MCAT retake score hearsay

[SearsTower]

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This thread is in response to V4Viet's earlier topic "Possibility of 17M -30M"

Hearsay has it that you don’t improve on an MCAT retake. Improvement is possible but the odds are stacked against you. In the case that you do improve, you would only increase by 1-2 points max.

My advice to u, V4viet, is to take all these hearsays and shove it in the garbage. That’s what it is, total garbage. Saying no one really does better on his/her second MCAT is analogous to saying some people have an inherent talent to take the MCAT and some just don’t. No one is born with a natural ability to do well on the MCAT; that is why with study, people do progressively better than their diagnostics. Your 17M last April, at most, is a diagnostic; a snapshot taken at one instance along your spectrum of progress. Maybe you didn’t know learn how to walk yet but still rushed to the race track.

I took the MCAT last August. I spent roughly three weeks preparing. I started at the beginning of August up until the day of the test, using only AAMC Tests 3-8 for review and practice. Unfortunately I never got the timing down so I didn’t have time to finish 2-3 passages on every section on the real thing, even though the “real thing” to me was easier than the practice tests I worked with. I scored an embarrassing 28. I’m taking this crap again in April and am confident that I’ll do better than a 1-2 point improvement.

A friend of mine scored in the 20’s on his first MCAT, with only a 2 in VR. With sufficient practice, he was able to bring it up to a 9, with a 34 total – approximately a 10-point improvement!

So my point is, don’t trust some cheesy statistics to determine your fate, don’t listen to ignoramus who says you’re stuck with what you’ve got. The MCAT only measures one thing: how well you perform on the MCAT. How well you know the format of the test, how well you execute testing strategies, and how well you know the materials are the only factors that will determine your score.

 

[QuikClot]

[Agreeing with the above] A lot of it is common sense. If you blew off verbal reasoning and ran out of time with two passages untouched -- that is something you can very easily address. If you worked very hard, felt good about your performance on test day, and came back with eights across the board . . . your prospects for dramatic improvement are less.

Bottom line is, statistics are based on average people, and people, on average, don't do everything they can. I imagine a lot of no-improvements are people who just took the same study tactics that failed right back into the fray -- did the same thing, and expected a different result. That doesn't have to happen!

 

[NontradICUdoc]

Agreed!!

When I first took the MCAT back in 1996, I received a 9 on the verbal and aI finished the test. Fast forward to this past August, where I did not practice enough and left 3-4 passages unread and filled in C for all of the answers leaving me with a 6.

The other day, I took a practice MCAT at Kaplan and finished all the sections, verbal went to a 10. Granted this was not the real thing, but still it was practice for timing.

Statistics are worthless.

 

[MEG@COOL]

This thread is in response to V4Viet's earlier topic "Possibility of 17M -30M"

Hearsay has it that you don’t improve on an MCAT retake. Improvement is possible but the odds are stacked against you. In the case that you do improve, you would only increase by 1-2 points max.

My advice to u, V4viet, is to take all these hearsays and shove it in the garbage. That’s what it is, total garbage. Saying no one really does better on his/her second MCAT is analogous to saying some people have an inherent talent to take the MCAT and some just don’t. No one is born with a natural ability to do well on the MCAT; that is why with study, people do progressively better than their diagnostics. Your 17M last April, at most, is a diagnostic; a snapshot taken at one instance along your spectrum of progress. Maybe you didn’t know learn how to walk yet but still rushed to the race track.

I took the MCAT last August. I spent roughly three weeks preparing. I started at the beginning of August up until the day of the test, using only AAMC Tests 3-8 for review and practice. Unfortunately I never got the timing down so I didn’t have time to finish 2-3 passages on every section on the real thing, even though the “real thing” to me was easier than the practice tests I worked with. I scored an embarrassing 28. I’m taking this crap again in April and am confident that I’ll do better than a 1-2 point improvement.

