Push by adcoms for lower MCAT scores?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
Members do not see this ad.
mwsapphire said:
What about correlations between the ACT/SAT and MCAT by subsection?
I remember my ACT composite was a dismal, but my Math was above the 95th percentile and my Science was lower 90's. But it was my terrible english score that was dragging the whole thing down.
So somebody like me, even if I actually prepare for the MCAT, can have an awesome Physics and Chem/Bio score , but I'm damned to a low CARS and Psych/Soci?
EDIT: As for your last post, sorry, I don't have the old/new percentiles straight in my head.
Double Edit: I'm not trying to be aggressive , I'm legit curious.
Click to expand...

TBH, I think that the CARS section is one of the hardest to improve on because it often comes to down to, "well, I feel like this answer is right...". I did well on the CARS section and I often felt like I was either outright guessing, or guessing between two answer choices. Anecdotally, reading comprehension has always been the best section for me on standardized tests and I did not do much preparation for CARS. However, I do think that you can learn how to do CARS – it will just take a longer period of time than the other sections. If you're a sophomore, you could start now by simply reading more novels. Psych/Soc is much more doable because as the section stands right now, it heavily revolves around memorization of vocabulary terms and applying them to questions. It's probably the easiest section to increase your score in.

P.S. I don't think you're damned to anything! I got a B- in advanced math and something equally bad in physics in high school and ended up doing much better in college. I don't think my intelligence changed, but I did put in more effort and changed my mindset. Even if CARS turns out to be your worst section, you can still have a great composite score. I think someone on /r/MCAT ended up with a 510 with a breakdown of 132/126/126/126 😱
 
Med Ed said:
Tell that to the LCME.
Click to expand...
I'm thoroughly impressed with the Department Chair's paper published in Academic Medicine titled, What Students Value: Learning Outcomes in a Required Third-year Ambulatory Primary Care Clerkship. If you have the time to Google Scholar it, I suggest that you jump straight to the discussion section. It is not necessary to read through the purpose, method, or results and will likely take you less time than it took for you to find the article. It is a reflection of the true values that come from emphasizing holistic merit. A doctor with an MD and an MBA with a publication on education, how diversely fascinating. Shoe-in candidate. Reading her actual work? Who has time for that.
 
Remember, the goal of admissions is to find people who will make good doctors, not merely good students.


Jalby said:
Not compared to the MCAT. The MCAT is standard for all people. At UCLA you could get a MUCH high GPA but taking easier courses and majors than other people. And there are other schools that give more A's than others. So GPA really is only usefull in comparing students with similar majors and similar schools or as a broad thing.

If I was an adcom for a 100 person school that required 250 acceptances to fill, I would rank everybody by MCAT and work my way down to applicant 500. Anybody below 500 is automatically rejected. First 150 applicants without red flags gets accepted. Any impressive things from 151 to 500 gets accepted. Then filter it out from there.
Click to expand...
 
ohioguy said:
Further, this more "holistic review" is probably brought to you by the same people who are pushing TBL across the country. Sure sounds great, looks nice in the media, cheered by administrations... but likely a bunch of nonsense in the long run.
Click to expand...

Out of curiosity, could you please elaborate on why TBL is likely not a good teaching/learning strategy?
 
Goro said:
Remember, the goal of admissions is to find people who will make good doctors, not merely good students.
Click to expand...
This is a good point. However, how does an admissions committee actually know they are finding someone who is a good doctor? It does not seem like the criteria for a good doctor (outside of being a dedicated student and passionate) are well defined. This can certainly be seen by the parity associated with medical school admissions nowadays-- one student might get rejected from one school and accepted to another while his friend might see the exact opposite results (and yes, this is THE most common occurrence I have found anecdotally). So in the end isn't going by MCAT/GPA really the most tangible assessment a committee can make?
 
Admissions is a total crapshoot. Maybe they should just give adcoms a badge and a taser at interviews. Do you feel lucky, punk? Go ahead, make my day!
 
To the original post: Must have been a bit of a blow to the current MS3s and MS4s. "We love you guys, but ya'll weren't interesting enough. We need to get some better personalities up in here."
 
Goro said:
Remember, the goal of admissions is to find people who will make good doctors, not merely good students.
Click to expand...

Don't good students also make good doctors??? Is there some deciding line between the two?

I'm saying the basis of being a good doctor is how smart you are and then everything else modifies it from there. And for the purposes of admission, MCAT is the best test to measure how someone will do in medical school and as a doctor intelligence wise.
 
