PCAT score prediction for MCAT

[rleung3]

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Hi,

I am a pre-pharmacy student who recently took his PCATs. I have also been thinking about a career in medicine because I volunteered in a hospital pharmacy and loved working with doctors and nurses, but I didn't want to "officially" committ myself to medicine just yet without a PCAT score to show me how I fare on an admission test for professional school.

I was in the 99th percentile overall for my PCAT, but I was more concerned with analyzing my individual subtest scores. Specifically, the sections I looked at were Chemistry, Biology, and Reading. I was in the 99th percentile for both Biology and Chemistry (General and Organic), but I was only in the 77th percentile for reading comprehension.

Reading on standardized tests has traditionally been my weak spot my whole life, and I am very scared I might not fare very well on the MCAT since it is almost entirely reading-based.

I walked out thinking the reading passages were easy, so it is scary since my original feeling about the reading section only produced a lower-than-expected 77th percentile score.

Has anyone else here taken both the PCAT and MCAT? Do you think my chances of doing well on the MCAT (30+) are low because of my low reading score on the PCAT?

Thanks so much for reading this. I appreciate it

PS: The passages in the PCAT for almost all science-based, but they are not as technical. It is more of presenting findings in areas of healthcare research than about all the technical details.

 

[hp540]

Hi,

I am a pre-pharmacy student who recently took his PCATs. I have also been thinking about a career in medicine because I volunteered in a hospital pharmacy and loved working with doctors and nurses, but I didn't want to "officially" committ myself to medicine just yet without a PCAT score to show me how I fare on an admission test for professional school.

I was in the 99th percentile overall for my PCAT, but I was more concerned with analyzing my individual subtest scores. Specifically, the sections I looked at were Chemistry, Biology, and Reading. I was in the 99th percentile for both Biology and Chemistry (General and Organic), but I was only in the 77th percentile for reading comprehension.

Reading on standardized tests has traditionally been my weak spot my whole life, and I am very scared I might not fare very well on the MCAT since it is almost entirely reading-based.

I walked out thinking the reading passages were easy, so it is scary since my original feeling about the reading section only produced a lower-than-expected 77th percentile score.

Has anyone else here taken both the PCAT and MCAT? Do you think my chances of doing well on the MCAT (30+) are low because of my low reading score on the PCAT?

Thanks so much for reading this. I appreciate it

Ryan

PS: The passages in the PCAT for almost all science-based, but they are not as technical. It is more of presenting findings in areas of healthcare research than about all the technical details.

How you do on the PCAT will give you absolutely no clues how you'll do on the MCAT. Just like SAT/ACT/GRE scores will have no predictive abilities.

Anecdotally, my friend who wrote the PCAT and did very well on it told me it's really easy compared to the MCAT...but I that's his opinion and I can't say because I haven't written the PCAT.

 

[DiverDoc]

I would do horrible on the PCAT.... A lot of math, which is bad news for me

 

[Bill_252001]

I took MCAT performed average and then took PCAT and got 93% composite. I guess studying for PCAT won't predict your MCAT performance but vice-versa is true. If you studied for MCAT, PCAT seems like a breeze on a hot afternoon.

 

[killinsound]

The biggest difference between the PCAT and the MCAT... the MCAT is passage based.