UCLA implements new sGPA and MCAT Cutoffs; 3.4 and 512

[Lucca]

David Geffen School of Medicine raises admission standards, incites controversy

“The David Geffen School of Medicine is raising its math and science GPA and MCAT cutoff scores to 3.4 and 512, respectively, according to a policy proposal released by school of medicine faculty and students. Many students said they are worried this will negatively affect the school’s diversity.”

Thoughts?

UCLA has historically been the “top” school with the broadest stat distribution. It looks like they are setting a much more competitive and hard minimum cutoff for the MCAT and sGPA components.

Personally, I think that UCLA obtains sufficient applicants (~14k or roughly 1 in 4 of all apps) that applying this cutoff will not substantially hinder their ability to create a diverse and hand-selected class per their “holistic review” reputation. Therefore, if they had any concerns about the level of student performance since the new mcat, this change remedies that instantly while ensuring they can continue their holistic review policy on a much narrower starting candidate pool.

Also I’m very supportive of schools publicly saying these things instead of having people try to divine what they need after purchasing the MSAR.

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[TheBiologist]

funny how just 1 or 2 years ago they had an EXTREMELY generous application cycle, with an average MCAT of 505 for the entering class (I think it was either 2016 or 2017)

damn, a 512 is high for a cutoff, even for a top 10 school.....

 

[Dwight Snoot]

To me 512 seems a bit high for a hard cutoff. I think that some incredible applicants will be ignored because of this. There is so much more to being a good applicant than scoring ~90th percentile on the MCAT.

 

[efle]

Wow, at first I thought that must have been a typo and they meant 502. This means that more than a quarter of their current student body would never have been considered for admission.

This is gonna completely change their student body overnight

 

[OchemOficionado]

I wonder if this will actually apply to their PRIME or Drew program. I highly doubt it will apply to the Drew in since it’s an HBCU.

 

[NYCVillain]

Add UCLA to the latest school of stat ****** alongside NYU. This change is going to drasticallt change its student body.

 

[efle]

The cohort with the extremely low MCAT range (507 median if I recall?) from the year the MCAT updated, would have all been taking the step 1 this last year. Maybe UCLA felt their step 1 performance as a cohort was too low and this is their approach to boosting it back up.

 

[TheBiologist]

The cohort with the extremely low MCAT range (507 median if I recall?) from the year the MCAT updated, would have all been taking the step 1 this last year. Maybe UCLA felt their step 1 performance as a cohort was too low and this is their approach to boosting it back up.

wasn't that group the entering class of 2016 though? how many years back is the given MSAR data, because I remember seeing that in 2017

and it was a 508 median accepted, 505 for median matriculant!

EDIT: stupid me, you said "taking step 1" but my mind though "graduating"

 

[bananafish94]

I think it's great. It makes it easier and more transparent for every party involved when they make it explicitly clear what they will and won't accept. On another note I am so glad I got into medical school when I did because with these increasing standards I would have about a snowball's chance in Hell at getting in this year.

 

[efle]

wasn't that group the entering class of 2016 though? how many years back is the given MSAR data, because I remember seeing that in 2017

It was the group that entered in Fall 2016 I think, yeah. So they'd have been shown in the 2017 MSAR, and would be finishing MS2 and taking the Step1 during the middle/end of 2018. So the theory seems to add up, that they might have done poorly enough on step 1 to prompt this policy change.

The prior cohort, back when the old MCAT scale was in use, had a 33 median I think. So they basically dropped from a 90th percentile median to a 70th percentile median and are now looking to go back.

Must have been some big differences in the data to justify this 512 cutoff, though. That's basically cutting out the entire bottom half of their usual enrolled class.

 

[TheBiologist]

It was the group that entered in Fall 2016 I think, yeah. So they'd have been shown in the 2017 MSAR, and would be finishing MS2 and taking the Step1 during the middle/end of 2018. So the theory seems to add up, that they might have done poorly enough on step 1 to prompt this policy change.

The prior cohort, back when the old MCAT scale was in use, had a 33 median I think. So they basically dropped from a 90th percentile median to a 70th percentile median and are now looking to go back.

