A 4.0/29 application is not going to get much traction at a school where the average MCAT is 35 although he would have a
LizzyM 2.0 score that is the same (109) as someone with a 3.6/37.
If I were to reform the formula, I might consider gpa+ gpa (10)+MCAT = gpa(11)+MCAT with the understanding that you'd be giving extra weight to average school gpa when looking as school's LizzyM scores, too.
I acknowledge that my proposal was based on the systematic disconnect I noticed in the
*overall* admission rates for applicants with identical LizzyM scores. It may be that
*individual* schools may place greater weight on the MCAT than the collective admissions process would suggest, and I of course defer to LizzyM's judgment and experience in that regard. I would be interested to see, however, whether the increased GPA weighting might track better with applicants' success at individual schools, particularly if we consider more common GPA/MCAT combinations (4.0/29 seems rare to my mind).
Nevertheless, my original argument centered on the following two applicants: a 3.3/36 applicant and a 3.8/31 applicant (LizzyM scores of 69). Both should have equal chances of overall admission, yet the 3.8/31 applicant has a ~77% chance while the 3.3/36 applicant has only a ~59% chance of admission (based on the 2010 AAMC data, graphed here by sector9:
http://i55.tinypic.com/v4o2om.jpg).
I then looked at a hypothetical applicant with a 31 MCAT and estimated how many MCAT points would be required to make up a 0.2 pt GPA deficit going down the scale:
3.9/31 = 82% = 3.7/35 (+4)
3.8/31 = 77% = 3.6/36 (+5)
3.7/31 = 72% = 3.5/36 (+5)
3.6/31 = 64% = 3.4/35.5 (+4.5)
3.5/31 = 56% = 3.3/35 (+4)
3.4/31 = 48% = 3.2/34.5 (+3.5)
From that trend, it looks like 4 MCAT points roughly equal 0.2 GPA points, at least in
*this quadrant* of the graph. To track that data for overall admissions, the GPA weighting should be roughly doubled. That is:
LizzyM 2.0 = GPA*(20) + MCAT
This 0.1:2 relationship also seems to hold up well for a 0.1 pt GPA deficit (e.g., 3.8/31 = 3.7/33 and 3.6/31 = 3.5/33). For a 0.3 GPA deficit, though, you'd need more than 6 extra pts on your MCAT (e.g., 3.8/31 = 3.5/39) to have an equal overall chance at admission.
In any case, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this.