School Policies on New vs Old MCAT

[Wasted Energy]

This information may have already been posted elsewhere, but I just became aware of it and it gave me some important answers.

https://www.aamc.org/students/download/398586/data/mcatexampolicy.pdf

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[nugang]

when a school says they prefer the 2015 MCAT, does that mean the old exam will hurt your admission chances?

 

[Wasted Energy]

when a school says they prefer the 2015 MCAT, does that mean the old exam will hurt your admission chances?

It's my opinion that if they were to accept old MCAT scores at all, even if the 2015 MCAT was preferred, that they would not discriminate against anyone submitting pre 2015 scores.

I would imagine that they would compare the two tests by means of percentiles anyway.

 

[leathersofa]

Wouldn't they discriminate though because they "prefer" the new mcat? accepting both is different from preferring the new one. i think they would compare percentiles for both tests when they accept both. what do you guys think?

 

[Wasted Energy]

Wouldn't they discriminate though because they "prefer" the new mcat? accepting both is different from preferring the new one. i think they would compare percentiles for both tests when they accept both. what do you guys think?

I don't think preferring the new MCAT equates to discriminating against the old MCAT. As in, I don't think an applicant that submitted old MCAT scores would be docked "admission points" simply because of the test date.

I'm also curious to see if there will be some sort of "familiarity bias" (if that's a thing) towards the old MCAT scores. For example, an adcom that has sat on an admissions committee for several years knows exactly how to interpret a 36 pre-2015 MCAT score, but is a little uneasy making a judgment call on an applicant with it's 2015 MCAT equivalent score.