It's a median not an average, so most likely not related to the number of super high scores. They must have shifted the entire pool. Probably changed the numbers they wanted to see in order to grant an interview to be a lot higher
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but the year before it was around a 517, so really there was just a 1 year dip which is probably due to them wanting to try being more "holistic." guess they regretted it lol
What's crazy is that the 508-avg cohort is only 1.5 years into the curriculum right now. They haven't taken step1 yet and certainly haven't matched yet. I also don't think their ranking dropped. I wonder what made them decide to stop accepting low numbers.
Exam performance maybe
They should be way above what's needed to pass exams even at 508 tho
Wow there are so many schools who have averages of 517 and 518 now! That basically means you have to have a top 4-5% MCAT score right? Or are the scores becoming increasingly top heavy and inflated?
Is it possible they wanted to experiment with taking low numbers so they have this one class with a 508 average but until they take Step and Match they don't want to accept another 3 classes with similar stats in case the 508 class ends up being disastrous for them? So they take this one year as an experiment but then revert back to their previous, safe average until their experiment year has matched etc?
Or maybe my neuroticism has just reached a peak and I've developed advance stage premed paranoia
They used to have much lower medians though - everyone did. It's like they stopped playing the MCAT score creep game for a single year when the new scores came out, but then once they realized everyone else was treating it like business as usual, they went back to looking for 34+/516+
Wwoooaahh
My state school went up * bu hu* - Tufts went way down you guys what the hecks.
My state school went up * bu hu* - Tufts went way down you guys what the hecks.
Tufts MCAT went up? 513 -> 514 and a 3.74 - 3.73
D
Deleted member 737595
What does this all mean? Has medical school admissions just become significantly more competitive?
Would somebody mind posting the old and new Keck stats? Looks like my subscription expired :/
Look at sci GPA for matriculants.
One interesting fact I noticed is that the percentage of the entering class who had paid medical/clinical employment dropped from 41% in 2016 to 32% in 2017,, while percentage of the class who did research stayed at 94%. Perhaps they really did apply a holistic philosophy for selecting the entering class of 2016.
The new MCAT is a 517 with like a 3.78 gpa
Feel free to pm me y'all if you need a particular school or two
Up from 515. I now have a Keck class and an Einstein class to categorize schools, where there used to be just one.
Yeah, I was pretty surprised by the score creep. It definitely made me shift my list around a bit
USC dean: "Did someone say cocaine?"
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the following information was revealed to me in a dream
+/- 1 point shifts aren't that special but to think so many schools now have 2-3-4 (and UCLA's whopping 9) points higher mcat is just crazy. How long are they going to keep raising their medians?
These tests are standardized and the top 10 is literally-the-top-10-percent. There's only so many applicants with high enough scores to reach the top 10. If every med school only accepts 518+ MCAT applicants (relatively small minority), there's not going to be enough applicants and schools end up with tons of empty seats.
...Are there enough people in the top 10% to fill every seat in all of the med schools?
And 518 is supposedly a 97th percentile score!
There are more than enough high-stats applicants. The top 20 med schools combined have about 2500 people/yr. That means they need ~1250/yr with scores in the top few percent, lets stay 517+/top 5%.
There are nearly 100k MCAT testers per year so easily 4k-5k people that can fill out that 1250.
There are nearly 100k MCAT testers per year so easily 4k-5k people that can fill out that 1250.
And boom goes the dynamite
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But there are only 55k applicants per year. Also, not everyone who has 517+ has a good GPA to back it up, or ECs. So, are there enough of these high-stat applicants after all? Also, 513 is 90th percentile. I now see a lot of schools in the updated MSAR wanting a 512-513. Thus, talking about the top 10% of applicants once again.
There are now 47 schools that have an average at or above 513.
And now we have to compete against all these other strong test-takers on Step 1 and 2!
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Check one of my comments above. There's a file attached that shows the point change from last year's mcat medians. Compare that to the new msar, do the math and you'll know! 👍
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Yup. This process is getting more inhumane and insane by the second ugh!
It doesn't end until you're a resident (or fellow, if you're pursuing a competitive subspeciality). Highly studious, strong test takers will have to compete directly against each other on step exams, leading to tremendous stress. It's difficult, but since so many people would want the jobs we're after, we need to show that we're the most qualified to obtain them. And standardized exams are a practical and efficient (if very flawed) way of demonstrating that.