Must have been some big differences in the data to justify this 512 cutoff, though. That's basically cutting out the entire bottom half of their usual enrolled class.

sorry, you wrote taking step 1 but for some reason my brain was thinking you said they were graduating

 

[LonelyBoi]

Do you guys think it would be worth it for high stat OOS students to apply to UCLA since they probably have to accept more students considering their yield will be lower

 

[Lucca]

Wow, at first I thought that must have been a typo and they meant 502. This means that more than a quarter of their current student body would never have been considered for admission.

This is gonna completely change their student body overnight

I have to take a closer look at the numbers, but I think it will make maintaining class diversity harder but not radically different. UCLA gets 14,000 apps, which is absolutely and completely insane. They might have among the broadest sampling possible of any medical school.

It will be interesting to see how demographics change, but I expect SES diversity to be more strongly affected than ethnic/racial diversity.

 

[920820]

their median is only a 514 now. That does seem nuts to make it a 512. On the other hand, UCLA has been trying to have the reputation of a truly world class institution and they like the idea of high scores as setting that perception for other

View attachment 248005

I believe that is because PRIME and Drew statistics are included.

 

[Goro]

@LizzyM, @Med Ed , @gyngyn , @Pathdocmd

Thoughts?????

 

[Toutie]

Well, on the one hand it should cut down on the number of applications they have to sort through each year.

 

[Lawpy]

does this mean UCLA is still keeping its secondary screen?

 

[Throwaway5129]

Well, on the one hand it should cut down on the number of applications they have to sort through each year.

A screen of somewhere between a 505-509 would be better than 512, and would eliminate a lot of the 14000 IMO. Basically you cannot be considered unless you have >90th percentile on the mcat.

 

[Toutie]

A screen of somewhere between a 505-509 would be better than 512, and would eliminate a lot of the 14000 IMO. Basically you cannot be considered unless you have >90th percentile on the mcat.

Chances are they will adjust it again in a couple years.

 

[MJToThePreMed]

I personally don't see any problems with the change. There's enough applicants with >512 MCAT and >3.4 GPAs to fill their class over 20 times. Within that group of qualified candidates theres going to be A LOT of people with diverse backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses that will bring interesting perspectives to the school. It also improves their screening efficiency and makes the application process more transparent for prospective students. Overall, I think they may lose out on 1-2 qualified/unique candidates, but that's not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things when you have hundreds of equally qualified and unique people to pick from. Also, I believe the MSAR data is also 2 years old so the actual medians might be closer to 518ish for this cycle.

 

[DameJulie]

What a news for California IS applicants. Wonder if other UCs will follow this...

 

[931408]

Add UCLA to the latest school of stat ****** alongside NYU. This change is going to drasticallt change its student body.

I don't agree with this. First of all, I'm pretty sure this change is set to the current cycle. There are plenty of people who are getting admissions offers with a decent but not excellent MCAT (512-514 range), and those individuals are also receiving Geffen Scholarships. So, I don't believe UCLA is turning into NYU by doing this. Most people who are getting interviews at NYU are in the upper echelon of MCAT scores (99th+ percentile). Meanwhile, UCLA is giving interviews, acceptances, and potentially full rides to students who exceed their cut off by a couple of points. It seems to me that UCLA is still putting less emphasis on scores but only if you exceed their minimum threshold.

To me 512 seems a bit high for a hard cutoff. I think that some incredible applicants will be ignored because of this. There is so much more to being a good applicant than scoring ~90th percentile on the MCAT.

I agree with the 512 being a high hard cut-off. That said, how many other schools in the T10/T20 or USWNR are going to give an applicant who has somewhere around a 512-515 MCAT a fair shot? WashU et al will throw out your application if you don't have a 97th/98th percentile MCAT as an ORM, so it just seems that UCLA is more transparent then many other schools about their cut-offs. Other schools, I'm sure, have an internal cut-off as well that they don't share with their applicants.

My personal view is that this definitely hurts diversity, as it is more challenging for individuals with lower SES to prepare well for the MCAT. At the same time, as a previous poster pointed out, there are URMs who clear the 512 threshold and do very well in the application process. I get what UCLA is trying to do here - it just has its pros and cons. I'd like for other schools to be transparent about their cut-offs as well.

