Mayo MCAT screen

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MajesticPanthera

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Does anyone happen to know the cut off for their MCAT? They're known to be very holistic.....but whether or not even try to apply depends on the cut off.....

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75% percentile and higher IIRC
10th percentile is 513.

Buy the MSAR. It's the best 28 bucks you'll ever spend.

I think OP is referring to the cut off for the secondary, which IIRC is around 75% percentile.
 
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I am also wondering if anyone can confirm that anyone below 75% MCAT would not even be invited for a secondary. Is it worth it to submit our primary if we don't meet their minimum?
 
Mayo is killer lol. Straight sharp shooter no dancing around it. No dummies allowed
 
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Well there's a reason why they make you wear suits and not white coats.
giphy.gif
 
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Mayo is killer lol. Straight sharp shooter no dancing around it. No dummies allowed

No doubt man. In my opinion, they shouldn't let anyone in medical school who makes less than a 514. Complete idiots, the lot of them.

/s
 
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Current Mayo 1st year. Got in first round with a 509 so their MCAT cutoff had to be lower than that. Yes, I know I get the vet boost but if I was below the cutoff I wouldn't have even gotten the chance.
 
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But I will say that my class' avg MCAT is insanely high soooo....
 
Matriculated Students MCAT below. with a class size of 52, it means only 5-6 people had a 514 and lower
By the way, 8071 verified applications, 437 interviewed, 52 matriculated = 100% apply, 5.5% interviewed, 0.65% matriculate
even if they accept/waitlist 5x as many as matriculate , it would mean under 2% acceptance

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And that's why I'm the minimum champion.
 
What exactly is a “vet boost “?

Ppl with military service tend to do very well in med admissions (as long as the rest of the package is there, of course) because they have just about demonstrated a near maximal commitment to and understanding of service (and medicine is ostensibly a service profession, after all). So a vet with a well-rounded app can be competitive for a school where their stats are on the lower end of the school's accepted distribution.
 
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Ppl with military service tend to do very well in med admissions (as long as the rest of the package is there, of course) because they have just about demonstrated a near maximal commitment to and understanding of service (and medicine is ostensibly a service profession, after all). So a vet with a well-rounded app can be competitive for a school where their stats are on the lower end of the school's accepted distribution.

Do policemen, firemen, school teachers, nurses, priests and nuns get a similar boost?

What about stay at home moms and dads?
 
Do policemen, firemen, school teachers, nurses, priests and nuns get a similar boost?

What about stay at home moms and dads?

hard to say. the "vet boost" is only in the SDN parlance because there are a lot of military service members on SDN (the founder of SDN, for starters) and in medicine in general. It would be a mistake to think that there is some kind of generic "boost" that gets arbitrarily stamped to some apps or not. What it actually means is that certain experiences in the context of the whole app can elevate the app more readily than others. Joining the Peace Corps or Teach for America can also demonstrate a commitment to service far beyond the "average" applicant with 50-100 hours volunteering at their local hospital. Also, one shouldn't interpret this as saying that one needs to join the military, Peace Corps, or TFA to have a successful application; obviously that isn't true.

I'm sure an adcom could have a better answer. I'm only speaking from my personal experience having friends in the military/military medicine and being on these forums for several years.
 
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Oh , come on . Don’t be like that .

I’m not being sarcastic. I apologize for coming off that way.

I know stay at home moms and dads with top educational credentials including hard to get professional degrees who’ve put off working full time for decades to take care of a child with a disability.

To give one example, a woman I know went to Vanderbilt undergrad, finished first in her class at Duke MBA and was on the cusp of making partner at McKinsey. She didn’t like the business world and considered going to medical school but ended just quitting her job to take care of her autistic daughter.
 
Well there's a reason why they make you wear suits and not white coats.
giphy.gif
Suits??? I've been watching a lot of business shows lately and now I kinda am interested.

Any other schools in the nation that wear suits?
 
Do policemen, firemen, school teachers, nurses, priests and nuns get a similar boost?

What about stay at home moms and dads?
Stay at home parenting isn't a service. You decided to have children.

The United States is becoming increasingly secular so being a nun or priest alone won't cut it, possibly might get a boost if they went to rural areas and helped out the less fortunate.

School teaching, not a service. Becoming a school teacher is a relatively easy job compared to militarymen.

Firemen and policemen not sure. They are risking their lives so I would hope a slight boost but again, not as bad as being on the front lines.
 
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I’m not being sarcastic. I apologize for coming off that way.

I know stay at home moms and dads with top educational credentials including hard to get professional degrees who’ve put off working full time for decades to take care of a child with a disability.

To give one example, a woman I know went to Vanderbilt undergrad, finished first in her class at Duke MBA and was on the cusp of making partner at McKinsey. She didn’t like the business world and considered going to medical school but ended just quitting her job to take care of her autistic daughter.
I don't have children. As a behavioral health technician I can only try to imagine what she goes through, and I know that it takes a person with a very big heart to make the choices she made. And I truly with her everything best because she deserves it.

That being said, I do believe that everyone in life has very unique struggles that they have to overcome, and it is not always fair to compare struggles that people go through. For example, a few military members here (I just know them from chat rooms) have families, wives (who, btw could not have their own careers because they followed their husbands), children. In the army they were infantry (or marines, for example), and it is really hard to find a career that you can directly transition to when you get out with the set of skills that they have. So they took medical school prereqs in a community college (I did), because that's the only thing they could afford, trying to support their families. They took MCAT, did fairly well, and are applying. I think they deserve it. They went though years of life-risking deployments and military service, uprooting themselves every 2-3 years, dragging their families all over the world.

There are people you do great in MCAT because they could afford taking off work for several month to prepare for it, or hiring tutors, or taking Kaplan course. Not everyone can do that. Are those people wrong to do that? of course not! I think it is a very difficult challenging field, and people should make the best of their resources.