A friend of mine scored in the 20’s on his first MCAT, with only a 2 in VR. With sufficient practice, he was able to bring it up to a 9, with a 34 total – approximately a 10-point improvement!

So my point is, don’t trust some cheesy statistics to determine your fate, don’t listen to ignoramus who says you’re stuck with what you’ve got. The MCAT only measures one thing: how well you perform on the MCAT. How well you know the format of the test, how well you execute testing strategies, and how well you know the materials are the only factors that will determine your score.

The MCAT is more dependent on innate intelligence than school grades in my opinion. I know plenty of people with good grades who dont have the mental faculty necessary to do well on this test. Of course some will improve their score. A few people will improve by a lot, and many by few points. Stories of like how your friend went from a 20's to a 34 are anecdotal though and are not how things generally turn out.

 

[alex_shimp]

I thought that on general people do improve.

 

[scpod]

A friend of mine scored in the 20’s on his first MCAT, with only a 2 in VR. With sufficient practice, he was able to bring it up to a 9, with a 34 total – approximately a 10-point improvement...So my point is, don’t trust some cheesy statistics to determine your fate, don’t listen to ignoramus who says you’re stuck with what you’ve got.

According to AAMC only 349 people have made a VR2 and made further attempts at the MCAT since 1995. Approximately 7 (2%) of those people have raised their VR score to more than a 6. It might be a cheezy statistic, but it's not hearsay. The other thing you can look at is that, of those people with a VR2 the first time around, 93% never got better than a 5 on subsequent tests. Yes, it can be done, but to think that it is common is simply a fallacy. Your friend must have been special.

 

[QofQuimica]

Saying no one really does better on his/her second MCAT is analogous to saying some people have an inherent talent to take the MCAT and some just don’t. No one is born with a natural ability to do well on the MCAT; that is why with study, people do progressively better than their diagnostics.

Actually, some people DO have an innate talent for standardized test-taking, just as some people have innate athletic ability, artistic ability, mathematical ability, and other talents. There are some exceptional students who do not study very much for the MCAT, who may not even have completed all of the pre-reqs, but who still end up with superior scores. These people are unusual and rare. If you aren't sure whether you are one of them, chances are good that you are not. 😉

That being said, you are right that sufficient practice can improve anyone's test-taking skill level; if this were not true, then companies like TPR and Kaplan would not be in business. There are various reasons why the majority of students do not improve their scores very much from one test administration to the next. Many students do not see a great improvement because they do not put enough time, effort, and targeted skill-building into their studying. It is not helpful to repeat the same mistakes that got you your lower than desired score the previous time. Also, many people wrongly try to study everything equally, instead of honing in on their weak areas.

One of the biggest problems that leads to lower scores is if students have not completed all four pre-reqs before taking the test. Students may also have trouble raising their scores if English is not their native language, if they have extensive test anxiety (this is more common than you might think), or even if they have "personal issues" in their lives that are affecting their ability to study and focus (also much more common than you might think). Some problems are relatively easy to correct, like taking the pre-reqs before re-taking the exam. Other problems are more difficult and will take a lot of work to correct, like improving poor critical thinking skills. Some students conclude that the amount of effort and time needed to learn the critical thinking skills that they need to raise their score by more than a few points is "not worth it."

The first thing that anyone disappointed with your previous score should do is to consider what went wrong the last time you took the test. You cannot correct your weaknesses if you do not know what they are. Once you know where you had a problem before, the solution to solve that problem will usually be obvious.

 

[anon-y-mouse]

Agreed!!

When I first took the MCAT back in 1996, I received a 9 on the verbal and aI finished the test. Fast forward to this past August, where I did not practice enough and left 3-4 passages unread and filled in C for all of the answers leaving me with a 6.

The other day, I took a practice MCAT at Kaplan and finished all the sections, verbal went to a 10. Granted this was not the real thing, but still it was practice for timing.

Statistics are worthless.