AnatomyGrey12 said:
Did I ever say that? No, I am one of the leaders for looking at actual data, you just don't like that I question your opinion or statements. Your arguments are very inconsistent and you constantly try to change the mark when someone questions your flawed logic.
Click to expand...
You demand evidence, and if the evidence is not to your liking, you believe the opposite is true. Specifically you keep believing that the ability to perform well on one standardized test is not in any way related to the ability to perform good on a similar standardized test down the road. That belief is just ignorant.
 
Jalby said:
You demand evidence, and if the evidence is not to your liking, you believe the opposite is true. Specifically you keep believing that the ability to perform well on one standardized test is not in any way related to the ability to perform good on a similar standardized test down the road. That belief is just ignorant.
Click to expand...

No, see the issue is that I take the evidence that exists and formulate opinions based on that. YOU are the one who doesn't care what the evidence says. The specific evidence provided in this thread shows there is little to no correlation between MCAT scores and clinical abilities. Little to none. Let that sink in. There is a moderate (i.e. Just okay) correlation between MCAT score and Step 1 score. You keep saying "you believe" when all I believe is what the data says, that there is a moderate correlation to step 1 and a statistically insignificant correlation to clinical skills. I have never said someone with a 26 MCAT will magically score 250 on step 1, but that there is only a moderate correlation. YOU are the one who believes the opposite contrary to the evidence provided.

Now I'll wait patiently until you can show me evidence that someone who scored a 33 will have a harder time in med school than someone with a 36, until them excuse me if I'm skeptical. Oh and on top of that I'm still waiting for evidence that two docs in the same situation will have different levels of pay simply because one went to a T5 and the other to a T25.
 
I can see you've never taught medical students. And the answer is no.

Jalby said:
Don't good students also make good doctors??? Is there some deciding line between the two?

I'm saying the basis of being a good doctor is how smart you are and then everything else modifies it from there. And for the purposes of admission, MCAT is the best test to measure how someone will do in medical school and as a doctor intelligence wise.
Click to expand...
 
Goro said:
I can see you've never taught medical students. And the answer is no.
Click to expand...
I was offered a job to do that. I choose the money. And I completely disagree. The people throughout my life who were the best medical students became the best doctors. And people stereotype every doctor as a family medicine doctor who sits and talks to the patients for 20 minutes, asks about the family, etc, etc, etc.. That is not what is required for the vast majority of doctors out there.
 
AnatomyGrey12 said:
Now I'll wait patiently until you can show me evidence that someone who scored a 33 will have a harder time in med school than someone with a 36, until them excuse me if I'm skeptical.
Click to expand...

See..... You require evidence that someone who scores 97 percentile on a test is more likely to do better than someone who scores 91 percentile. The vast majority of people who get a 97 percentile on a test is smarter than the vast majority of people who get a 91 percentile. It shouldn't take evidence to prove that those smarter people will always score better than the less smart people. It is just ignorant to believe otherwise. We are talking about one standard from the mean versus two.

I believe that you didn't score that great on the MCAT. And you are holding onto this belief that it isn't related to how smart you are compared to other people who also took the MCAT.
 
Jalby said:
I believe that you didn't score that great on the MCAT. And you are holding onto this belief that it isn't related to how smart you are compared to other people who also took the MCAT.
Click to expand...
No need to be so harsh. It's entirely possible that MCAT is not a good predictor of intelligence. Especially if the student only takes the real exam once. There are many factors that go into test day that do not play into intelligence (ability to thrive under pressure, how well one slept the night before, external events in one's life, etc.). I think in general, we can say those who do better on the MCAT are smarter, but we can not apply this to the individual, only the population as a whole.
 
LePepe said:
At that point, why not just have a bachelors of medicine degree like they have in the UK?

I actually think going straight to med school from high school makes more sense, but I know some would disagree.
Click to expand...

I think the concept is sweet. My friend in a European med school says they do the same thing in Poland. Their high school curriculum is based on a "career track" so people interested in science will take bio and anamtony etc and then their version of the SAT places them straight into a 6 year medical school. Foreign students after college can enter English 4 year MD programs which is also cool if you're into that.