 

[Lucca]

b) This is why I mentioned school-specific cutoffs. Adcoms can get together and decide on their own what their cutoff will be. If they are unwilling to take the risk on a 3.4/28.....well make the GPA cutoff a 3.5 and the MCAT a 29, etc etc. It's a chance for medical schools to be totally transparent about the applicants they are seriously considering. Maybe some schools will keep the cutoffs a bit lower to allow them to cast a bigger net and, perhaps, they already valued non-academic qualities to begin with. Maybe WashU puts their cutoffs at 3.8 and 34 since they care about these metrics a lot.

Me from 2016

I for one am just happy to know UCLAs admissions dean follows my SDN posts

 

[puahate]

I am just exchanging UCLA for another school like Northwestern or Harvard. Both of these schools offered me fee waivers so honestly I dont see the loss on my end.

 

[BStoPhDtoMD]

their median is only a 514 now. That does seem nuts to make it a 512. On the other hand, UCLA has been trying to have the reputation of a truly world class institution and they like the idea of high scores as setting that perception for other

View attachment 248005

Weird... MSAR shows the median is 517 for me. Not that it makes that much of a difference.

 

[allantois]

Gosh the money they are getting from all those app fees alone

 

[Walter Raleigh]

Wow, at first I thought that must have been a typo and they meant 502. This means that more than a quarter of their current student body would never have been considered for admission.

This is gonna completely change their student body overnight

Agreed: the Marine combat medic with a 3.8 from UCSD and a 510 - who's started a national nonprofit for veterans - now doesn't get a shot at UCLA. Nor does the Rwandan refugee with a second-author Nature paper and their story in the New York Times.

 

[Gilakend]

Agreed: the Marine combat medic with a 3.8 from UCSD and a 510 - who's started a national nonprofit for veterans - now doesn't get a shot at UCLA. Nor does the Rwandan refugee with a second-author Nature paper and their story in the New York Times.

Navy corpsman*

 

[CJhooper123]

Damn, that's a tough MCAT. I wonder how rigid this cutoff will be. Sure it will dissuade people from applying but will UCLA really turn down an otherwise amazing app with a 511?

At least the school doesn't openly emphasize a "holistic review" on their admissions website.

 

[PreMedMissteps]

funny how just 1 or 2 years ago they had an EXTREMELY generous application cycle, with an average MCAT of 505 for the entering class (I think it was either 2016 or 2017)

damn, a 512 is high for a cutoff, even for a top 10 school.....

Dumb questions... was this because the new MCAT was so new that there was an expectation that scores would be lower? Now that it’s been out awhile, test prepping for the new MCAT is resulting in higher scores?

 

[Lucca]

Dumb questions... was this because the new MCAT was so new that there was an expectation that scores would be lower? Now that it’s been out awhile, test prepping for the new MCAT is resulting in higher scores?

The AAMC issued an edict with the new MCAT that “500 is good enough stop worrying so much over minute differences between scores” and the only school in the country to heed it must have been UCLA because after the first yr of the new MCAT, their median mcat increased 7 points IIRC in a single cycle

 

[PreMedMissteps]

What a news for California IS applicants. Wonder if other UCs will follow this...

I imagine there will be an outrage. It’s one thing to say that OOS applicants must meet these thresholds, but this could mean limiting diversity coming from instate. And that 3.4 could mean that reinvented nontrads could be shut out.

 

[Med Ed]

@LizzyM, @Med Ed , @gyngyn , @Pathdocmd

Thoughts?????

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during that decision.

The UC's each have their own character: Davis has a primary care emphasis, for example, and Riverside has gone after diversity. My guess is that UCLA is now making explicit play to become the undisputed academic medicine powerhouse in SoCal. It may want to rival both UCSF and Stanford in a few years, and thus sending its matriculant metrics into the stratosphere could be part of that strategy.

 

[DameJulie]

I imagine there will be an outrage. It’s one thing to say that OOS applicants must meet these thresholds, but this could mean limiting diversity coming from instate. And that 3.4 could mean that reinvented nontrads could be shut out.

For CA reinventing non-trads knowing it takes YEARS of 4.0 post-bacc work and 90% percentile MCAT to be even eligible to apply to one of the state schools.

