What does the new MSAR data represent?

[bananafish94]

Hi all, this will be a stupid question. The MSAR updated today and I'm confused as to which application cycle it is referring to. I read that it currently represents the 2015-2016 cycle, but if this is the case how do they have the number of matriculants?


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[songl4a]

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[takeonme]

I looked at the matriculation data of a school I'm interested in and the numbers are different from last year. This school is no longer interviewing

 

[bananafish94]

So is the most recent data referring to the class that entered in Fall 2015?

 

[KungFuPanda123]

What's the new national medians for c/sGPAs? The new MCAT scores seem kind of low compared to what they correlate to on the old test.

I was thinking that too, but then I realized that the new MCAT data is for applicants, while the old MCAT data is for accepted (and matriculated) students

 

[CowboyNiceguy]

This is kind of annoying. Some schools don't have data yet. 0 interviewed. And others have different numbers from last year, so it is likely incomplete data from the current cycle.

And I got the same impression from comparing old to new mcat scores.

 

[takeonme]

So is the most recent data referring to the class that entered in Fall 2015?

For the school I'm looking at (Cooper), the numbers of IS/OOS verified applicants, matriculated, etc. in the table under the "acceptance information" tab are different from the last edition so I'm not sure? There is also information regarding the waitlist under that particular school

 

[CaffeineJunkie]

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[Goro]

MCAT data are for the new exam and the applicants to Class of 2016. The data is stratified between 10th, 25th, 75th and 90 %iles.

Old MCAT is for the Class of 2015. Note that they finally give both applicant and matriculant medians for old MCAT and GPAs!

Interestingly, for the Class of 2015, a number of schools had median matriculant scores one point lower than acceptees (example, Stanford matriculant = 35, but applicants was 36). Similar at Harvard.

Hi all, this will be a stupid question. The MSAR updated today and I'm confused as to which application cycle it is referring to. I read that it currently represents the 2015-2016 cycle, but if this is the case how do they have the number of matriculants?


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[GrapesofRath]

MCAT data are for the new exam and the applicants to Class of 2016. The data is stratified between 10th, 25th, 75th and 90 %iles.

Old MCAT is for the Class of 2015. Note that they finally give both applicant and matriculant medians for old MCAT and GPAs!

Havent taken a look yet but 25th and 75th percentile data would be so huge!

 

[KungFuPanda123]

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[bananafish94]

MCAT data are for the new exam and the applicants to Class of 2016. The data is stratified between 10th, 25th, 75th and 90 %iles.

Old MCAT is for the Class of 2015. Note that they finally give both applicant and matriculant medians for old MCAT and GPAs!

So when I look at interview/matriculation data, is that referring to the Fall 2015 entering class?

 

[picnicvibrator]

Everything relating to matriculants is from the Fall 2015 entering class.

They have added information about MCAT 10, 25, 50, 75 and 90 percentiles to schools. So basically you can see the APPLICANT quality at each school. Matriculant data won't change until classes are finalized. Under "Selection Factors" the numbers in the Accepted Applicants tab have changed. I'm not exactly sure what these number represent but if I had to guess it would be the 10-50-90 data on students that were offered admission before 1/11/16 (date in the disclaimer).

 

[picnicvibrator]

Havent taken a look yet but 25th and 75th percentile data would be so huge!

As someone who may need to be a reapplicant next year this is so nice to have going forward. Won't waste money applying to schools that my MCAT is below their 25th percentile.

 

[CaffeineJunkie]

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[Goro]

My interpretation is that the new exam was harder. At the minimum, harder for the first pool of test takers, since there was so little prep material, and a brand new exam category to boot.

But still, applicants for the 2015-2016 cycle had an average MCAT of of 28.3 according to the AAMC. This is still a fair amount higher than the median for the new MCAT. Can anybody please explain the reason behind this?

 

[GrapesofRath]

My interpretation is that the new exam was harder. At the minimum, harder for the first pool of test takers, since there was so little prep material, and a brand new exam category to boot.

Harder's irrelevant because it is all curved. It's all about percentiles. X amount of people still get a 75th percentile score, whether that is a 508 or a 30 etc.

If MSAR is really showing the average of applicants is a 500 for the new MCAT(which is a 50th percentile score vs 28.3 which is 70th percentile), that must mean many more applicants who have no business applying are applying.

