MCAT 2015 affecting structure of post-bacs

[Quelthezar]

I haven't seen a thread on this yet, and although I might be a few years early, I thought it would be interesting to see what the experienced members think about this.

Here is a link to the preview guide of the MCAT 2015:

https://www.aamc.org/students/download/266006/data/2015previewguide.pdf


Do you think the new test is going to affect prerequisites for med schools?

And will that in turn mean that post-bacs can't be a year long anymore? Or will they just try to fit more courses into the same time period and be even more intense?

(I'll admit it isn't purely an academic question for me, as I will be hopefully be applying to med school for the fall of 2016.)

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[ghostman]

I've thought about this as well, even though I'm in the 2012 entering class. From a quick glance, it seems that postbaccs without any pre-reqs are going to have to spend 2 years at a minimum and the 1-year option is no longer possible.

From page 7 onward of that document, it indicates that Bio, Chem, Orgo and Phys will still be required. But now, you'll also need to know 1 semester of Biochem, 1 semester of Psychology and 1 semester of Sociology. You may also need statistics, but the science classes might start teaching toward the MCAT and incorporate more statistical analysis into lab work. Whether med schools will start requiring all these classes for admissions, I'm less certain about.

As for Philosophy and Ethics, I don't think you'll need to take additional classes to handle what will appear on the MCATs.

A 1 year program now typically consists of Gen Chem in the summer, then Orgo, Bio and Phys throughout the year. Even if they squeeze Sociology into the fall and Psych into the spring, Biochem needs to come after Bio and Orgo. I just don't see it happening.

I find this new exam to be a rather odd shift. It seems that they want applicants to be more well-rounded by exposing health care through various aspects, but the additional requirements seem to be turning "pre-med" into a major in itself. And while many of the med schools where I've interviewed seem to value the extra experience that postbaccs bring, this new exam will make it harder for non-traditional students to change careers.

 

[DrMidlife]

This is not a tragedy and nobody is being victimized. This MCAT change is a very slow conservative decade of responding to evidence in order to better correlate med school admission to med school success.

It's not nontraditional to do a formal premed postbac. That's completely common and established and expected. Also, nobody gives a crap about civil rights or convenience for people who don't major in science. Cry me a river, you still get to go to med school.

Maybe I'm missing something, but psych, soc & stats are pretty typical general ed requirements for any major. Students who honestly haven't been exposed to any psych/soc/stats in their non-science undergrad are going to be the minority, aren't they? What will happen in a formal premed postbac program is that if somebody is missing one or two of these classes, they'll be added to the yearlong curriculum. Trust me, undergrad science departments, and the Goucher/Bryn Mawr/Scripps/etc folks, are already pulling their hair out over how to deal with this and minimize chaos.

The verbal section turns out to be the only one that correlates with med school success. (Bunch of cite links in this thread: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=329706.) You could argue that taking more psych/soc/stats is going to help with that section. Your ability to think and comprehend and reason and tease out subtleties in written text could not be more critical to your success in the field.

My $.02. Best of luck to you.

 

[deleted248403]

I find this new exam to be a rather odd shift. It seems that they want applicants to be more well-rounded by exposing health care through various aspects, but the additional requirements seem to be turning "pre-med" into a major in itself.

The bolded and underlined things are not mutually exclusive... and at some schools pre-med is already a major...

And while many of the med schools where I've interviewed seem to value the extra experience that postbaccs bring, this new exam will make it harder for non-traditional students to change careers.

They don't really care how hard it is for people to change careers - they want to produce good physicians, that is and will always be their #1 goal. They clearly believe the new requirements will allow them to better select and train better physicians.

 

[ghostman]

Maybe I'm missing something, but psych, soc & stats are pretty typical general ed requirements for any major. Students who honestly haven't been exposed to any psych/soc/stats in their non-science undergrad are going to be the minority, aren't they?

Is it? I majored in Computer Sciences and Economics. I took stats, but not sociology or psychology. I can see how sociology can be wrapped into an Econ major, but I don't imagine many cs or engineering majors take these courses. Perhaps we are the minority. I still haven't taken them.

It's not nontraditional to do a formal premed postbac. That's completely common and established and expected. Also, nobody gives a crap about civil rights or convenience for people who don't major in science. Cry me a river, you still get to go to med school.

They don't really care how hard it is for people to change careers - they want to produce good physicians, that is and will always be their #1 goal. They clearly believe the new requirements will allow them to better select and train better physicians.

The first part is my fault. I tend to lump non-trad and postbaccs into similar categories because of my own experience. Pretty much everyone I knew in postbacc was a non-trad. But I agree that going to med school is not a right and AAMC certainly doesn't aim for convenience for the student. They believe this exam will make better doctors and that's all that matters to them.

I even believe the AAMC has sound research on what makes a good doctor, but that wasn't my point. In speaking with adcom members and interviewers, it seemed like they appreciated the extra experience brought in by non-trad students. Perhaps it's what the AAMC is trying to accomplish by broadening the scope of the MCATs. That's fine for students who decide on pre-med during college and align their classes to the MCAT topics, but it seems they are increasing the barrier to entry into the field.

I'm not trying to paint this as a bad thing. If they can improve the majority of their applicants, then that's what ultimately matters. The non-trad applicants are in the minority and many of these would have been able/willing to commit to the extra work involved. But it does make me wonder - if this indeed pushes post-baccs into an extra year - how many folks won't be able to make that commitment.

 

[WeAreNotRobots]

"This new focus aims to encourage aspiring physicians to come to medical school having considered what makes us human, how we interact with other human beings, and how human behaviors have shaped civilizations and society. Between the new section and the revised verbal section, the MCAT will "test ability to analyze and reason through passages in ethics and philosophy, cross-cultural studies, population health, and a wide range of social sciences and humanities disciplines." The test will not require knowledge of specific content in these areas but will reward candidates who have read broadly in the liberal arts and can think analytically. This change reinforces the view that college should be not a narrow vestibule for medical education but a time for expansive intellectual engagement and inquisitiveness. Yet I believe that medical schools, not colleges, are responsible for teaching the social and behavioral sciences fundamental to medicine and that students are more receptive to learning them in the context of medical school. Of course, sensitivity to and appreciation of such matters as the impact of "social, cultural, and demographic differences on self-identity, individual behavior and behavioral change, interaction with others, access to societal resources, and social inequities" should be acquired by future physicians — and by all citizens of society.

Many of these issues emerge during a liberal arts education, through study of literature, philosophy, government, history, and art, among other subjects. Humanities work that helps students understand the human condition and the historical and philosophical foundations of contemporary civilization, literature, and the arts is more compelling preparation for the social and behavioral foundations of medicine than are any specific "premedical" courses in psychology and sociology. Whereas current science will be supplanted by future developments, what we learn from literature about human nature has endured for millennia and is as necessary to becoming a good physician as a grounding in science.

The higher expectations reflected in the new MCAT should not leave aspiring physicians little time in college to pursue other scholarly avenues, the foundation for intellectual and personal growth. Instead, the time devoted to premedical requirements should be refocused on content more relevant to contemporary medicine and society. In fact, the MCAT's new balance between biologic and behavioral sciences should reassure anyone concerned that trends in premedical requirements will reduce medical school applications from nonscience majors and nontraditional applicants."

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1110171