This is completely unrelated to the thread, but I really want to warn you to be careful of Kaplan verbal passages... they are much easier than the real thing (having practiced with many of them). Pick up some alternative sources for verbal if you're interested in practicing more! Their PS section is pretty strong.

 

[suckermc]

i just wanted to say i disagreed with a previous posting about inherent intelligence. (see im so t'ed im can't spell)

i respect your opinion but i do not think the mcat tests your intelligence. i believe what you did over a four year period has a lot more to say about your brains than a one shot deal. that being said, your gpa is not always an indicator of how "smart" you are either. whatever. the bottom line is we all have to take this exam and some are better at it than others. some take it more seriously than others.
but we all have the capacity to do well on this test.

i also think we should do more to encourage people, not throw statistics at thier faces. my stats prof used to say that there is no other tool that people screw up more than stats, and to look at every instance that stats are used with a critical mind. that is to say, we use it all the time in our daily lives that we don't always see they may be flawed or wrong. or used wrongly.

but yes i understand, i do, i see the odds as well. and you can point to it and say, "see amcas never lies. look there is proof!" yes, it is valid data. if you did badly the first time and go into it again doing the same thing you will become a statistic. right? they also say peeps with 8's or more can't improve much. yes? some people take the test and never apply to school. pre med advisors love these stats, and i am not saying they are junk. what i am saying is that it shouldn't be a tool we use against our peers to weed them out. pre med advisors can do that for you.


Dr q had it right. I don't have a great solution either. but i think we should be supportive, and not encourage anyone to give up. it is up to that person to make that choice.

just my opinion. flame on.

 

[Beau Geste]

I scored an embarrassing 28.

A 28 is not embarrassing. A lot of people would be happy with that score and get in to med school.

 

[scpod]

i also think we should do more to encourage people, not throw statistics at thier faces...that it shouldn't be a tool we use against our peers to weed them out. pre med advisors can do that for you.

The statistics aren't there to discourage people. What they are there for is to let you know what reality is-- how really hard it would be to go from a 17 to a 30. If that is your goal, then you might just need to forget about everything else in life for six months or so. Encouragement is good, but if everybody is saying, "Don't worry; you can do it!" then you might be less inclined to spend the necessary time on it. Some things need to be approached with a little fear. The MCAT can be a really tough foe. Yet, it is also the single easiest way to improve your chances to get into med school. But, you have to respect it first. Part of that respect is gained by understanding how truly difficult it is. All the cheerleading in the world won't prepare you for the difficulty of the test.

Everyone has said that the MCAT really doesn't measure you as a student. I'll agree with that, but I don't really think that it was designed to do that. One of the things it was designed to do was measure attitude. In order to do well you have to take hold of it and wrestle it down to the ground like a cowboy wrestling a steer. Those people who need a cheerleader are probably not going to do as well. It was designed that way. You may not agree, but I believe it was designed to weed out certain personality types. The masculine, type A, "I'm right and you're wrong" personality has dominated medicine forever. The MCAT was changed a few years ago in order to attract a more diverse group, but I don't believe that it has been all that effective. A lot of med school committees are still filled with those same masculine, type A, "I'm right and you're wrong" that went through the system years ago, and they still have the final say on the composition of the current classes. It is changing, but not quickly.

 

[suckermc]

The statistics aren't there to discourage people. What they are there for is to let you know what reality is-- how really hard it would be to go from a 17 to a 30. If that is your goal, then you might just need to forget about everything else in life for six months or so. Encouragement is good, but if everybody is saying, "Don't worry; you can do it!" then you might be less inclined to spend the necessary time on it. Some things need to be approached with a little fear. The MCAT can be a really tough foe. Yet, it is also the single easiest way to improve your chances to get into med school. But, you have to respect it first. Part of that respect is gained by understanding how truly difficult it is. All the cheerleading in the world won't prepare you for the difficulty of the test.