Although they have a totally different culture with respect to higher education, as in I think they respect any blue collar or trade school degree, whereas I think here in the US there's more pressure to get a 4 year college degree, regardless of what you want to do with it.
Does anyone know how well programs in the US do in preparing kids in those 'high school straight to med school' transitions?
 
sat0ri said:
Also, from
Cureus. 2016 Sep; 8(9): e769.
Published online 2016 Sep 7. doi: 10.7759/cureus.769
PMCID: PMC5059149
A Predictive Model for USMLE Step 1 Scores
A Predictive Model for USMLE Step 1 Scores



"A surrogate measurement for prior scientific knowledge may be performance on the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), particularly on the biological and physical sciences sections. In fact, Julian performed a prospective study of two cohorts of medical school classes to examine the use of undergraduate grade point average (GPA) and MCAT to predict performance in medical school and beyond. He found that the contribution of undergraduate GPA to performance on Step 1 was overtaken by performance on the MCAT, and thus MCAT scores could be used as a surrogate measure of undergraduate performance. He found that there was an overall pattern of better academic performance associated with higher MCAT scores, in all sections of the exam [5]. Further, Veloski, et al. performed a retrospective study on 6,239 students entering medical school over 30 years and correlated MCAT scores, undergraduate GPA, age, and sex to performance on the Step 1 examination. These authors found that for each point increase in the MCAT science score, there was a 4.26-point increase in the Step 1 score [6]. These findings were consistent with other studies, which have demonstrated a correlation of MCAT scores to Step 1 scores [7-8]."



5. Validity of the Medical College Admission Test for predicting medical school performance. Julian ER. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16186610. Acad Med. 2005;80:910–917. [PubMed]
6. Prediction of students' performances on licensing examinations using age, race, sex, undergraduate GPAs, and MCAT scores. Veloski JJ, Callahan CA, Xu G, Hojat M, Nash DB. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11031165. Acad Med. 2000;75:28–30. [PubMed]
7. Does the MCAT predict medical school and PGY-1 performance? Saguil A, Dong T, Gingerich RJ, et al. Mil Med. 2015;180:4–11. [PubMed]
8. Impact of preadmission variables on USMLE step 1 and step 1 performance. Kleshinksi J, Khuder SA, Shapiro JI, Gold JP. Adv Health Sci Educ Theory Pract. 2009;14:69–78. [PubMed]
Click to expand...

Hold on, this study found out there was no correlation between MCAT scores and Step 1....

"The Step 1 Scores significantly correlated with the CBSE taken immediately preceding the dedicated study period (r=0.711, P=<0.001), UWorld Question Bank (UWorld) percentage correct (r = 0.622, P<0.001), straight As during first-year (r=0.356, P=0.001), and financial need (r=0.318, P=0.01). The scores were not correlated with age, gender, Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT), prior medical training, number of days studied, or the students’ perception of appropriate time studied. "
 
Jalby said:
I believe that you didn't score that great on the MCAT. And you are holding onto this belief that it isn't related to how smart you are compared to other people who also took the MCAT.
Click to expand...

And I believe you didn't score that great on the MCAT or else you would have gotten into Georgetown.
 
Jalby said:
I believe that you didn't score that great on the MCAT. And you are holding onto this belief that it isn't related to how smart you are compared to other people who also took the MCAT.
Click to expand...

Lol no. I did very well on the MCAT. Probably better than you did in your day honestly. Nice job though, not liking the fact your argument sucks and has no basis in the actual evidence that exists and so now attacking me personally. The idea that I will have an easier time in med school simply because of a few percentile points on the MCAT is laughable. I have friends who are undoubtedly smarter than me and I scored higher than they did.

Jalby said:
You require evidence that someone who scores 97 percentile on a test is more likely to do better than someone who scores 91 percentile.
Click to expand...

Yes. Because at such high percentiles someone's ability to be then do well in medical school is probably rather equal and more dependent on other factors. I say probably because there is no evidence, unlike you who lives in absolutes with absolutely no evidence for your position.

Jalby said:
It shouldn't take evidence to prove that those smarter people will always score better than the less smart people
Click to expand...

Nice straw man, that's not what we are talking about. And what is it with you and absolutes? Always? Right.... then how about those DO students who get 250+ every year or those from top schools that go from 36+ MCATs to 210s or 220s? Maybe these people just happened to grow some new neurons that grew their intelligence or just happened to lose a few.

Jalby said:
We are talking about one standard from the mean versus two.
Click to expand...

It's more like 1.5:2
 
this threads going downhill. close down b4 toxic :barf:
 
freak7 said:
Yeah I think at this point the main combatants are arguing past each other
Click to expand...
I think the main argument was great in the first page or two.... holistic approach vs. a more stats centered approach in evaluating apps. certainly an interesting topic for discussion. we should have known that it would descend to this drivel // member-measuring-contest. it is SDN after all.
 
ace_inhibitor111 said:
Hold on, this study found out there was no correlation between MCAT scores and Step 1....

