The Official August 2015 MCAT Thread

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TexasSurgeon said:
I also get the feels. This last week was miserable. It's ok. It means we're humans.
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Lol "the feels."

FOCUSandEARNit said:
Held my girlfriend's hand with tears of joy in my eyes. :biglove::soexcited:
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That's so Hollywood.

And then you floored it right?!!?!?!

floor%2Bit%2B2.jpg
 
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winter25 said:
@FOCUSandEARNit how did you feel following the test? Did you think you'd scored in that range?
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for reference, my old tests were: 21: 8/6/7 & 24: 8/8/8
my new scores were: 510: 127/126/129/128 after about 5 months of dedicated, full time study.
my prediction was 508-512, and i hit the nail on the head... the updated excel mcat predictor helped with this as well.

I felt I slam dunked bio and psych, and was predicting higher than a 128 for psych but oh well not going to complain... I thought bio went so well that I was nervous as crap that I ended up bombing it lol. i've been told you're not supposed to feel good after the MCAT but I did, which made me nervous. but then again... I thought chem/physics destroyed me and i was like da fuq is this multiple times on the exam but got a 127 and i'm happy with that... CARS had always been my hardest and i was very, very thankful for doing the all the AAMC CARS Q pack passages the weeks leading up to the exam under timed conditions and with a bigger font. on my original MCAT i received a 6 in the verbal section, so I was happy with the 126. my timing was down pat on the CARS exam and I was able to get to every passage and reason through each question. wish i did better, but CARS is just not my strong suit. glad I never have to do it again since my total score was 83rd percentile 🙂
 
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Question. Apologies because it is my first time applying. I have seen a few universities (Canada) with CARS cutoffs (Alberta Universities), but I see discussion some places with Bio cutoffs for USask and Western ect. Where are you people finding this? Are they listed somewhere or are you just basing your application off of what the cutoffs were the year before.

Any help on where I can find this information would be amazing!! Thank you.
 
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DHtoM said:
Question. Apologies because it is my first time applying. I have seen a few universities (Canada) with CARS cutoffs (Alberta Universities), but I see discussion some places with Bio cutoffs for USask and Western ect. Where are you people finding this? Are they listed somewhere or are you just basing your application off of what the cutoffs were the year before.

Any help on where I can find this information would be amazing!! Thank you.
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If it's not directly on their website, and if it can't be found on here, it may be privileged info.
 
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StudyLater said:
If it's not directly on their website, and if it can't be found on here, it may be privileged info.
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That's what I figured. Just looking at the cut-offs from the year before. I have a bunch of applications pretty much finished, but I won't submit until I know my scores. With some schools, cutoffs are not known until February which means you have to pay the application fee before you know the cutoff 🙁
 
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DHtoM said:
That's what I figured. Just looking at the cut-offs from the year before. I have a bunch of applications pretty much finished, but I won't submit until I know my scores. With some schools, cutoffs are not known until February which means you have to pay the application fee before you know the cutoff 🙁
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How do you think adcoms get paid?

With the very last few hundred bucks a broke college student has, of course.

(This is a good system. Trust us.)
 
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DHtoM said:
Question. Apologies because it is my first time applying. I have seen a few universities (Canada) with CARS cutoffs (Alberta Universities), but I see discussion some places with Bio cutoffs for USask and Western ect. Where are you people finding this? Are they listed somewhere or are you just basing your application off of what the cutoffs were the year before.

Any help on where I can find this information would be amazing!! Thank you.
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The website for U of S med has a whole section about the new MCAT requirements as they were only brought in during the past cycle. For in province applicants there is no minimum sum or individual section scores required. For now at least. For out of province applicants the require a sum of 506 with at least a 127 in CARS & Bio and a 126 in Chem/Physics & Psych/Soc.
Here's the link: http://medicine.usask.ca/admission-to-the-md-program/how-to-apply.php#MCAT
I'm not sure about Western though.
 
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I'm guessing statistics. If you look at the r-sqr values, it's not a perfect correlation, so the likely/definitely are probably the ends of the confidence intervals.

loloschicken said:
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but how do you figure out your "likely" and "definitely" range with this converter thing. I get how to get the scores for wach section and the entire test but how do we get those 2 ranges?!?!
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loloschicken said:
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but how do you figure out your "likely" and "definitely" range with this converter thing. I get how to get the scores for wach section and the entire test but how do we get those 2 ranges?!?!
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Those ranges are set up based on score variability of a given section and what your predicted outcome on that section is. Definitely is more certain than likely, so a larger range. I updated the predictor with a lot more data than its creator, so I'm not exactly sure why its creator set up those ranges based on the specific constraints that they have. Hope this helps!
 