Everyone has said that the MCAT really doesn't measure you as a student. I'll agree with that, but I don't really think that it was designed to do that. One of the things it was designed to do was measure attitude. In order to do well you have to take hold of it and wrestle it down to the ground like a cowboy wrestling a steer. Those people who need a cheerleader are probably not going to do as well. It was designed that way. You may not agree, but I believe it was designed to weed out certain personality types. The masculine, type A, "I'm right and you're wrong" personality has dominated medicine forever. The MCAT was changed a few years ago in order to attract a more diverse group, but I don't believe that it has been all that effective. A lot of med school committees are still filled with those same masculine, type A, "I'm right and you're wrong" that went through the system years ago, and they still have the final say on the composition of the current classes. It is changing, but not quickly.

"The MCAT is more dependent on innate intelligence than school grades in my opinion. '


that was the post i am replying to . i wasn't trying to downplay the difficulties.

i think the person who originally asked "is it possible to go from 17-30" KNOWS it is hard cuz they went thru it. im not saying we should all hold hands, you know. im just saying what meg@cool said was..i dunno. it left a bad taste in my mouth.

i agree with you scpod...

realities are not always a measure of possibilities, thats all.

 

[NontradICUdoc]

This is completely unrelated to the thread, but I really want to warn you to be careful of Kaplan verbal passages... they are much easier than the real thing (having practiced with many of them). Pick up some alternative sources for verbal if you're interested in practicing more! Their PS section is pretty strong.

Thanks. I am. I am also taking available AAMC MCATs under "real" timed conditions.

 

[docolive]

This is completely unrelated to the thread, but I really want to warn you to be careful of Kaplan verbal passages... they are much easier than the real thing (having practiced with many of them). Pick up some alternative sources for verbal if you're interested in practicing more! Their PS section is pretty strong.

if anything, ek passages are easier than those dense kaplans!!!

 

[MEG@COOL]

"The MCAT is more dependent on innate intelligence than school grades in my opinion. '


that was the post i am replying to . i wasn't trying to downplay the difficulties.

i think the person who originally asked "is it possible to go from 17-30" KNOWS it is hard cuz they went thru it. im not saying we should all hold hands, you know. im just saying what meg@cool said was..i dunno. it left a bad taste in my mouth.

i agree with you scpod...

realities are not always a measure of possibilities, thats all.

I didnt say it was completely dependent on innate ability. Just more dependent than school grades.

 

[Anastasis]

I don't think the MCAT is a measure of innate intelligence; it's a measure of innate test taking ability. Like Q said, some people are just good at taking standardized tests. I think it has a ton to do with logic. I think the people who are good standardized test takers can, using basic science knowledge, logic their way to any answer. Some people just can't do this; some people couldn't logic their way out of a paper sack. It doesn't mean that first group is more intelligent on the whole, just in that one particular area.

I can use myself as an example. I'm decently smart, kinda lazy, and I think my GPA reflects that: 3.6. But (and I'll go back to the SAT and PSAT here since I haven't taken the MCAT), on standarized tests I usually perform above my intelligence level. People at my high school actually accused me of cheating on my PSAT because they figured there was no way I could have gotten that high of a score.

Well that's just my $.02

 

[doc2010]

I don't think the MCAT is a measure of innate intelligence; it's a measure of innate test taking ability. Like Q said, some people are just good at taking standardized tests. I think it has a ton to do with logic. I think the people who are good standardized test takers can, using basic science knowledge, logic their way to any answer. Some people just can't do this; some people couldn't logic their way out of a paper sack. It doesn't mean that first group is more intelligent on the whole, just in that one particular area.

I can use myself as an example. I'm decently smart, kinda lazy, and I think my GPA reflects that: 3.6. But (and I'll go back to the SAT and PSAT here since I haven't taken the MCAT), on standarized tests I usually perform above my intelligence level. People at my high school actually accused me of cheating on my PSAT because they figured there was no way I could have gotten that high of a score.

