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the worst that happens is that you easily get into med school, struggle, and then become a primary care physician.
MCAT vs. GPA- which is more important?
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the worst that happens is that you easily get into med school, struggle, and then become a primary care physician.
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That's kind of like asking, "what more important, your arms or your legs?"
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I would like to keep all my limbs, but if I had to choose, I'll keep my arms. thanks
GPA, like above posters have said, can vary quite a bit depending on the school. I wonder if adcom compares candidates from the same school.
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Shouldn't it be rather simple statistically to determine which is "more important"?
Lol.
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Yep, Sector9 did that. The only problem is that the choice of what constitutes a low MCAT and a low GPA is difficult to determine. He tried to use LizzyM scores and how much GPA/MCAT contributed to the score. But the LizzyM is only an approximation and schools don't really see that.
I think another way to do this would be to look at the covariance in GPA/MCAT for accepted students.
K
kpcrew
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Basically, I have heard from a few different adcoms that studies have showed that an MCAT of 25+ is sufficient to perform well in medical school and on the steps, meaning that a person with a 35 MCAT may perform the same as someone who received a 26. Note, however, that I cannot provide any statistical evidence for that. So if the above is true, I guess a low MCAT can be considered anything below 25...
I agree. Even a 24 is not that low, but competition is "female dog".
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yea, but just like there's only one position for everyone who interviews for a job, there are a limited number of spaces for med students. I don't think anyone is making the argument that if you don't get into medical school, then you don't have the mental capacity to be a doctor. Rather, looking at it from the med school's point of view, it doesnt make sense to not take the best candidates even if they are overqualified. I guess my point is that because of the limited slots in the system, it's moot whether or not one is capable of being a physician but rather if you can rank high enough to be offered a spot.
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Sure, I agree with this... my post had nothing to do with how adcoms rate applicants and who they decide to accept. I simply gave my opinion about what is considered a low MCAT in response to the person I quoted...
D
deleted413795
It seems like it would be more prudent to look at what would be an MCAT score that you do not have to worry about. While 25 is not necessarily low, it seems like the general rule is that 30+ is sort of the benchmark where you do not have to worry too much about your MCAT. Granted you may need well above a 30 to feel comfortable about some schools, but a score over 30 will most likely be considered decent somewhere (assuming the candidates GPA is solid also).
This could be more of a personal thing though. I just know that I would not feel comfortable with an MCAT below 30. A 25-30 low? No. But it is not exactly a score that allows you to rule out your MCAT score as a reason why you were not more heavily considered.
That being said, I have absolutely no data to back this up. So...yeah.
This could be more of a personal thing though. I just know that I would not feel comfortable with an MCAT below 30. A 25-30 low? No. But it is not exactly a score that allows you to rule out your MCAT score as a reason why you were not more heavily considered.
That being said, I have absolutely no data to back this up. So...yeah.
Quoting this thread: http://206.82.221.137/showthread.php?p=10939972
"The graph below is based on AAMC 2008-2010 aggregate acceptance data. Hopefully it will settle the mcat vs gpa folklore.
To compare apples to apples, we have to find comparable good MCAT range and good GPA range based on actual percentiles and not perception. Luckily, despite the coarse granularity of the data, such ranges exist(roughly):
Good MCAT: score range 33-45 corresponds to 79.3% (i.e. scores of 33 or better put you at 79.3 percentile of the pool)
Good GPA: 3.8-4.0 corresponds to 77.1%
The graph says:
1. There is no appreciable difference in acceptance rates if either MCAT or GPA percentile is over 50% (the blue curve and the red curve overlap).
50th percentile is roughly 30 for MCAT and 3.6 for GPA.
2. For MCAT or GPA percentiles lower than 50, it's better to have a Good MCAT than a Good GPA. For example, the acceptance rate for Good MCAT and 20th percentile GPA is about 57% and that for Good GPA and 20th percentile MCAT is about 44%.
'Both of those curves hold the other variable constant though. So if you have a 78th percentile MCAT and a 10th percentile GPA, you have a 40% chance of being accepted, while a 10th percentile MCAT and a 78th percentile GPA gives you a 25% chance of acceptance. This seems to imply that the MCAT is more important.' "
"The graph below is based on AAMC 2008-2010 aggregate acceptance data. Hopefully it will settle the mcat vs gpa folklore.
To compare apples to apples, we have to find comparable good MCAT range and good GPA range based on actual percentiles and not perception. Luckily, despite the coarse granularity of the data, such ranges exist(roughly):
Good MCAT: score range 33-45 corresponds to 79.3% (i.e. scores of 33 or better put you at 79.3 percentile of the pool)
Good GPA: 3.8-4.0 corresponds to 77.1%
The graph says:
1. There is no appreciable difference in acceptance rates if either MCAT or GPA percentile is over 50% (the blue curve and the red curve overlap).
50th percentile is roughly 30 for MCAT and 3.6 for GPA.
2. For MCAT or GPA percentiles lower than 50, it's better to have a Good MCAT than a Good GPA. For example, the acceptance rate for Good MCAT and 20th percentile GPA is about 57% and that for Good GPA and 20th percentile MCAT is about 44%.
'Both of those curves hold the other variable constant though. So if you have a 78th percentile MCAT and a 10th percentile GPA, you have a 40% chance of being accepted, while a 10th percentile MCAT and a 78th percentile GPA gives you a 25% chance of acceptance. This seems to imply that the MCAT is more important.' "
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this is whether or not an applicant gets accepted to any school out of all schools he/she applied to rather than an applicant's chance of being accepted into any one school (or the "typical" school) correct?
i would say that there's a confounding variable of self selection that can also affect the results. for example, a student that has a very high gpa, but takes the mcat late and gets a not so good score might apply to his target school (or few target schools), thinking "i dont want to wait another year, but if i dont get into where i want, ill take the mcats again to apply next year." this applicant might have a higher chance of rejection because he has a fallback plan in case he gets rejected.
looking at a similar candidate with a low gpa and high mcats, he/she might apply to safety schools because you cannot "retake" your gpa for the next c
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