Purpose of Voiding?

[AshPreMed]

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Why void if med schools look at your latest score? Shouldn't we just accept a score (if we expect it to be >25) and then retake it?

How many schools will hold you back for an old low mcat score?

Thanks

 

[roddick597]

They don't just look at most recent score, they look at all of your scores, no matter how many times you took the exam. This is what a friend of mine told me who is actually part of the admissions committee at a US allopathic medical school.

 

[AshPreMed]

An adcom at one university told me they look at the highest sub sections of all MCAT exams I took. How can I find out what most adcoms are like? I'm concerned about them averaging MCAT.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

This is also a question I'm curious about as I know plenty of people on here get a low score their first time and a good one their second and accepted.

 

[Lucky Louie]

An adcom at one university told me they look at the highest sub sections of all MCAT exams I took. How can I find out what most adcoms are like? I'm concerned about them averaging MCAT.

This is very school-specific. You'll only know that by calling each school directly, but they may not tell you. I heard they average the scores based on ALL the tests, but that's really heresay.

 

[gettheleadout]

Some schools publicly state that they take the average of all valid (<3 years old) MCAT scores. I can think of two off the top of my head that I know for sure do.

Other schools will only officially consider your latest score, but yes, I believe they'll still see your past scores. Check school websites for information about how each treats multiple MCAT scores.

Voiding is meant for when you violently vomit during your exam and cannot continue, or your computer experiences severe malfunctions preventing you from finishing a section or losing substantial time, or for when you just don't get anywhere near done. It's not meant to be a way for you to back out because you didn't feel you knew enough answers; there's simply no way to know how you did unless you just straight up guessed on a LOT of questions (and event then, you don't know, but it's more likely you missed most than got most correct) or were 100% sure of nearly all your answers.

 

[gtbROX]

Schools have different policies. A lot of times people don't know what schools they will be applying to so they just void in case if their ideal school looks at all the mcat scores or the average of all of them. There are, however, a lot of students that just don't bother checking the mcat policies of the school that they are applying to, and may end up applying to a bunch of schools that only look at the latest mcat and wasted money voiding.

 

[red doctober]

To answer the original question,if you absolutely need to void, it's a smart choice because not every medical school has a policy of taking the most recent, highest composite, or combination of highest subsections. Some schools take into consideration all scores within a certain time-range (usually 3 years). Also, even though a school's policy may be to take the highest score to combine the best subsections, they still see every score that is reported by AMCAS. Many schools have a "point" system such as GPA*10+MCAT to rank applicants, which is fairly objective. However if an applicant has an MCAT history of say 20, 20, 30 and an adcom can see that, it may stir up some negative feelings about the applicant even if not consciously done. That said, voiding should only be used in extenuating circumstances because people usually do better than they felt they did. Good reasons to void: nervous breakdown, sick, troubles with the testing center, not finishing many passages, etc.