Well that's just my $.02

When you've actually taken the MCAT, come back and give us your opinion again. The MCAT is absolutely nothing like the SAT or the PSAT. It is not like any standardized test you have ever taken. Someone who is "decently smart, [and] kinda lazy" will perform miserably. Remember that Q was talking about a few "rare" people.

 

[Anastasis]

When you've actually taken the MCAT, come back and give us your opinion again. The MCAT is absolutely nothing like the SAT or the PSAT. It is not like any standardized test you have ever taken. Someone who is "decently smart, [and] kinda lazy" will perform miserably. Remember that Q was talking about a few "rare" people.

Wow - there was absolutely no reason to get that pissy.

Yes, I'm aware they're nothing alike. I was commenting on standarized tests in general.

 

[anon-y-mouse]

When you've actually taken the MCAT, come back and give us your opinion again. The MCAT is absolutely nothing like the SAT or the PSAT. It is not like any standardized test you have ever taken. Someone who is "decently smart, [and] kinda lazy" will perform miserably. Remember that Q was talking about a few "rare" people.

No, actually, "decently smart and kinda lazy" describes so many of my friends... and they all aced their MCAT. verbal isn't too difficult, with practice, if you're able to understand and digest the idiotic passages and understand the questions -- and are the kind of person who reads pretty critically in the first place. Physical is almost all material from AP Chem / AP Physics. Bio/orgo = a lot more content, yes... which may require more learning / memorizing, but in addition to that, much information is already given in the passage!
I don't think my friends are particularly "rare", of course, but the actual point is that they *are* excellent test takers, as Anastasis pointed out. Yes, there is a huge analytical skillset being tested.
By no means am I saying that the MCAT is objectively "easy"... however, it is certainly a test where natural test takers do excel. (this is in contrast to the USMLE where one's actually expected to *know* a lot more)

 

[QofQuimica]

No, actually, "decently smart and kinda lazy" describes so many of my friends... and they all aced their MCAT....I don't think my friends are particularly "rare", of course, but the actual point is that they *are* excellent test takers, as Anastasis pointed out. Yes, there is a huge analytical skillset being tested.

It isn't surprising that your friends are like you; people tend to gravitate toward others with common interests and talents. Relying on anecdotes as evidence (person X scored 35+ on the test without studying, so person Y should be able to do it too) makes a tempting but fallacious argument. Speaking for the large group of test-takers (35,000 or so who take it each administration), only 10% score above a 33 or so. Of those 10%, the vast majority study. Even if we grant that maybe 10% of the 10% basically didn't study (which I think is a pretty generous concession), that's only a few hundred people out of over 30,000. Again, the odds that any one of us is going to be one of them aren't good.

Anon-y-mouse, you also have to also consider that to you, your achievement is "normal." This biases you into believing that others could do what you did more easily than they really can. *You* did it; therefore to you it seems possible that many people could do it. But in reality, even with tons of studying, the vast majority of people will not manage to achieve a score like yours on the MCAT. What you did *is* rare, and very remarkable.

 

[saxquiz]

If you didn't score high (1300+) on the SAT then you are most likely going to have a very hard time scoring high on this test. They are the same type of test. They are tests that test how intelligent* you are, not how well you can memorize facts for tomorrow's quiz, how well you can do homework, or how often you go to class (GPA measures all that). I'm sure a lot of people on this forum believe that any Joe Schmo Bio Major can get a 35 on the MCAT just by studying real hard and taking a Kaplan course. Not so. Medical Schools want intelligent people who are also hard working. GPA and ECs measure the hard working/motivated part**. The MCAT measures intelligence.

PS - Feel free to bash my personality and call me a *****. 😉

*By intelligence I mean reading comprehension and ability to think and reason well.
**GPA is also based on inteligence, but not so much as on hard work and motivation.