"The Step 1 Scores significantly correlated with the CBSE taken immediately preceding the dedicated study period (r=0.711, P=<0.001), UWorld Question Bank (UWorld) percentage correct (r = 0.622, P<0.001), straight As during first-year (r=0.356, P=0.001), and financial need (r=0.318, P=0.01). The scores were not correlated with age, gender, Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT), prior medical training, number of days studied, or the students’ perception of appropriate time studied. "
Click to expand...


Correct. In case you haven't looked into this already, here's what they say about it it in the paper (below). There seems to be good agreement in the literature otherwise, that there is a correlation between MCAT and Step Scores.

from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5059149/ said:
First, the predictive model was developed from the experiences of one medical school and our overall sample size was small with a poor survey response rate. This may explain why other studies have been able to correlate MCAT scores to Step 1 scores while ours did not. This medical school's curriculum may be able to overcome some of the deficiencies seen in MCAT scoring and/or the students are provided with more test preparation skills and thus are able to overcome the lack of test-taking ability seen in their prior MCAT scores. In addition, there was a small difference in the mean Step 1 score of the class versus our sample (238.5 vs 240). It is unclear if this affected the overall results of our study."
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
mwsapphire said:
How do you explain somebody taking the MCAT cold, scoring like, a 501, then studying and scoring a 516?
What was the reason there?
:smack:
Click to expand...

I think for this you have to approach it as whatever score an applicant presents can be assumed to be the best indicator of their ability. If they feel they can perform better then the option to retake is available.
 
Horse Apiece said:
I think for this you have to approach it as whatever score an applicant presents can be assumed to be the best indicator of their ability. If they feel they can perform better then the option to retake is available.
Click to expand...
Fair enough.
 
mwsapphire said:
How do you explain somebody taking the MCAT cold, scoring like, a 501, then studying and scoring a 516?
What was the reason there?
:smack:
Click to expand...

Jalby said:
Please stop replying to my posts. It literally gives me headaches. I try to be nice and gentle with you, but I'll be honest, that wont last long. See bolded part of your statement.
Click to expand...

Zomg I died. Laughing so damn hard.

ace_inhibitor111 said:
Hold on, this study found out there was no correlation between MCAT scores and Step 1....

"The Step 1 Scores significantly correlated with the CBSE taken immediately preceding the dedicated study period (r=0.711, P=<0.001), UWorld Question Bank (UWorld) percentage correct (r = 0.622, P<0.001), straight As during first-year (r=0.356, P=0.001), and financial need (r=0.318, P=0.01). The scores were not correlated with age, gender, Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT), prior medical training, number of days studied, or the students’ perception of appropriate time studied. "
Click to expand...

Wait, so students with more financial need tended to do better? Interesting...
 
Actually nevermind, US News has updated with the MCAT2015 scores, and Yale did indeed stay 95th+ percentile.

Talking the talk without walking the walk, seems to me
 
efle said:
Actually nevermind, US News has updated with the MCAT2015 scores, and Yale did indeed stay 95th+ percentile.

Talking the talk without walking the walk, seems to me
Click to expand...
and?
 
jcorpsmanMD said:
and?
Click to expand...
I think he's trying to say their definition of doing well is the top ten percent ( earlier somebody said doing well as defined by the AAMC is different than what a top school defines).
 
jcorpsmanMD said:
and?
Click to expand...
and this supports my statement above that "doing well" means different things to AAMC vs the most selective med schools. No matter how many lecture slides about the middle of the distribution you find on Yale servers, they will continue to draw primarily from the very top end of the curve, because they are interested in academic ability far beyond what's required for graduating med school.
 
efle said:
and this supports my statement above that "doing well" means different things to AAMC vs the most selective med schools. No matter how many lecture slides about the middle of the distribution you find on Yale servers, they will continue to draw primarily from the very top end of the curve, because they are interested in academic ability far beyond what's required for graduating med school.
Click to expand...
I thought this was obvious? It is Yale after all, no?
 
jcorpsmanMD said:
I thought this was obvious? It is Yale after all, no?
Click to expand...
I think you're missing the point. The figure that @LizzyM posted from Yale was claiming that the "top" of the curve (mean) was most likely to succeed in med school. If this were truly their opinion, then they should be recruiting from that pool of applicants and not the top 5% as they are doing.
 
