Official 2013-2014 Verification Times from AMCAS + Interesting Information

[GolfUSA]

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I have seen a couple of threads addressing verification times from last year which seem a bit misleading, and I just wanted to share this video that I ran across which has the official reports and some other new information about the verification process/AMCAS in general.

Link: https://www.aamc.org/students/advisors/amcas-advisors/328156/amcaswebinar2015changes.html

I honestly don't know why this type of video is not more readily available to applicants because my pre-health adviser definitely did not know any of this. I recommend watching the majority of the presentation (though it gets mind-numbing at times), and here are some highlights in my opinion:

1.) Official AMCAS Verification times for 2013-2014

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*Of course these are the average times (IN BUSINESS DAYS) so it was actually about 10-14 days longer for the slowest times. This is still not as bad as some of data I've seen though.

2.) New staff were hired to make the verification process for the 2015 application quicker than last year.
Here's their explanation of why it was so bad in 2014:
-They opened the application a week late which created backlog.
-There has been a recent increase in the number of applicants that apply early, and the applicant pool had increased significantly from the previous year.

3.) There is something called the Adviser Information System which can generate reports of the actual admission statistics based on MCAT scores for applicants from that school. I had never heard of this before, but it may be common knowledge at schools that actually use it. This seems like MDapplicants without any of the BS (which I still love btw), but it is only available to advisers with a specific code... Too bad my school's premed advising sucks. Snapshot:

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4.) There are some minor hints at how the MCAT scale is composed. I often have wondered if any of the questions were pretested/reused to establish a curve prior to administration of the exam so that it was more standardized between exam dates. This would also make sense of the lengths they go to to stop people from discussing the exam specifics. Anyways, some of answers (like the first I quoted from the pdf below) make it sound like they make a new scale every time. If you are only being scaled against the other people who took that specific test, then it begs the question of which MCAT date has the dumbest overall group of people taking it so the curve is the most lenient. I honestly doubt the AAMC would allow this type of biased standardization, and who really knows what they do during that month. What do you guys think?

Finally, there is a pdf which had a few interesting answers in it that I hadn't seen other places.

Link: https://www.aamc.org/students/download/328300/data/2015amcasadvisorqa.pdf

Some Highlights:

Why does it still take so long to turn around MCAT scores now that the writing section is gone?
The analyses required to score the multiple-choice sections of the MCAT exam take about the same time as those conducted for the writing sample. Previously, scoring for these sections occurred simultaneously. Therefore, students should not expect to receive scores any earlier with the writing sample removed than when it was included in the exam.

Does the AIS filter for applicants who graduated from my undergraduate institution?
You can run the Primary Undergraduate report in the AIS to see information about applicants that have listed your institution as their primary undergraduate institution.
*this data would be extremely helpful to get an idea where people from your school get in, and it would be an awesome addition to the MSAR in some less specific form (probably not going to ever happen).

How many letters do students usually submit? If a student uses a committee letter should they also get other letters of recommendation?
On average, applicants submit two to three Letters of Evaluation. A committee letter counts as one letter entry. If an applicant has a committee letter they do not need to request additional letters unless more letters are needed to satisfy the letter requirements for a particular medical school.

It seems to take a very long time to see any data in the AIS regarding acceptances of our applicants. Sometimes this data is never reported even though we have heard from the applicant that they have been accepted. Is that because the medical school has not reported this information to AMCAS?
If this data is missing from the AIS it is likely that the medical school has not reported their acceptances to AMCAS. If you are experiencing this issue with a specific school and would like for us to call them, please give us a call at 202-828-0950.
*provides insight into how the AIS data is collected and how acceptance data flows.

 

[zzxxzz]

This seems like MDapplicants without any of the BS

Wait what? MDapps has BS?

And here I was thinking that all these people actually got into Harvard and Hopkins with 3s on their MCAT 😕

 

[GolfUSA]

Haha I was not referring to the people who didn't put their mcat, and I'm not saying much of the stuff on there is BS... The biggest problem for me is that very few people from my school have posted or completed their full app cycle (which is understandable but annoying).

 

[sazerac]

"There has been a recent increase in the number of applicants who apply early" lol wonder why?

 

[GolfUSA]

I wondered the same thing myself, but that's just what the spokeswoman says in the first bit of the question and answer section. She explicitly states, "there are two reasons...", and I listed them because I thought it was interesting to hear her "official" explanation. Last year's cycle had a huge increase in average verification time compared to the 3 previous years, so something clearly had to go wrong to make the whole cycle worse from the beginning. The data overall are still not as bad the Reddit guy's graph and apparently the AAMC hired more people to work this year.

 

[Ismet]

4.) There are some minor hints at how the MCAT scale is composed. I often have wondered if any of the questions were pretested/reused to establish a curve prior to administration of the exam so that it was more standardized between exam dates. This would also make sense of the lengths they go to to stop people from discussing the exam specifics. Anyways, some of answers (like the first I quoted from the pdf below) make it sound like they make a new scale every time. If you are only being scaled against the other people who took that specific test, then it begs the question of which MCAT date has the dumbest overall group of people taking it so the curve is the most lenient. I honestly doubt the AAMC would allow this type of biased standardization, and who really knows what they do during that month. What do you guys think?

It's no secret that the non-experimental questions on your MCAT exam have shown up on previous MCAT exams. That is why there are experimental questions that do not count toward your score, they are establishing the difficulty and collecting data on that question. So the exam you take is made up of a mixture of questions that have already been "pretested," plus experimental questions that may be used in future exams.

 

[Ismet]

"There has been a recent increase in the number of applicants who apply early" lol wonder why?

 

[GolfUSA]

It's no secret that the non-experimental questions on your MCAT exam have shown up on previous MCAT exams. That is why there are experimental questions that do not count toward your score, they are establishing the difficulty and collecting data on that question. So the exam you take is made up of a mixture of questions that have already been "pretested," plus experimental questions that may be used in future exams......

Yeah, I know they put a few on each exam, but you still don't have more than 52 questions on the BS and PS section in the 70 minutes right? So do you actually get scored on less than 52 questions then? I feel like that's barely enough to get a true picture of your knowledge because any one topic could be almost an entire 52 question test in undergrad. Not that I really want to take a longer test, but I honestly think the old format was probably a more accurate score due to increased sample size. I just don't get why they are adding more material for 2015 instead of testing what they already do in more depth. It seems like there will be even more standard deviation in the subsections with that many small problem samples.

 

[Ismet]

Yeah, I know they put a few on each exam, but you still don't have more than 52 questions on the BS and PS section in the 70 minutes right? So do you actually get scored on less than 52 questions then? I feel like that's barely enough to get a true picture of your knowledge because any one topic could be almost an entire 52 question test in undergrad. Not that I really want to take a longer test, but I honestly think the old format was probably a more accurate score due to increased sample size. I just don't get why they are adding more material for 2015 instead of testing what they already do in more depth. It seems like there will be even more standard deviation in the subsections with that many small problem samples......

Yes you get scored on less than 52 questions. That's how it is, and how it will be for all of the standardized tests you'll take from here on out. That's how it is standardized. Out off the 322 questions on Step 1, ~50 are experimental. Believe me, you'll be thankful that 50 of those questions aren't scored, and you'll pray that those are the ones you got wrong!