Predictors of success and other things.

[Jlance]

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For those of you who have experienced the rigors of med school academics, how do you think doing well in all your science classes (ie straight A's in Gen Physics and Gen Chem) impacted your success or lack of success in class? Did everyone or most everyone who did extremely well in these classes do extremely well in med school? How accurate of a predictor for academic success is a good MCAT score (8-10)? Any differences between those who got 8 and 9 vs. those who got 10's? Or high undergrad GPAs (>3.6) vs lower (<3.3)?
Thanks for taking the time.

 

[turtleboard]

If anything's a predictor of success in med school, it's probably more the MCAT than performance in premed classes during college.

The quality and rigor of a premed program is highly variable, and no two premeds have similar experiences. But the MCAT is the best attempt we currently have in standardizing this and comparing students from different quality programs.


Tim of New York City.

 

[DrSRBS]

An cranky old professor emeritus I got matched up with for my Wayne State interview wanted my SAT scores to predict how well I would fare in medical school. I was more than a little outraged that he then refused to accept my GRE scores (which were much much better). He seemed to judge me by my SAT scores and wouldn't budge on it. Maybe it was an attempt to make me feel ill at ease.

 

[MikeS 78]

ya I've heard that the MCAT has a pretty rock tight correlation to performance on the boards

 

[JoeDoc]

Tough to say. I got a 28 on the MCAT and just finished my second year at osteopathic school with a 91.33% cum GPA (weighted=3.71). Yet I know people who scored lower on the MCAT than I did but had a much higher class average.

 

[fiatslug]

I'd be curious to know if anyone's heard of a correlation between MCAT scores and USMLE scores, or gpa and USMLE scores.

 

[rufus]

Well, I don't know what studies there have been to substantiate this, but both the med schools where I work and where I'll attend this fall say that MCAT performance correlates very well with that on USMLE Step I. Don't know about GPA correlations.

 

[nicolette]

Hey rufus, or anybody else out there have any specific data correlating mcats with usmle performance? I was told by someone that there is very little correlation between the two tests because among other factors, the usmles are much more content based (?)

Any thoughts?

 

[Test Boy]

The MCAT is probably the best single objective predictor of USMLE scores but the correlation is still not that good. Med school grades probably correlates better with undergrad GPA. However, the correlation increases significantly if undergrad GPA and MCAT scores are combined.

 

[Lisa Liu]

GPAs differ from college to college while everyone takes a standardized MCAT. I think the MCAT can be a way of accurately predicting a person's success in med. school. However, medical schools are no longer filtering applicants based solely on high GPAs or MCATs. My best friend, Amy, was rejected from UCSF with a perfect MCAT scores. Her VR score was so high that they did not even give her a numeric value. In addition, she had a 3.8 GPA at Brown University. That same year, UCSF accepted two people with MCATs below the national average.
The admissions committee will never grant admissions to someone who they know will fail in med. school. As long as you make a certain level on the MCAT and GPA, it's all your dedication to the field that matters.

 

[raindodger]

Thanks for posting that Lisa!

Someone in another thread doubted me when i stated that a small minority of people with high mcats and high gpas get rejections from certain medical schools. I believe the exact words that the person used were: "yeah right".


btw, are you in any way related to Lucy Liu?

(although the possibility is remote, it may be true.)

raindodger

 

[rufus]

nicolette, I should clarify that particualr individuals at these schools told me that the MCAT, particularly the verbal section, is a barometer for expected performance on the USMLE. Why? I don't know, and I'm not sure they do either. I'll try to locate some of the studies done in recent years. For all I know, this information stems from the old MCAT and USMLE formats. Also, these individuals are very old-school and believe that numbers make the student, so I do take their info with a good-sized grain of salt.