 

[QofQuimica]

If you didn't score high (1300+) on the SAT then you are most likely going to have a very hard time scoring high on this test. They are the same type of test. They are tests that test how intelligent* you are, not how well you can memorize facts for tomorrow's quiz, how well you can do homework, or how often you go to class (GPA measures all that). I'm sure a lot of people on this forum believe that any Joe Schmo Bio Major can get a 35 on the MCAT just by studying real hard and taking a Kaplan course. Not so. Medical Schools want intelligent people who are also hard working. GPA and ECs measure the hard working/motivated part**. The MCAT measures intelligence.

PS - Feel free to bash my personality and call me a *****. 😉

*By intelligence I mean reading comprehension and ability to think and reason well.
**GPA is also based on inteligence, but not so much as on hard work and motivation.

There's no cause for "bashing your personality and calling you a *****." I don't agree with you that the MCAT measures intelligence, but I also don't think that your saying it does makes you a bad person. Or a *****. 😉 I do agree with you that most people will not be able to score 35+ on the MCAT, but I think there *is* a large hard work factor involved here. "Reading comprehension" and "ability to think and reason well" are skills that can be improved with practice. The question is, how hard is a person for whom these skills do not come naturally willing to work to develop them? For example, I would love to run a marathon in less than three hours. Am I capable of doing it? It doesn't look promising from my previous attempts; I finished both of my marathons in five hours. But, I am not a professional runner, and I am not willing to train by running 100 miles per week and center my life around improving my running like the highest-achieving people do. If I did start running full-time, I still might not be able to run 26 miles in less than three hours. But, I could definitely significantly lower my time. It's just not worth that level of effort to me though. I'd rather go to medical school. 😉

 

[anon-y-mouse]

It isn't surprising that your friends are like you; people tend to gravitate toward others with common interests and talents. Relying on anecdotes as evidence (person X scored 35+ on the test without studying, so person Y should be able to do it too) makes a tempting but fallacious argument. Speaking for the large group of test-takers (35,000 or so who take it each administration), only 10% score above a 33 or so. Of those 10%, the vast majority study. Even if we grant that maybe 10% of the 10% basically didn't study (which I think is a pretty generous concession), that's only a few hundred people out of over 30,000. Again, the odds that any one of us is going to be one of them aren't good.

Anon-y-mouse, you also have to also consider that to you, your achievement is "normal." This biases you into believing that others could do what you did more easily than they really can. *You* did it; therefore to you it seems possible that many people could do it. But in reality, even with tons of studying, the vast majority of people will not manage to achieve a score like yours on the MCAT. What you did *is* rare, and very remarkable.

I think you may have misread what I was trying to say... I wasn't trying to talk about this as being 'normal', I was tryng to provide support for the statement that there is such a thing as good test taking skills, and having that characteristic really helps people for the MCAT. (someone earlier was arguing that innate ability has little effect on results)

 

[QofQuimica]

I think you may have misread what I was trying to say... I wasn't trying to talk about this as being 'normal', I was tryng to provide support for the statement that there is such a thing as good test taking skills, and having that characteristic really helps people for the MCAT. (someone earlier was arguing that innate ability has little effect on results)

ok. What I am trying to say is that I don't buy the notion that it's all nature or all nurture. It's both.

 

[QuikClot]

Is the MCAT a measure of general intelligence? Yes and no. No test is a perfect measure of "intelligence," nor could there be, since there is no agreed-upon definition of what "intelligence" is. I imagine, other factors being equal, that high MCAT scores collolate with high IQ scores, a broad vocabulary, good math skills, and other things we generally associate with "intelligence." But:

* These things are one small part of the aspects of your brain and personality that can be above-normal or below-normal. If "intelligence" means "has a good brain" then "MCAT intelligence" is a narrow subset of that. One critical aspect of real-world intelligence, according to people who study geniuses, great artists, etc., is concentration and focus -- the desire and discipline to practice. Those are the people who come to be "Nobel" intelligent. So clearly we can't make a hard and fast distinction between "native intelligence" and "studies hard"; it may be that "studies hard" is caused by "native intelligence."

