Why do schools ask how we studied for the mcat?

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I have a good, not great score. I've had 2 schools ask me this and I don't really get the purpose. Is it to see if we have proper study habits for med school? I think Mcat studying is a poor heuristic of that.
 
DNAJB6 said:
I disagree. My college science exams were MCAT style questions and many were much harder in difficulty than AAMC questions I've seen.
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That’s interesting. In college, I only had one science class with exams that had multiple choice questions, and all others were short answer / long form. And none were passage based like the MCAT where you could glean information or make inferences, you had to know the content almost entirely from your own knowledge. For the mcat, I had to learn how to *take* the exam (reading passages, making inferences, eliminating answer choices.) For college exams, it didn’t matter what format the exam was in, you just had to know the material.

But LizzyM makes a good point about step. However, I would argue (although I’m not even in med school yet) that Step studying would require a lot of rote memorization that I didn’t really do for the mcat.
 
I'm just curious, how often does this get asked? I feel that my way of answering this question could really help highlight some good qualities in my situation
 
osamine said:
What about not having the means for a prep course? They’re like 3k which is absurd to expect most people to pay.
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This is exactly what I considered. Someone with the means to pay for extra resources and classes is likely to perform better...they might excuse a slightly lower score if an applicant had difficulty accessing materials and courses.
 
star-lily said:
I'm just curious, how often does this get asked? I feel that my way of answering this question could really help highlight some good qualities in my situation
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It's not a question I see asked very often, at least based upon responses in the Interview Feedback forum or here in pre-MD. But it is a fair question
osamine said:
What about not having the means for a prep course? They’re like 3k which is absurd to expect most people to pay.
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It's no sin to lack money.
 
LizzyM said:
Your response can provide a context for your score. (And your score was good enough to get you an interview although it might be the weakest point in the application).
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I was thinking this but my score is a 516 and the interviewer even commented that it is a very good score, so that made me even more confused why he asked.
 
osamine said:
What about not having the means for a prep course? They’re like 3k which is absurd to expect most people to pay.
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V781 said:
This is exactly what I considered. Someone with the means to pay for extra resources and classes is likely to perform better...they might excuse a slightly lower score if an applicant had difficulty accessing materials and courses.
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You definitely don't need to spend money on a prep course. For most, it is a waste of money... many many people have done well with just the AAMC materials, some prep books, and free materials like KA. Just check the 509+ thread.
 
and 99 others said:
I was thinking this but my score is a 516 and the interviewer even commented that it is a very good score, so that made me even more confused why he asked.
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He probably wanted to know how you studied to do so well. 516 is the 93rd percentile, so unless this interview was at WashU, that's a great score!
 
Cornfed101 said:
He probably wanted to know how you studied to do so well. 516 is the 93rd percentile, so unless this interview was at WashU, that's a great score!
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Yeah but like...why? It's not like he's going to take it and again, it's not going to apply to med school studying too well. Maybe Step 1 I guess.

Also, thank you.
 
and 99 others said:
Yeah but like...why? It's not like he's going to take it and again, it's not going to apply to med school studying too well. Maybe Step 1 I guess.

Also, thank you.
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Just like @gonnif said, it is useful to see how you approach problems/challenges as you will face a lot of difficult and novel academic situations in medical school.
 
and 99 others said:
Yeah but like...why? It's not like he's going to take it and again, it's not going to apply to med school studying too well. Maybe Step 1 I guess.

Also, thank you.
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I get you. I agree with Goro and others that it's a "fair" question to ask, but imo still not a very good question / waste of interview question, because there are a million other questions that can give far better insight to your character. Test-taking skills are highly variable among people and not necessarily correlated to intelligence nor work ethic
 
Cornfed101 said:
You definitely don't need to spend money on a prep course. For most, it is a waste of money... many many people have done well with just the AAMC materials, some prep books, and free materials like KA. Just check the 509+ thread.
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Well yes, but admissions believe that the classes give a person a leg up. It doesn't matter what you and I believe. And to be fair, some prep courses may indeed have been invaluable for some.
 
V781 said:
Well yes, but admissions believe that the classes give a person a leg up. It doesn't matter what you and I believe. And to be fair, some prep courses may indeed have been invaluable for some.
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I guess I don't understand... why does it matter what admissions believes about prepping for the MCAT? If you get a high score it doesn't matter how you prepare. That's my point. You need to prepare with the resources that you have available to you. If you can't afford a prep course you can still do very well. I did without spending a fortune. I wouldn't bank on adcoms leniency regarding the cost of MCAT prep materials.

As this relates to OPs interview. I could see myself asking this question to see how the interview approached the test, but I wouldn't care about the specifics. I would be more interested in the thought process. I haven't interviewed people for med school, but I have conducted a lot of interviews otherwise.
 
LizzyM said:
Your response can provide a context for your score. (And your score was good enough to get you an interview although it might be the weakest point in the application).
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Thank you for your input and @Goro.

I hope this is the case among all adcoms and its not a “well why didn’t you spend the money for a course” kind of thing.
 
How did you approach this beast? What were your strategies? What resources did you have? How did your learning style play into your strategies?

It is like asking patients about alcohol, drugs and sexual practices. If we ask everyone, it is normalized as a question whereas if we limit the question to those who we think have a problem, we might miss out on some valuable information, or appear to be making a value judgment when we do ask, or forget to ask when we should ask because it is not a routine question.
 
I was asked this question at a “top” school. I was a little surprised they would ask it, but I answered honestly. I wouldn’t overthink it.
 
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