Most of the applicants who take the MCAT and skip applying are on the low end, not the high end. The people who score 517+ are going to proceed with applying.
It's true not all 517+ also have a high GPA, but it's not like the two are tied together in the school distributions. The people on the higher end of the MCAT could be on the low end of the GPA for that school. In fact that is probably one of the things that lets lower GPAs in.
Lastly, we're mostly discussing accepted medians. Multiple schools can accept the same person. The number of places actually matriculating a median in the top few percent is much smaller. If you tally up the class sizes for places with matriculant medians 513+, and cut that value in half, I bet you it will come out a tiny fraction of the 10,000 people achieving that score.
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Yeah, makes sense. I just have my fingers crossed that I score high enough to meet these new standards when it’s my turn to take the exam!!
Well that's madness. I don't think I would have a chance if I were applying to MD schools today.
What happened to Einstein? O.Othe following information was revealed to me in a dream
Not the top 10% of applicants; the top 10% of test takers. I found a .pdf here - lots of stats about the 2015 and 2016 testers, plus the 2017 testers, and accepted applicants. It's geared at adcoms but it's still interesting.
Key takeaway is ~125k people took the MCAT between 2015-2016, with ~150k total tests including people who took the test more than once. There's likely a ton of those people who weren't accepted in previous cycles still hanging around and reapplying, plus everyone who took the test in 2017 before applying the same year... that's a lot of tests. Would be interesting to see how many people constitute the 90th percentile and up for all 2017 testers plus previous year people without acceptances... I bet it's more people than we'd think.
If you guys want another laugh, I haven't seen anyone bring up Duke yet. Wasn't their accepted MCAT super low on the MSAR before, due to them being "holistic?" It's a 519 now.
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My undergrad advisor at Vandy told me that a 3.52/516 was pretty decent for Vandy med...Rejected a few weeks after submitting secondary🙁 My stats are actually below 10th percentile 🙂
An interesting nugget not MCAT related - UC Davis accepted 73 women and only 41 men. What's up with that?
The chart doesn't show all the schools though, right? How do we see all the schools
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I’m not sure. That chart was posted by someone else earlier in this thread!
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I haven’t paid too much of attention to gpa changes but what was said here on sdn is that some schools now have 0.2 higher gpa. Not sure if this valid info tho so take it with a grain of salt!
My guess would be IS tuition attracts a lot of competitive applicants and lets them become more decisive on who they let in. Whereas they also get much more money from an OOS student, which in return would make them want more of these students -- so as long as they meet the mission requirements, they may be more lenient.
I found this really interesting, stating that the MCAT is not graded on a curve:Not the top 10% of applicants; the top 10% of test takers. I found a .pdf here - lots of stats about the 2015 and 2016 testers, plus the 2017 testers, and accepted applicants. It's geared at adcoms but it's still interesting.
Key takeaway is ~125k people took the MCAT between 2015-2016, with ~150k total tests including people who took the test more than once. There's likely a ton of those people who weren't accepted in previous cycles still hanging around and reapplying, plus everyone who took the test in 2017 before applying the same year... that's a lot of tests. Would be interesting to see how many people constitute the 90th percentile and up for all 2017 testers plus previous year people without acceptances... I bet it's more people than we'd think.
If you guys want another laugh, I haven't seen anyone bring up Duke yet. Wasn't their accepted MCAT super low on the MSAR before, due to them being "holistic?" It's a 519 now.
That is why MCAT scaled scores have more meaning than percentile ranks. The methods that MCAT developers use to
write test questions and build and equate test forms keep the meaning of scale scores constant over test forms and time.
The exam is not graded on a curve. No matter when applicants tested, who they tested with, or what test forms they took,
their scaled scores have common interpretations. Scaled scores describe applicants’ preparation in relation to a fixed
body of knowledge and skill. They compare the knowledge and skill that applicants demonstrated on the exam with the
body of knowledge that faculty described as prerequisite for entering medical students when the new exam was developed
I always thought the score you got corresponded to a percentile, and didn't have intrinsic meaning. But in theory everyone who takes the exam can score a 518 (my score).
humblebrag 6/10
Why is Einstein down 5 points here? Didn't their median just go down from 516 to 515?the following information was revealed to me in a dream
I think he made a mistake.
Typo in the spreadsheet, thanks for catching it