 

[KungFuPanda123]

But still, applicants for the 2015-2016 cycle had an average MCAT of of 28.3 according to the AAMC. This is still a fair amount higher than the median for the new MCAT. Can anybody please explain the reason behind this?

My interpretation is that many of the people who applied for this cycle took the new MCAT once and don't have a reason to retake it yet (until they get rejected). Meanwhile, many people who applied last cycle had numerous times to retake their MCAT before applying again, thus raising the average applicant score.

The extent to which the average applicant score is higher as a result of this probably has to do with whether or not the AAMC reports the average score or the highest of the scores taken.

 

[Pastamahn]

It is interesting seeing the applicant metrics now. Confusing though because to me it seems fishy (although maybe it's not) that for places like Harvard and Wash U the average applicant was a 508 and 75th percentile was just approaching 514/515. Also, based on overall applicants it looks like a lot of people who don't have any business applying, are. Although maybe it was always the case to this degree and we never had data to prove it?

 

[piii]

This is great, I love data

 

[Goro]

I would think just the reverse would happen with the expiring of the old exam, more people would be in the pool to get the more familiar one done instead of the unknown new version with *gasp* new section!

You did beat me to the punch by saying the test takers could have gotten stupider.

Harder's irrelevant because it is all curved. It's all about percentiles. X amount of people still get a 75th percentile score, whether that is a 508 or a 30 etc.

If MSAR is really showing the average of applicants is a 500 for the new MCAT(which is a 50th percentile score vs 28.3 which is 70th percentile), that must mean many more applicants who have no business applying are applying.

 

[picnicvibrator]

Ok so some of this data can't possibly be correct. Looking at Ohio State's new numbers I see 100 IS interviews-->95 matriculants and 92 OOS interviews--->96 OOS matriculants.

I'm assuming new information will be updated on this periodically?

 

[GrapesofRath]

I would think just the reverse would happen with the expiring of the old exam, more people would be in the pool to get the more familiar one done instead of the unknown new version with *gasp* new section!

You did beat me to the punch by saying the test takers could have gotten stupider.

Im sure @gyngyn has plenty of thoughts on all of this. Christmas came 9 months early for him this year!

 

[occams_razor]

I love that they show both applicant and matriculant medians now

 

[gyngyn]

Im sure @gyngyn has plenty of thoughts on all of this. Christmas came 9 months early for him this year!

I'm wallowing in it as we speak!

 

[bearintraining]

If I read these graphs correctly, we now have an estimate of yield as well based on GPA and MCAT. Some schools have higher (Accepted) Applicants than Matriculants. I would venture a guess that the biggest difference would be seen in "safety" schools.

 

[AAMC Pre-med]

Hi everyone,
We’re glad to see that you are finding our data useful as you prepare for applying to medical school. We’d like to clear a few things up that we’ve seen discussed so far:

• Please keep in mind that because the new and old MCAT exams test different knowledge and skills, you cannot compare scores. More information is available on our website about the new scores.
  
  
• Data in MSAR on the new MCAT exam reflects APPLICANTS ONLY to the 2016 class, *not* accepted applicants. Data on accepted applicants will not be available until the application cycle has ended.
  
  
• Data in the chart reflecting scores from the current first year class (Fall 2015) is for *Accepted* Applicants, Matriculants and National Accepted Applicants.
  
  
• Please note: sharing information and screen shots from the MSAR is prohibited by the site terms and conditions.

If you have questions regarding the MSAR, please send them to [email protected].

Best,
AAMC Pre-Med Team

 

[KungFuPanda123]

Thank you for the official clarifications.

I wish those small cropped screenshots of the box and whisker plots fell under fair-use

 

[Scrubb]

The MSAR states that acceptance data on the 2016 entering class will be available in the next edition of MSAR. But the upper right corner already says "2016-2017 edition". So my question is, will the acceptance data with the new MCAT scores be available in about a month (April) or not really in time for this upcoming application cycle?

 

[AAMC Pre-med]

Data on the 2016 entering class will be available in the MSAR released next Spring, 2017. This includes 2016 MCAT data on accepted applicants and matriculants.

 

[Scrubb]

That's unfortunate. But thank you!