so if 70% of people who take the mcat get under 30, what happens to them?

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mrh125

mrh125

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so if 70% of people who take the mcat get under 30, (i think 30 is higher than 70% ever get, correct me if im wrong) what happens to them? do they get into any med schools (excluding d.o. and Caribbean md schools)? If 70% of people are getting below the usual cut off med schools have for mcat scores, does that mean most of them arent getting into any medical schools? because that's just crazy. im excluding D.o schools and caribbean schools (and no im not implying anything or grouping them together, in any way), but this just seems ridiculous. I'd be so pissed if I had everything except the mcat score and get deferred from every md school because of that. This reminds me so much of the collegeboard sat/sat 2 stuff. so much emphasis is placed on standardized tests it's unbelievable.

If 70% of people who take a test aren't going anywhere that seems pretty crazy.
 
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Welcome to the world of med school admissions.

Some get into state schools with lower MCAT averages, others retake and get a higher score, but most have to find another career (NP, PA, PhD, etc…)
 
There are people who get into medical school with a sub-30 MCAT. Conversely, I also know people who have amazing MCAT scores who did not get in anywhere when they applied the first time.
 
DO schools and carrib. Why would you not count DO schools?
 
EMDO2018 said:
DO schools and carrib. Why would you not count DO schools?
Click to expand...

because i'm just talking about MD schools and that's my concern. I know that you can get in with a 27-29 at a lot of DO schools.
 
<30 does not necessarily disqualify people from acceptance. That's not like the minimum.

This is kind of dumb. The MCAT isn't the only factor. As far as I know, the reason most people end up "going nowhere" is because they don't keep trying and they decide to do something else.
 
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BrainsIsCool said:
<30 does not necessarily disqualify people from acceptance. That's not like the minimum.
Click to expand...

from what I heard a lot of med schools dont take applications as seriously if the student gets less then a 30 and if you get a 30 or higher you have a significantly better chance of getting into a med school. correct me if im wrong, there's also some stats on it i think.
 
mrh125 said:
from what I heard a lot of med schools dont take applications as seriously if the student gets less then a 30 and if you get a 30 or higher you have a significantly better chance of getting into a med school. correct me if im wrong, there's also some stats on it i think.
Click to expand...

The MCAT is just one component of the overall application. It's very important, yes, but the application is more than that. Plenty of people with sub 30 scores but great EC's and GPAs get in (granted they apply to the right schools). And many people with 32's but overall very bland applications getting rejections/waitlists.
 
DO schools and podiatry schools (I think) also use MCAT
 
They go
upload_2014-1-17_22-50-40.png
 
mrh125 said:
so much emphasis is placed on standardized tests it's unbelievable.
Click to expand...

The MCAT is only the beginning of the slew of standardized tests you will have to take over your entire career as a physician. Even more emphasis is placed on Step 1 for residencies than is placed on the MCAT for med school admissions. If you pass Step 1, you're stuck with whatever score you get, no retakes. So if your dream is derm and you get a 210, bye bye dream!
 
If we don't differentiate academic ability with a test, how do you suggest we do it?

Wait, just had an idea. Think hunger games, but where your LizzyM score determines what you start with...who's down??
 
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I've been told it depends on your breakdown, but my balanced 30 was 78th percentile. This is a pretty significant number, but how many people take once and get sub-30 then retake for a 30+? Have you ever looked at the MSAR? There are a lot of state schools with sub-30 MCAT scores. Plus a lot of schools have 31-33 MCAT averages, which means they must take some <30 scores when you look at the standard deviations.
 
Only about 40% of applicants get accepted to medical school in a given application cycle.
Perhaps a substantive amount of those people have below 30 MCAT.
 
Mornhavon said:
Average Matriculant MCAT (2013) : 31.3 (SD= 4.0)

For all test takers in 2013, a 31 is at the 83.0 % percentile rank.
A 27 (within the +/- 4.0 SD for matriculants) is at the 60.6 % percentile rank.

