Time to Direct COM Candidates Away From the MCAT?

[944]

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This article was published about a year ago from a dean at LECOM.

Yesterday and e-mail was sent out requesting SAT / ACT scores from LECOM med students in response to MCAT changes. The rational was that they need something to gauge students by in addition to or in place of the MCAT.

I know my thoughts but what are you folks thinking?

 

[944]

If you do a quick search of the title you can read it in full on the JAOA website.

 

[chet]

.

 

[K31]

Yes, this is obviously the way to increase acceptance of the DO degree as equivalent to MD.

 

[Mbeas]

Then graduating pre-meds will know right off the bat the garbage that is DO education

speak for yourself. i'm getting a phenomenal education.

 

[costales]

Meh. Sounds like he was bored. JAOA publishes all kinds of stuff.

 

[bleeker10]

The email we got was saying since the MCAT is being drastically altered, they aren't sure how to correlate the new results with future performance. They are wondering if using SAT/ACT scores will help them gauge future performance in med school. Now I don't know anything about the MCAT changing other than hearing there won't be a writing section and a possibility of adding biochem to it. But I think ACT/SAT scores would be worthless as a predictor. I went into college thinking I wanted to do architecture or business. I had no idea until after my sophomore year that I would become a doctor. Many kids want to hit a certain score to get into a certain school and don't care if they get above it, at least my friends in high school did.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

Why not just switch to the GRE if they're that worried?

 

[costales]

The SAT/ACT vs MCAT debate is old. I don't know why LECOM even bothers with it. See:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=289029
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=526626

 

[BabyDoc86]

Why not just switch to the GRE if they're that worried?

This was my thought. The regular GRE and/or the subject test ones.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

This was my thought. The regular GRE and/or the subject test ones.

It'd be kinda nice if they did just use the GRE. That way if an applicant scores well and realizes they don't want to go to med school they can use their score for grad school.

 

[Textbookversion]

This is dumb, and LECOM is being dumb. Look at the percentile to score comparison, convert to old MCAT score, bingo. Percentiles are percentiles.

 

[notbobtrustme]

The GRE is a complete joke of a test though. I studied for it by reading a vocab book while taking dumps every day and ended up scoring a 1400 (700/700) back in 2005.

Compared to the MCAT, it's a joke of a test. LECOM should just suck it up and ride the 1-2 years of volatility in new MCAT scores.

 

[iave9963]

The GRE is a complete joke of a test though. I studied for it by reading a vocab book while taking dumps every day and ended up scoring a 1400 (700/700) back in 2005.