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billeboi31 said:
Those ranges are set up based on score variability of a given section and what your predicted outcome on that section is. Definitely is more certain than likely, so a larger range. I updated the predictor with a lot more data than its creator, so I'm not exactly sure why its creator set up those ranges based on the specific constraints that they have. Hope this helps!
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thanks! so is the predictor posted right now the most updated version?
 
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I have this almost creepy feeling that I did well, esp on C/P and CARS. I'm really bad at predicting my scores, so I think I may have just bombed them and not even realized it 🙁
Also, my psych section had a stupid amount of stats and I haven't even taken stats.....now that i'm learning stats in achem, I feel like I completely missed the point of like half of the q's in that section
 
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Pusheen said:
I have this almost creepy feeling that I did well, esp on C/P and CARS. I'm really bad at predicting my scores, so I think I may have just bombed them and not even realized it 🙁
Also, my psych section had a stupid amount of stats and I haven't even taken stats.....now that i'm learning stats in achem, I feel like I completely missed the point of like half of the q's in that section
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Same, I feel like I did fine on the first three sections and bombed Psych because of stats questions and Sociology questions. Guess we'll find out in 8 days.
 
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I am having panic attacks. Every time I think about my MCAT scores, my heart skips a beat, and then I can't eat or drink anything. I still did not submit in my primary application because I am waiting on my scores. Yes, I can submit without my scores, but I would only apply to just one school, lol.
 
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I had a dream that I got a 90....and not percentile wise, a 90/528. I know thats impossible, but I woke up so defeated 🤔
 
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moesman777 said:
Same, I feel like I did fine on the first three sections and bombed Psych because of stats questions and Sociology questions. Guess we'll find out in 8 days.
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hey, we definitely had the same test. I hope I don't get like a 124 or something on that last section and have to retake :dead:
 
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MarsDominus said:
Got a 22 last year and now a 510 (31 based on percentile) on the retake. My suggestions:
  1. Study for at least 3 months.
  2. Eat right.
  3. Exercise at least 3 times a week
  4. Sleep well (7-8 hours)
  5. Be positive.
  6. Motivate yourself (self-talk)
  7. Don't be afraid of difficult problems.
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Did you only study for 3 months or how long did you study? I got a 22 last year too and am trying to get some feedback from people who have been successful
 
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One more week left ladies and gentlemen.


The wait has been easy for me. I just don't think about it. However, I understand that there are some in here for which this exam is rather high stakes given their situations, so I can understand some of the nervousness.
 
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J Senpai said:
One more week left ladies and gentlemen.


The wait has been easy for me. I just don't think about it. However, I understand that there are some in here for which this exam is rather high stakes given their situations, so I can understand some of the nervousness.
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not as high stakes for you?
 
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podiatrytime said:
Is it possible for the "preset curve" (or whatever they do...lol) to lower your exam score, instead of help us?
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From my understanding, they adjust the scores so that the middle the 50th percentile hits around a 125.0. AAMC basically says that they write some sections harder with the knowledge that they'll grade them accordingly. So say the 50th percentile got 55% of C/P correct on August 5th, but 45% correct on August 22nd. Let's say you take the exam August 5th and your buddy takes it August 22nd. You could both get 55% of C/P correct but you'd get a 125 and your buddy could get more like a 126:

August 5: 50th Percentile = 55% C/P = 125; You get 55% = 125
August 22: 50th Percentile = 45% C/P = 125; Buddy gets 55% = 126

That's why some people say the MCAT is curved or complain when they "felt" like they did better on one section than another but don't get as high of a score. Well, yeah - that's because everyone else did. So no, it won't hurt you. It weighs you against your competition. You could argue that it plays to someone else's strengths better than yours, but that's the name of the game. At least that's how I understand it. Thoughts?
 
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Im going to try and not check until after 8-9 pm on Tuesday to avoid being happy/depressed during work and a meeting. It will be a true test in self-control. Also 8-9 pm will be a much more acceptable time to start drinking.
 
