Which would you choose? One year to improve GPA or 3 months to improve MCAT

[omegaz]

Assuming both your gpa and MCAT are average.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Ohyeah]

MCAT. A modest increase in MCAT score carries more weight than a modest increase in GPA. Also, I'd prefer not to take a ton of extra time to improve my app if I didn't have to.

 

[DAPI]

MCAT. A modest increase in MCAT score carries more weight than a modest increase in GPA. Also, I'd prefer not to take a ton of extra time to improve my app if I didn't have to.

+1, but improvement in GPA is probably easier to accomplish than improvement in MCAT score.

Edit: that may not be true depending on credit numbers and current GPA...

 

[Pons Asinorum]

You have 26 posts. Of those, 15 are new threads which all ask the same thing - how should omegaz spend his/her time. I don't know what else to say about that observation.

 

[darkjedi]

a 3.6 and 38 can get you into a top tier school

a 4.0 and 33 will not

 

[pathologyDO]

mcat. A modest increase in mcat score carries more weight than a modest increase in gpa. Also, i'd prefer not to take a ton of extra time to improve my app if i didn't have to.

+2

 

[omegaz]

a 3.6 and 38 can get you into a top tier school

a 4.0 and 33 will not

Is this true? So a 5 points MCAT increase is better than a 0.4 gpa increase?

 

[omegaz]

You have 26 posts. Of those, 15 are new threads which all ask the same thing - how should omegaz spend his/her time. I don't know what else to say about that observation.

Sorry, i thought it was an interesting discussion topic. Are you gonna ban me from making new threads?

 

[Pons Asinorum]

Sorry, are you gonna ban me from making new threads?

Nope. Just highly unlikely to offer anything useful as you've clearly decided that you are above doing any work for yourself to independently gather information and make a decision.

 

[sinombre]

Is this true? So a 5 points MCAT increase is better than a 0.4 gpa increase?

Score differences matter differently depending on what scores you're dealing with. Going from a 37 to a 42 won't matter at all (except for bragging rights, I guess), but going from a 31 to a 36 will matter a lot. Think of it this way: there are a fixed number of people who can score in the mid/upper 30s on the MCAT. There are an unlimited amount of people who end up with a 3.8+ GPA.

Nope. Just highly unlikely to offer anything useful as you've clearly decided that you are above doing any work for yourself to independently gather information and make a decision.

lol'd again

 

[darkjedi]

Is this true? So a 5 points MCAT increase is better than a 0.4 gpa increase?

Absolutely, even a 4 point MCAT increase is better than a 0.4 GPA increase.

Once you are at or above the 3.6 mark, admissions tend to weight the GPA less than the MCAT itself.

 

[Barley426]

My 3.4 with a 37 was very well received, that's a LizzyM score of 70 (if you use lizzyM's formula where you subtract one). Compare that to a GPA of 4.0 and an MCAT of 30, it wouldn't be as attractive although the LizzyM is still 70. They say not to compare extremes with the LizzyM score but in this case I'd argue for the MCAT.