I am personally an Army veteran. Do I reserve as much respect as my fellow infantry peers and marines? definitely not. I was stationed in Germany the whole time, making the best of it. I was not risking my life every day. But I did put my life on hold. I am an immigrant. I have NOONE in this country. I have only myself to rely on. AND I have two retiring parents that will need my help very very soon. I am 32 years old. I go to school full time, while working 60 hours a week. When I am on my summer breaks I work 80 hours a week. There were times when I could not afford groceries, or electricity, and had to take cold showers. I prepared for MCAT on my winter break over the 2 months, late at night after a long day of work, and took it at the end of January. Btw, - I do not have top education. I went to the cheapest state school I could get into (and proud of my school!!!). I cannot afford school books (I make copies from my friends, or borrow books for a few days). I could not even dream about going to a school like Vanderbilt or Duke. I am also a white female, so I am not URM. When I make my grocery list I have to be careful, because I cannot really afford meat (except for chicken), I also cut out sweets and fruit to save money (seriously).
I did not have time to volunteer, because I had to work 60 hours a week while going to school full time. So my application is definitely lacking. So YES I DO NEED this help (the military boost). Because I am terrified. And right now I can only dream about going to a good school, and every single day I wake up and tell myself (while calculating if I can afford coffee or not) that I DO deserve to go to a really good school, even though I have no connections, no support system, no money.

I am not telling you all of this to make you feel sympathetic. I am doing great. I got my life together, and I am pushing through. I am very proud of who I've become. And I am definitely not unique. A lot of people out there are going through MUCH tougher times, and have way more struggles in life than I have. I am blessed in a lot of ways. I am telling you all that to point out that when someone finally catches a break in one thing, - can we all just be happy for that person? Can we just believe that everything happens for a reason, and the people deserve good things to happen to them?
 
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I don't have children. As a behavioral health technician I can only try to imagine what she goes through, and I know that it takes a person with a very big heart to make the choices she made. And I truly with her everything best because she deserves it.

That being said, I do believe that everyone in life has very unique struggles that they have to overcome, and it is not always fair to compare struggles that people go through. For example, a few military members here (I just know them from chat rooms) have families, wives (who, btw could not have their own careers because they followed their husbands), children. In the army they were infantry (or marines, for example), and it is really hard to find a career that you can directly transition to when you get out with the set of skills that they have. So they took medical school prereqs in a community college (I did), because that's the only thing they could afford, trying to support their families. They took MCAT, did fairly well, and are applying. I think they deserve it. They went though years of life-risking deployments and military service, uprooting themselves every 2-3 years, dragging their families all over the world.

There are people you do great in MCAT because they could afford taking off work for several month to prepare for it, or hiring tutors, or taking Kaplan course. Not everyone can do that. Are those people wrong to do that? of course not! I think it is a very difficult challenging field, and people should make the best of their resources.

I am personally an Army veteran. Do I reserve as much respect as my fellow infantry peers and marines? definitely not. I was stationed in Germany the whole time, making the best of it. I was not risking my life every day. But I did put my life on hold. I am an immigrant. I have NOONE in this country. I have only myself to rely on. AND I have two retiring parents that will need my help very very soon. I am 32 years old. I go to school full time, while working 60 hours a week. When I am on my summer breaks I work 80 hours a week. There were times when I could not afford groceries, or electricity, and had to take cold showers. I prepared for MCAT on my winter break over the 2 months, late at night after a long day of work, and took it at the end of January. Btw, - I do not have top education. I went to the cheapest state school I could get into (and proud of my school!!!). I cannot afford school books (I make copies from my friends, or borrow books for a few days). I could not even dream about going to a school like Vanderbilt or Duke. I am also a white female, so I am not URM. When I make my grocery list I have to be careful, because I cannot really afford meat (except for chicken), I also cut out sweets and fruit to save money (seriously).
I did not have time to volunteer, because I had to work 60 hours a week while going to school full time. So my application is definitely lacking. So YES I DO NEED this help (the military boost). Because I am terrified. And right now I can only dream about going to a good school, and every single day I wake up and tell myself (while calculating if I can afford coffee or not) that I DO deserve to go to a really good school, even though I have no connections, no support system, no money.

I am not telling you all of this to make you feel sympathetic. I am doing great. I got my life together, and I am pushing through. I am very proud of who I've become. And I am definitely not unique. A lot of people out there are going through MUCH tougher times, and have way more struggles in life than I have. I am blessed in a lot of ways. I am telling you all that to point out that when someone finally catches a break in one thing, - can we all just be happy for that person? Can we just believe that everything happens for a reason, and the people deserve good things to happen to them?

You are an amazing candidate. I hope to read about your many future successes on SDN.
 
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Ppl with military service tend to do very well in med admissions (as long as the rest of the package is there, of course) because they have just about demonstrated a near maximal commitment to and understanding of service (and medicine is ostensibly a service profession, after all). So a vet with a well-rounded app can be competitive for a school where their stats are on the lower end of the school's accepted distribution.
In addition, we like the maturity and gravitas these candidates have. And serving your country is about a high on the altruistic bar as you can get, even if you're a cook on a tin can out in the Atlantic.

Do policemen, firemen, school teachers, nurses, priests and nuns get a similar boost?
What about stay at home moms and dads?
You're expected to take of family. Medicine is about taking care of others, a number of whom are not nice people.

At my school, we do have a fondness for firefighters, police and teachers. These people also know about service to others.
 
I don't know about the new MCAT, but historically Mayo had a lower LizzyM screen because they do take a more holistic approach to applicants.

I suggest if you know a lot about the institution and think you fit with their philosophy, just apply.
 
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