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billeboi31 said:
From my understanding, they adjust the scores so that the middle the 50th percentile hits around a 125.0. AAMC basically says that they write some sections harder with the knowledge that they'll grade them accordingly. So say the 50th percentile got 55% of C/P correct on August 5th, but 45% correct on August 22nd. Let's say you take the exam August 5th and your buddy takes it August 22nd. You could both get 55% of C/P correct but you'd get a 125 and your buddy could get more like a 126:

August 5: 50th Percentile = 55% C/P = 125; You get 55% = 125
August 22: 50th Percentile = 45% C/P = 125; Buddy gets 55% = 126

That's why some people say the MCAT is curved or complain when they "felt" like they did better on one section than another but don't get as high of a score. Well, yeah - that's because everyone else did. So no, it won't hurt you. It weighs you against your competition. You could argue that it plays to someone else's strengths better than yours, but that's the name of the game. At least that's how I understand it. Thoughts?
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This definitely makes sense. I was just curious because whenever I took FLs, I generally received a lower score on an easier section. I guess for an easy section, people probably get more questions correct...so in order to "out-compete" others, you have to get more questions right for a particular score in mind.

Too bad we don't exactly know what percentages correspond to what percentiles. Looking back at the June and July threads, I noticed that people who scored lower than a 65% on the AAMC FL didn't get a higher percentile on the real thing. I guess the disparity between AAMC material and the actual score is less for those scoring on the lower end.

Thanks for the explanation!
 
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moesman777 said:
Im going to try and not check until after 8-9 pm on Tuesday to avoid being happy/depressed during work and a meeting. It will be a true test in self-control. Also 8-9 pm will be a much more acceptable time to start drinking.
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also going to try and wait it out (at least until I get home around 3pm)..... this will be tough...
 
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I will be in Chem lab on Tuesday. UGH. I told my partner she would need to be on top of her game during that lab, as I will be having a personal issue that needs to be dealt with that particular day. LOL.
 
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I updated the MCAT Score Predictor spreadsheet to include reported July exams. The sample size from May/June was only 46, but now n=118 with the new July scores. I went back and tested the ranges on these exams - ~90% of the actual scores fell within the "Narrow" range from the predictor, and most of the outliers out-performed the predicted range. Not too shabby. But just as a reminder to trust your conscience/prep over some spreadsheet, one person who scored 77% on CARS from the AAMC FL got a 130 on CARS on the MCAT, whereas another who scored 98% got a 126. Likewise, someone who scored a 73% on P/S got a 132 and another with an 81% got a 122.

That being said, it seems like the predictor is actually pretty dang reliable for AAMC FL scores in the 70-90% range. Oh, and it got a face-lift 👍
 

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Dont remember my AAMC FL and I dont have access to my Kaplan account anymore. oh well ill just say I got a 528 and never actually check and apply exclusively to Harvard.
 
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billeboi31 said:
I updated the MCAT Score Predictor spreadsheet to include reported July exams. The sample size from May/June was only 46, but now n=118 with the new July scores. I went back and tested the ranges on these exams - ~90% of the actual scores fell within the "Narrow" range from the predictor, and most of the outliers out-performed the predicted range. Not too shabby. But just as a reminder to trust your conscience/prep over some spreadsheet, one person who scored 77% on CARS from the AAMC FL got a 130 on CARS on the MCAT, whereas another who scored 98% got a 126. Likewise, someone who scored a 73% on P/S got a 132 and another with an 81% got a 122.

That being said, it seems like the predictor is actually pretty dang reliable for AAMC FL scores in the 70-90% range. Oh, and it got a face-lift 👍
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DANG! bumped me down one point from my original estimated score... lol guess I'll find out in 6 days
 
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winter25 said:
@billeboi31 wait why don't these add up right? should be 513 not 510 no?
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yjj8817 said:
mine doesn't add up correctly either...it's off by one point
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The predictor uses your AAMC FL overall % to find the MCAT overall score rather than just sum your predicted section scores. They don't add up perfectly because each section and the overall AAMC FL have their own prediction equations. The predicted ranges are probably more useful for an overall score.
 
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Hey guys, I took the MCAT this past August. I'm taking a gap year and applying next cycle. I don't have much of a frame of reference so if anyone could give me some serious input concerning what type of schools at which I will be a competitive applicant I would really appreciate it!

Undergrad: Ohio State University
cumGPA: 3.71
scGPA: 3.65

MCAT: 516 (95th percentile)
Chem/Phys: 129 (93rd percentile)
CARS: 127 (81st percentile)
Bio/Biochem: 130 (97th percentile)
Psych/Socio: 130 (97th percentile)

Research Experience: 2 years wet lab, 1 year clinical, 1 publication (primary author)
~100 hours shadowing
~90 hours clinical volunteer experience (including 2 international service trips)
3 employment experiences (O.Chem TA, Physiology TA, part time summer job at OSU)
Leadership experience: Founded a research mentorship program at OSU, Planned move-in logistics at OSU, President of my fraternity, etc.

I really have no clue where to start when making my "list" of where to apply so literally any and all input would be greatly appreciated!
 
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