My guess is that UCLA is now making explicit play to become the undisputed academic medicine powerhouse in SoCal.

UCSD may respond with 3.41 and 513 screen

 

[AaqDasaq721]

Despite whether or not its the "right" move, I really do appreciate UCLA straight up telling people of these hard cutoffs than maintain some unknown internal minimum standard, so people don't get H O L I S T I C'ed.

 

[PreMedMissteps]

Do the UC meds get much state support?

 

[IlDestriero]

I can tell you that schools obsess over USMLE pass rates and tracking what correlates with passing. The residency program directors do the same with board exams and make selections with those in mind. The difference is that they have a smaller and skewed number of data points to use.
It’s likely that their “experiential” class a couple of years ago didn’t work out the way they expected.
We have a very, very competitive fellowship program and get an enormous number of applicants. The only way to really look at the applications is to screen scores and skim the recommendations for buzz words. We get >16 applicants for every spot, and only interview about 4 per spot, so 75% are DOA. Of those, only a handful are obviously inappropriate.

 

[Toutie]

It’s likely that their “experiential” class a couple of years ago didn’t work out the way they expected.

This is what I think may be behind it as well. And as I said in a post above, they may adjust again in the future.

 

[deleted938090]

The medical school can do whatever they want. It may be a positive thing because they're saving applicants' money.
There are plenty of other great places those people can apply to. Why are people freaking out that a T10 suddenly institutes this requirement? At least they're upfront about it.

 

[PreMedMissteps]

It’s likely that their “experiential” class a couple of years ago didn’t work out the way they expected.

This is what I think may be behind it as well. And as I said in a post above, they may adjust again in the future.

That seems likely. I have heard that some of other schools’ rural MD programs with “borderline stats” students, have found that there’s a lot of hand-holding and repeating. So, if a SOM is finding that lower stats means lower step scores or repeating, then adjustments are inevitable. A 500 might be “good enough” if testing ended with the MCAT.

Why are people freaking out that a T10 suddenly institutes this requirement

JMHO, but I don’t think that a public SOM should be doing this. Privates can do whatever they want, but publics have a mission to serve their state. If a Native American Calif resident applies with a 511 and a 3.9 GPA, he is automatically shut out?? How could they begin to justify that? Based on what? That the student won’t likely perform well? That he couldn’t become a star? That would be a hoot.

And if Calif legislators feel that such thresholds will limit instate UIMs from acceptance, they may threaten to withhold funds. Wallet-threats have happened before. When Calif legislators learned that undergrad UCs were giving away need-based aid to OOS, they threatened them with reduced funding and suddenly all that OOS aid went away.

Has NYU announced minimums? Or does it just have the WashU and Vandy rep of being score &#@%$? With its new “free tuition” program, unless it has announced thresholds, it’s going to get an app from virtually every decent applicant out there! Anyone want to guess how many apps they’ll get next cycle?

 

[Pathdocmd]

@LizzyM, @Med Ed , @gyngyn , @Pathdocmd

Thoughts?????

I'm sure UCLA has a pretty high retention rate, but 512 does seem a little high. I'm sure this wasn't initiated from the Admissions Office.

 

[deleted804295]

I don't really care that UCLA implements it after all nobody really has a significant chance in the UC system- not even Californian residents.

I do worry about the implication this will have at T25 schools in future years. We will slowly be moving away from holistic applications. For this application cycle and next years it won't mean much. Won't affect me much either. But things will become more difficult for applicants 5 years from now. I really feel for them.

 

[deleted804295]

I personally don't see any problems with the change. There's enough applicants with >512 MCAT and >3.4 GPAs to fill their class over 20 times. Within that group of qualified candidates theres going to be A LOT of people with diverse backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses that will bring interesting perspectives to the school. It also improves their screening efficiency and makes the application process more transparent for prospective students. Overall, I think they may lose out on 1-2 qualified/unique candidates, but that's not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things when you have hundreds of equally qualified and unique people to pick from. Also, I believe the MSAR data is also 2 years old so the actual medians might be closer to 518ish for this cycle.

It's a 3.4 *science* not college GPA.

