MSAR

[Medin2016]

can someone educate me how to use MSAR to help with medical school list to apply in June?

thanks in advance

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[The Knife & Gun Club]

click name of school. Look at median mcat and gpa. If similar to your own, school goes on your list.

*check the accepted students and matriculation demographics tabs. Be sure you are applying to a school that considers applications from your race and geographic location/state of residence*

 

[Goro]

For each public school you're interested in, look at the Acceptance Information page, and note the IS: OOS ratio for interviews and matriculants. Anything < 15% for OOS should be tossed off your list, unless you have a significant tie to that state, like growing up there or going to college there. Your sister or SO living there now is not a significant tie.

Then look at the average stats of acceptees. In particular, note the 10-90th %iles. Pick the schools whose stats are closest to your own.

 

[PB&Jam]

I haven't taken the MCAT yet (just registered, taking it May 20th!) Should I use MCAT practice test scores to make a rough school list?

 

[LizzyM]

Isn't the MSAR going to have data on only old MCAT scores because it is very unlikely that many applicants who matriculated in Summer-Fall 2015 took the MCAT in January 2015 or later? That is part of the downside... It might be okay to use your practice test scores to make a rough list but convert your scores to the "old scores".

 

[PB&Jam]

Isn't the MSAR going to have data on only old MCAT scores because it is very unlikely that many applicants who matriculated in Summer-Fall 2015 took the MCAT in January 2015 or later? That is part of the downside... It might be okay to use your practice test scores to make a rough list but convert your scores to the "old scores".

That was the plan. I've already converted my new practice score to old score using the percentiles.

 

[Lawpy]

can someone educate me how to use MSAR to help with medical school list to apply in June?

thanks in advance

@WedgeDawg algorithm is an effective method

Here is how I approached picking my medical school list.

1. Wrote down my stats, calculated my LizzyM score

2. Went through a list of med schools (sources include the current school-specific discussion forum which lists them alphabetically, USNWR list, or MSAR - you'll get more or less the same result either way) and wrote down any schools I was possibly interested in attending. I came up with a list of around 40 schools.

3. Looked for all schools in my state or which gave preference to applicants from my state. Made sure they were on my list and/or added them to my list.

4. Went through my list and tabulated median GPA (two decimal places) and MCAT for each school based on MSAR data and then sorted them in excel by MCAT score.

5. Separated them generally into reach/target/"safety" categories

6. Pruned my list down to a reasonable number of schools by removing those I wasn't really interested in for whatever reason. I ended up going against the golden rule of SDN and removed half of my state schools as well. I was arrogant and decided that I would rather reapply than go to these schools. Most applicants should not do this. I ended up with 24 schools which was, I felt, a reasonable number.

7. Make sure I had an adequate balance of reach/target/"safety" (balance doesn't have to be 1:1:1 - it depends on your applicant profile. Mine was around 4:1:1).

NOW

If I were to do this again, or advise someone else, I would add these steps (indicated by number where they should fall into this list):

5.5. Look at the 10th and 90th percentile sGPA, cGPA, and MCAT of all the schools on the list. If my numbers fell outside the list, I would put them in a "probationary" category.

6.1. Don't remove half my state schools.

6.5. Go through the probationary list and remove any schools that were not from my state and that I didn't feel really really strongly about wanting to possibly attend.

8. Make sure I have at least 20 schools. If I didn't have 20, I would go back to my original list and add some schools back in, preferably in the target range.

FINALLY

What is your MCAT?

Also moving to WAMC