* Test anxiety is huge. I worked with a paramedic in Woodburn on my internship -- the guy was brillant and always in control of a scene. The kind of guy you'd go to the gates of hell with. But every time he'd get the big interview for a fire job (and he got them a lot; the man was a ninja medic) he'd choke. Sweaty, can't think -- it just hits some people very, very hard.

* I agree some people are good test takers, but I wouldn't put most of it down to "logic." A lot of it has to do with being comfortable making educated guesses with partial information -- some people, especially organized people, the kind with a tiny bit of OCD-affective disorder, just can't think that way. It has to be perfect. And so they run out of time -- they look for the right answers, instead of eliminating the wrong ones -- they doubt themselves. Logic plays a part, but you have to have a certain kind of personality to even wield logic to its maximum effect.

I don't agree with the statement that the MCAT only measures test-taking ability. I notice many of the people making that argument got very high scores themselves . . . maybe there's a little bit of survivor's guilt going on. Smart people will tend to do better. BUT . . . smart people will not necessarily be good doctors. I doubt the MCAT predicts that at all. So pass it and forget it!

 

[kdburton]

This thread is in response to V4Viet's earlier topic "Possibility of 17M -30M"

Hearsay has it that you don’t improve on an MCAT retake. Improvement is possible but the odds are stacked against you. In the case that you do improve, you would only increase by 1-2 points max.

My advice to u, V4viet, is to take all these hearsays and shove it in the garbage. That’s what it is, total garbage. Saying no one really does better on his/her second MCAT is analogous to saying some people have an inherent talent to take the MCAT and some just don’t. No one is born with a natural ability to do well on the MCAT; that is why with study, people do progressively better than their diagnostics. Your 17M last April, at most, is a diagnostic; a snapshot taken at one instance along your spectrum of progress. Maybe you didn’t know learn how to walk yet but still rushed to the race track.

I took the MCAT last August. I spent roughly three weeks preparing. I started at the beginning of August up until the day of the test, using only AAMC Tests 3-8 for review and practice. Unfortunately I never got the timing down so I didn’t have time to finish 2-3 passages on every section on the real thing, even though the “real thing” to me was easier than the practice tests I worked with. I scored an embarrassing 28. I’m taking this crap again in April and am confident that I’ll do better than a 1-2 point improvement.

A friend of mine scored in the 20’s on his first MCAT, with only a 2 in VR. With sufficient practice, he was able to bring it up to a 9, with a 34 total – approximately a 10-point improvement!

So my point is, don’t trust some cheesy statistics to determine your fate, don’t listen to ignoramus who says you’re stuck with what you’ve got. The MCAT only measures one thing: how well you perform on the MCAT. How well you know the format of the test, how well you execute testing strategies, and how well you know the materials are the only factors that will determine your score.

You still scored a few points above the average, so even if that wasn't your TARGET score I wouldn't call it embarassing by any means... Especially since you only spent 3 weeks preparing.

 

[kdburton]

The MCAT is more dependent on innate intelligence than school grades in my opinion. I know plenty of people with good grades who dont have the mental faculty necessary to do well on this test. Of course some will improve their score. A few people will improve by a lot, and many by few points. Stories of like how your friend went from a 20's to a 34 are anecdotal though and are not how things generally turn out.

This is probably because you have all the free time in the world to do well on assignments, projects, lab reports, etc... where you have limited time to do well on the MCAT. Someone who gets a 4.0 could still do poor on the MCAT (even if they knew all the material to some extent), if they can't figure out what questions are being asked and how to go about answering them in an efficient manner. Fortunately I never half-assed it studying for my prereqs and I also tend to do well on M/C science tests (and so far on any diagnostic MCATs)