What is the value of a one point increase in the MCAT?

[Medico o Muerte]

---

Members don't see this ad.

What does a one point increase in the MCAT equivalent to in terms of BCPM/Overall GPA increases. For example, for someone with a 510 and a 3.7 vs a 511 and a 3.6, are those two equal? I'm just asking cause I've been spending so much time worrying about A minuses dropping me from a 3.852 to a 3.844 and spending a lot of time on tedious extra credit or on tedious assignments when I feel like I could relax about my borderline grades and use that energy to focus on the MCAT.

Does a one point increase in MCAT equal a .1 point increase in GPA?

 

[Arturiase]

In my personal experience stop worrying about one assingment if this is your junior year or senior year your gpa isnt going to change much unless you get an F as you have so many credits at thsi point. Whereas the difference between a 510 vs 513 or 517 are all massive jumps that you can more easily change by focusing more on your mcat. Nobody is going to ask you hey why did you get a B+ here instead of your usual A- or As and if they do you can just say you were focusing on the mcat.

 

[Medico o Muerte]

@Arturiase

I think that is what I will do.

 

[UberUdder09]

3.84 is not a borderline gpa and a 510 vs 511 is an almost meaningless difference.

Unless.. you have a clone you don't know about who has exactly the same stats as you and is applying to the same school with the same essays?

 

[Saifa]

A 124 vs. 125 subsection for a school that hard screens at 125 will mean the world, a 130 vs 131 will mean considerably less

 

[Catalystik]

What does a one point increase in the MCAT equivalent to in terms of BCPM/Overall GPA increases. For example, for someone with a 510 and a 3.7 vs a 511 and a 3.6, are those two equal? I'm just asking cause I've been spending so much time worrying about A minuses dropping me from a 3.852 to a 3.844 and spending a lot of time on tedious extra credit or on tedious assignments when I feel like I could relax about my borderline grades and use that energy to focus on the MCAT.

Does a one point increase in MCAT equal a .1 point increase in GPA?

More like a .03 increase for the example given.

 

[Medico o Muerte]

I just went on Lizzy M. And it appears that for some scores, it is a .10 point increase. For example, a score from 514 to 515 increases your Lizzy M score by 1 point. On the other hand, you would have to go from a 3.84 to 3.94 to increase your score by 1 point.

 

[efle]

LizzyM was based on the old MCAT, and by the old system was pretty valid, e.g. admit rate for 3.8/32 and 3.6/34 were very similar. With the new scale its not as close to 1:1

 

[Goro]

What does a one point increase in the MCAT equivalent to in terms of BCPM/Overall GPA increases. For example, for someone with a 510 and a 3.7 vs a 511 and a 3.6, are those two equal? I'm just asking cause I've been spending so much time worrying about A minuses dropping me from a 3.852 to a 3.844 and spending a lot of time on tedious extra credit or on tedious assignments when I feel like I could relax about my borderline grades and use that energy to focus on the MCAT.

Does a one point increase in MCAT equal a .1 point increase in GPA?

No. You're right at the median for mD acceptees and some Adcoms (like me) would question your judgement for retaking a perfectly good score.
BTW, admissions is a not a zero sum game. Both a 510/3.7 and a 511/3.6 are likely to get interviews. If both are interviewed at the same school at the same time, both are likely to get accepted.

 

[Goro]

Well, both will get interviewed, getting accepted depends on interview performance.

That goes without saying!

 

[Lucca]

Don’t worry about tiny differences between GPAs.

Do worry about doing as well possible on the McAT.

Don’t worry about minute differences between McAT scores.

Do worry about having a well rounded life.

Well rounded life, well rounded app.

 

[Lucca]

Don’t worry about tiny differences between GPAs.

Do worry about doing as well possible on the McAT.

Don’t worry about minute differences between McAT scores.

Do worry about having a well rounded life.

Well rounded life, well rounded app.

 

[LizzyM]

Please keep in mind that the purpose of the LizzyM score back in the day was to save people with 3.5/29 from applying to the top 20 plus their state schools (often in California) and then crying that they didn't get any interviews at all despite "applying broadly".

 

[Warder]

Mcat scores are given with a confidence band of +/- 2, so a 1 point increase means you're still essentially scoring the same.

 

[aldol16]

A 0.1 difference in GPA is a more substantial difference than a 1 point difference on MCAT if only because a 0.1 difference on GPA requires more work to change especially when you have a ton of credits already accumulated, whereas your MCAT score has a confidence interval so strictly speaking, there is very little difference (none statistically) between a 510 and 511. GPAs for med school applicants all tend to be clustered at the top end of the scale so a drop from 3.7 to 3.6 is more noticeable than a drop from 511 to 510 on the MCAT which are, for all practical purposes, equivalent.