 

[Med Ed]

JMHO, but I don’t think that a public SOM should be doing this. Privates can do whatever they want, but publics have a mission to serve their state. If a Native American Calif resident applies with a 511 and a 3.9 GPA, he is automatically shut out?? How could they begin to justify that?

Because Harvard still deserves a few table scraps from time to time.

 

[Pathdocmd]

They have a separate Admissions Oversight and Policy Committee but who knows where this policy came from. I see the confluence of UCLA desire to viewed as both a national and international powerhouse as well as cutting their 14,000 applications for 175 seats workload making this idea bubble to the top

With 14,000 applicants, it is probably a huge relief for the staff and reviewers.

 

[931408]

I don't really care that UCLA implements it after all nobody really has a significant chance in the UC system- not even Californian residents.

I do worry about the implication this will have at T25 schools in future years. We will slowly be moving away from holistic applications. For this application cycle and next years it won't mean much. Won't affect me much either. But things will become more difficult for applicants 5 years from now. I really feel for them.

Are apps evaluated holistically now? Most if not all T25 schools are stats-driven at first. If you don't have the specific MCAT threshold score that they're looking for, then you just won't be given consideration OR you will be at a significant disadvantage at receiving an interview let alone an acceptance. Obviously, WashU, NYU, UChicago, Vandy etc. are extreme examples of this, but it's not a stretch to say that other schools have a similar philosophy in the T25.

 

[efle]

Because Harvard still deserves a few table scraps from time to time.

Haha, I don't think the Ivies have felt desperate for strong minority applicants ever since they figured out they could draw from wealthy international families and still count it just the same

 

[Goro]

Are apps evaluated holistically now? Most if not all T25 schools are stats-driven at first. If you don't have the specific MCAT threshold score that they're looking for, then you just won't be given consideration OR you will be at a significant disadvantage at receiving an interview let alone an acceptance. Obviously, WashU, NYU, UChicago, Vandy etc. are extreme examples of this, but it's not a stretch to say that other schools have a similar philosophy in the T25.

Yes they are, but too many pre-meds think "holistic" means "we'll look at any piece of trash app".

What it really means is that they'll look at apps hoping to find diamonds in the rough, and likely pace more weight upon rising GPA trends, good post-bac SMP performance, and other things. Columbia, Pitt, Vandy, Emory, Mayo, Case, BU all reward reinvention.

 

[Lucca]

I don't really care that UCLA implements it after all nobody really has a significant chance in the UC system- not even Californian residents.

I do worry about the implication this will have at T25 schools in future years. We will slowly be moving away from holistic applications. For this application cycle and next years it won't mean much. Won't affect me much either. But things will become more difficult for applicants 5 years from now. I really feel for them.

I disagree. I think implementing cutoffs like these actually promote holistic admissions. If I was an admissions dean this is what I’d do:

1. Look at my schools data, find a logical place where there is beyond a shadow of a doubt that students are performing at the level I and the other deans/admin/powers that be are happy with. Notice I didn’t say “just likely to pass medical school”.

2. Implement a cutoff for my relevant criteria. Tell everyone what it is, publicly, to save everyone’s time and applicants’ money.

3. Tell my staff: we’re going to auto screen for our cutoff. Then we’re erasing those values from the apps. As far as we’re concerned, they are good enough. Truly holistic screens on a much smaller applicant pool than previous years with more man power and time per app to do it.

Is this what UCLA will do? Only their admission staff know that, but I suspect that they haven’t done a complete about-face and will do something more or less along these lines.

Thankfully, Reality has given us an experiment. We will all find out together when we find out how far their distributions go. If it stays near where it is with a much tighter 10-25 percentile because of the 512 cutoff, then I’m probably on to something. If it skyrockets to NYU/UChicago levels where very few people under 516 are being admitted then @Med Ed is more likely closer to the mark.

 

[DubbiDoctor]

The cohort with the extremely low MCAT range (507 median if I recall?) from the year the MCAT updated, would have all been taking the step 1 this last year. Maybe UCLA felt their step 1 performance as a cohort was too low and this is their approach to boosting it back up.

Found this interesting report from the AAMC on how the new MCAT correlates with step. People with a 100 percentile score average over a 250. https://www.aamc.org/download/493340/data/lsl2018validity.pdf