Quick MSAR question

[Tropicana100]

For each school, is the MCAT average of accepted applicants calculated using each applicants' highest MCAT score, or all of their scores? Thanks.

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[Crimson doc]

I'm confused, in my MSAR book, it gives the average of each section score, followed by the range of scores they accepted. I never saw a single number that represented a total score. But, I have seen other sites with average MCAT 11.4, or something like that. I think that that is the average of all sections for a given student (it probably is just their average composite score divided by three), but I could be completely lying, I really don't know. That's just my guess.

 

[Crimson doc]

re-read your original question, and I am way off base here. Sorry for the idiot reply, I'll go back to my hole now...

 

[st0w]

Interesting question, and I'm not sure how they calculate the numbers for matriculants with more than one MCAT. But one thing you should note is, the MCAT scores provided in the MSAR are median scores, not means. In order to make the school look more selective, I would suppose that they take the highest score in each section for each student when calculating the sectional medians.

But I have no concrete evidence to base that on.

 

[Tropicana100]

Interesting question, and I'm not sure how they calculate the numbers for matriculants with more than one MCAT. But one thing you should note is, the MCAT scores provided in the MSAR are median scores, not means. In order to make the school look more selective, I would suppose that they take the highest score in each section for each student when calculating the sectional medians.

But I have no concrete evidence to base that on.

i think what you mentioned sounds plausible. it would be difficult for them to calculate a person's mean for each section and then use that number in the calculation of the median for the school. they probably just take your best score for each section like you said. if this is the case, then the MSAR statistic would make schools look more competitive than if they used median total MCAT.

 

[neulite]

As previously mentioned, the MCAT scores in the MSAR are median scores (the middle score if all of the scores were lined up in increasing order). This is different than the "average" or mean (x bar), which is adding the scores up and dividing by n.

From what I understand in reading the MSAR is that the scores in the circle represent the median for each subsection. The highlighted rectangular areas (hard to tell because it's in black and white) are the RANGE of scores accepted in each subsection. For example, the lowest shaded area for a particular school might be 6 for PS, this is the lowest MCAT score accepted by that school on that section. You can apply this to other sections and the highest score they accepted. Note that a number of schools accepted scores as low as 5 or even 4; no doubt the student's other scores were exceptionally high and/or they were a state resident.