jcorpsmanMD said:
I thought this was obvious? It is Yale after all, no?
Click to expand...
I don't think it's obvious to everyone. For example check the applicant ranges in the MSAR, where thousands upon thousands of applications with scores in the ~500 area were tossed at Yale-caliber schools. Like legit 50% of apps to most top schools last cycle were not even at the 10th percentile mark for their MCAT range.
 
freak7 said:
I think you're missing the point. The figure that @LizzyM posted from Yale was claiming that the "top" of the curve (mean) was most likely to succeed in med school. If this were truly their opinion, then they should be recruiting from that pool of applicants and not the top 5% as they are doing.
Click to expand...
It also prompted me to respond because it was LizzyM saying it, who seems to support the AAMC view of MCAT scores but is at a top private institution, where admissions offices seem to view it differently.
 
freak7 said:
I think you're missing the point. The figure that @LizzyM posted from Yale was claiming that the "top" of the curve (mean) was most likely to succeed in med school. If this were truly their opinion, then they should be recruiting from that pool of applicants and not the top 5% as they are doing.
Click to expand...

Read more carefully! Not most likely to succeed, as in more likely than others, but this is the AAMC positing that those at the top of the curve are likely to do well in medical school.

Schools are trying to encourage students to apply if they are a good fit with the mission, etc, despite low MCATs. A major concern is that low SES and URM tend to score, on average, lower than others on the MCAT and yet, history has shown that these individuals, on average, are able to successfully pass the boards and graduate from medical school (that could be considered a measure of "doing well").
 
efle said:
Actually nevermind, US News has updated with the MCAT2015 scores, and Yale did indeed stay 95th+ percentile.

Talking the talk without walking the walk, seems to me
Click to expand...

Did we read the same factoid from yale?

They didn't say that the folks at the top of the curve do better than those at the pointy end. They simply said that they do just fine. i.e. that threshold is a good one for success in medical school if you're defining it in a pass/fail setting (class and step). That's how I interpreted it. I don't understand how you'd come to the conclusion that this means that they should pick heavily from that chunk of applicants... It's the floor for 'success' not the ceiling.

Edit: Dammit. Beaten to ze punch by the evil queen of numbers. Drats. Foiled again. You'll never get away with it you meddling kids!
 
LizzyM said:
Read more carefully! Not most likely to succeed, as in more likely than others, but this is the AAMC positing that those at the top of the curve are likely to do well in medical school.

Schools are trying to encourage students to apply if they are a good fit with the mission, etc, despite low MCATs. A major concern is that low SES and URM tend to score, on average, lower than others on the MCAT and yet, history has shown that these individuals, on average, are able to successfully pass the boards and graduate from medical school (that could be considered a measure of "doing well").
Click to expand...
Oh my bad. Yeah, I was paraphrasing but I wasn't being cautious enough.
 
LizzyM said:
Read more carefully! Not most likely to succeed, as in more likely than others, but this is the AAMC positing that those at the top of the curve are likely to do well in medical school.

Schools are trying to encourage students to apply if they are a good fit with the mission, etc, despite low MCATs. A major concern is that low SES and URM tend to score, on average, lower than others on the MCAT and yet, history has shown that these individuals, on average, are able to successfully pass the boards and graduate from medical school (that could be considered a measure of "doing well").
Click to expand...
ridethecliche said:
Did we read the same factoid from yale?

They didn't say that the folks at the top of the curve do better than those at the pointy end. They simply said that they do just fine. i.e. that threshold is a good one for success in medical school if you're defining it in a pass/fail setting (class and step). That's how I interpreted it. I don't understand how you'd come to the conclusion that this means that they should pick heavily from that chunk of applicants... It's the floor for 'success' not the ceiling.

Edit: Dammit. Beaten to ze punch by the evil queen of numbers. Drats. Foiled again. You'll never get away with it you meddling kids!
Click to expand...
Edit: Wasn't me getting quoted.

Wait those weren't even my posts being quoted. Now I'm confused why I got an alert.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

P
"Lower" MCAT, but interview invite at a stat-loving school?
Replies
10
Views
1K
Hollow Knight
Hollow Knight
H
do ADCOMS check mcat score breakdown?l
Replies
7
Views
1K
gyngyn
gyngyn
T
App Review by someone with adcom experience
Replies
0
Views
560
terramar
T
C
Would you recommend for lower income pre-meds to still apply?
Replies
12
Views
2K
engenir
E
U
Absolutely crushed by my MCAT retake. URM 3.5 cGPA, 3.4sGPA, 497 MCAT
Replies
17
Views
2K
Mr.Smile12
Mr.Smile12
Top