being a "nice person" should get them a spot in medical school, but that is dangerous and not meritocratic. I could list hundreds of examples, but a recent third year student thought that a mass on the back of a patient's neck could be a thymoma. A second year med student should not make that mistake. A very nice girl in my colleague's residency class was obviously out of her league going to medical school and ended up failing Step 3 at least three times and thus cannot practice.

The MCAT should only be replaced if they can come up with an academic test that better predicts medical school performance.

 

[efle]

she's a Yale doc tho.

Figures didn’t even have to look. All that nonsense comes from those who benefit from it

I still dont get it. She went to Rochester with a crappy MCAT because they waived it, and stayed there for residency in IM. She thinks there are many students who could do what she did. She wants them to be able to do what she did.

How does any of that help t10 med students