Over the past 10 years (2003-2013) the average matriculant MCAT has increased by 1.7 points (29.6-31.3).
Therefore, using the MCAT 2013 results, the average matriculant 10 years ago was around the ~75th percentile (top 3/4ths of all people taking the MCAT), and the present average matriculant is slightly higher than 83% (top 6/7ths of all people taking the MCAT).

The more you know...

Sources: aamc.org
Click to expand...

Interesting, but you're basing the 75th percentile off 2013 numbers. In 2003, I the percentile for a 29 could be high enough to at least partially account for the differences. I'm not so sure it's actually getting harder to get into medical school, a possible confound is that it could be getting easier to prep for tests like the MCAT (with companies like kaplan, PR, etc.).
 
Some have a balanced application, apply to med school, and become practicing physicians. 😀

I got an MCAT score below 30, but had a decent GPA and applied broadly. The MCAT is just one part of your application.
 
mrh125 said:
so if 70% of people who take the mcat get under 30, (i think 30 is higher than 70% ever get, correct me if im wrong) what happens to them? do they get into any med schools (excluding d.o. and Caribbean md schools)? If 70% of people are getting below the usual cut off med schools have for mcat scores, does that mean most of them arent getting into any medical schools? because that's just crazy. im excluding D.o schools and caribbean schools (and no im not implying anything or grouping them together, in any way), but this just seems ridiculous. I'd be so pissed if I had everything except the mcat score and get deferred from every md school because of that. This reminds me so much of the collegeboard sat/sat 2 stuff. so much emphasis is placed on standardized tests it's unbelievable.

If 70% of people who take a test aren't going anywhere that seems pretty crazy.
Click to expand...
Getting over 30 still doesn't guarantee an acceptance. 70% of mcat takers not going anywhere doesn't seem crazy to me, but the fact that close to 60% of applicants not going anywhere really scares me. :bag:
 
according to Jordan and Jon from ExamKracker Audio Osmosis, people who score low on the MCAT and can't get into medical school participate in random endocrine studies to examine feedback loops. True story.
 
sjv said:
They become pharmacists and dentists.
Click to expand...

The DAT sounds much harder than the MCAT for someone like me. That 3-D testing stuff on the DAT? Nooooooo, thank you. The DAT is not a trivial exam at all.
 
In my undergrad, most of those who didn't get in went into other health related professions (PA, Technicians, etc.). Some applied directly to DO and Caribbean programs. The rest went on to explore careers unrelated to the health industry.

The numbers seems daunting, but the silver lining is that the bottleneck to becoming a physician is the medical school application. Once you're in, the question is no longer if you'll be a MD, but what kind.
 
Of the students accepted to MD schools from 2010 to 2012, 21,001 of 60,763, or 34.6%, of students had a 29 or lower on the MCAT. Students with a 29 or lower on the MCAT comprised 70,743 apps out of 130,929 total, or 54.03% of all applications during this period. Applicants with a 29 or lower had a 29.7% acceptance rate overall, while applicants with a 30 or higher had a 66.1% chance of acceptance. Basically, many of them do get accepted, but many more do not, and your chances are significantly better if you have a higher MCAT- students with a 30 or higher are statistically 2.23 times more likely to be accepted to med school. This data was obtained from the official GPA/MCAT grid for all races, and combined and analyzed by myself.

https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/app...mcat-gpa-grid-by-selected-race-ethnicity.html

What happens to the ones that don't make it is as varied as the individuals themselves.
 
They get into an OOS medical school early like this girl!

I actually know people with 30+ that I have more interviews than because of my ECs. It's just one test.
 
It's about how well rounded you are. Just get close to a 30. My buddy just got in with his 26


Sent from my iPhone using SDN Mobile
 
They do back up plan BCDEFG. That's reapply, go to Dent school, do Pod, do post-bacc,become PA's, vets,NP, get a Phd, become teachers, or go to a MBA in healthcare admistration, etc. There's lot of things you can do, it's how you accept failure. I'm sure a lot of people have back up plans, and some just don't give up. But a lot apply to Do or the lower tier medical college. And yes, like a lot of threads mention, some still get in with lower MCAT scores.
 
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