Will a poor MCAT score count against you if it’s expired?

[LoveBeingHuman:)]

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Will a poor score count against you even if it’s expired?

 

[chappikachu]

Yes, you have to report all previous scores on AMCAS.


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[infectiousdisease101]

Adcoms are composed of different people and each one has their own intake of things. There is no solid way to answer your question because of that. Also, there is no point worrying about your bad MCAT. Adcoms will see it no matter what you do. Some may be forgiving of a first failed attempt, others may not be. I feel like repeatedly taking the MCAT and getting low scores will make you look bad, but let's let an adcom member here give you a more solid answer.

Just kill it on your next attempt.

 

[LoveBeingHuman:)]

I ask because the premise seems extremely unfair. If a good MCAT score can’t be valid if it’s expired, why should a bad one be held against you. Seems like a double standard.

 

[infectiousdisease101]

I ask because the premise seems extremely unfair. If a good MCAT score can’t be valid if it’s expired, why should a bad one be held against you. Seems like a double standard.

Someone can easily counter that with "Why didn't you adequately prepare for the MCAT the first time?"

EDIT: If I am not mistaken, you have a choice to void your MCAT after taking it. No one would know you took it if you did. The fact you went through with it shows poor judgment on your end. Like I said, worrying does nothing. Just kill it on the next one.

Besides, the expiration is (I believe) to standardize things as much as possible.

 

[altblue]

Someone can easily counter that with "Why didn't you adequately prepare for the MCAT the first time?"

EDIT: If I am not mistaken, you have a choice to void your MCAT after taking it. No one would know you took it if you did. The fact you went through with it shows poor judgment on your end. Like I said, worrying does nothing. Just kill it on the next one.

Besides, the expiration is (I believe) to standardize things as much as possible.

You'd still reasonably expect poor scores to be disregarded too, which I think is their point.

Scores expire way too soon anyway... You have sophomores taking it who decide to take a gap year & apply senior year, not get in, and then have to retake.

Like what's the justification for score expiration? If it's to ensure content is there, only ~30% of the material is relevant is med school and isn't especially difficult to relearn.

 

[infectiousdisease101]

You'd still reasonably expect poor scores to be disregarded too, which I think is their point.

Scores expire way too soon anyway... You have sophomores taking it who decide to take a gap year & apply senior year, not get in, and then have to retake.

Like what's the justification for score expiration? If it's to ensure content is there, only ~30% of the material is relevant is med school and isn't especially difficult to relearn.

That response was me putting myself in the mind of someone who is strict on retakes.

I personally am against judging someone who has an expired bad score because as years go by, you gain experience and obtain growth, but to each their own.

 

[LoveBeingHuman:)]

That response was me putting myself in the mind of someone who is strict on retakes.

I personally am against judging someone who has an expired bad score because as years go by, you gain experience and obtain growth, but to each their own.

What I mean is if a school invalidates an achievement because time has passed, then it’s only fair for a school to invalidate failure because time has passed.

 

[freedoctor17]

Someone can easily counter that with "Why didn't you adequately prepare for the MCAT the first time?"

EDIT: If I am not mistaken, you have a choice to void your MCAT after taking it. No one would know you took it if you did. The fact you went through with it shows poor judgment on your end. Like I said, worrying does nothing. Just kill it on the next one.

Besides, the expiration is (I believe) to standardize things as much as possible.

Not voiding doesn't show bad judgement in my opinion. Many people I've talked to thought they bombed it and did much better than they expected so I'd suggest not voiding unless your practice exam scores were horrible and in that case you shouldn't be taking the real thing anyways.

 

[ciestar]

Not voiding doesn't show bad judgement in my opinion. Many people I've talked to thought they bombed it and did much better than they expected so I'd suggest not voiding unless your practice exam scores were horrible and in that case you shouldn't be taking the real thing anyways.

Keep in mind that not all expired scores are bad ones. Some belong to reapplicants forced to retake a good score, although I know this is rarer than a bad score in the past.

 

[ciestar]

What I mean is if a school invalidates an achievement because time has passed, then it’s only fair for a school to invalidate failure because time has passed.

Fair enough. 10 year old undergrad grades shouldn't be "considered" in my opinion, but that's why Goro also says they do pay attention to grade trends.

 

[freedoctor17]

Keep in mind that not all expired scores are bad ones. Some belong to reapplicants forced to retake a good score, although I know this is rarer than a bad score in the past.

What does that have to do with my post lol??? I'm just arguing the point about deciding not to void showing bad judgement. I don't think it's ever a good idea to void unless you really weren't prepared before hand which in that case you shouldn't even take it. Obviously if you got really sick the day of or some other unplanned thing then that's different. Sorry if my first post wasn't clear.

 

[ReapPremed]

I don't believe MCAT scores officially expire. Some schools, you will note, will only look at an MCAT 2 or 3 years old however. Will adcoms simply ignore scores outside those windows when they make their decisions? I'm sure it varies a lot by institution...

But how does this information really help you? And who cares whether premeds think its fair? You took the test a long time ago, and got a bad score. All you can do is get a better one to prove you've changed, and maybe prepare to discuss how you identified weaknesses in your study habits, etc.

 

[Sheiko]

I don't believe MCAT scores officially expire

They do, after three years.
How Long Are MCAT® Scores Valid?

 

[MalteseFalconMD]

You'd still reasonably expect poor scores to be disregarded too, which I think is their point.

Like what's the justification for score expiration? If it's to ensure content is there, only ~30% of the material is relevant is med school and isn't especially difficult to relearn.

Money. MCAT is a reliable stream of cash.

 

[Lucca]

Money. MCAT is a reliable stream of cash.

Schools have no skin in mcat game. They don’t make money from the mcat. It’s probably a much simpler explanation: they’d like to know where you are academically TODAY, not several years ago. That being said, I think the expiration window is a bit narrow. 2-3 years isn’t a very long time. Especially when so many people are taking time off between UG and med school.

 

[boogiecousins94]

I took it senior year of undergrad and took two gap years (if I matriculate), if I don't get in this cycle my mcat is expired for a majority of schools and I got a 515, it's just bad timing when I took it but I agree the window should be another year or 3 years within applying not matriculating.

I literally wanted to wait another year before I applied but was it worth having to retake a good mcat without ever using it at all? It stinks

 

[ciestar]

What does that have to do with my post lol??? I'm just arguing the point about deciding not to void showing bad judgement. I don't think it's ever a good idea to void unless you really weren't prepared before hand which in that case you shouldn't even take it. Obviously if you got really sick the day of or some other unplanned thing then that's different. Sorry if my first post wasn't clear.

Forgive me, it was late and maybe I misunderstood you lol

 

[freedoctor17]

Forgive me, it was late and maybe I misunderstood you lol

you are forgiven 😛

 

[altblue]

Schools have no skin in mcat game. They don’t make money from the mcat. It’s probably a much simpler explanation: they’d like to know where you are academically TODAY, not several years ago. That being said, I think the expiration window is a bit narrow. 2-3 years isn’t a very long time. Especially when so many people are taking time off between UG and med school.

Though the A$A$M$C does

 

[gyngyn]

Silly assumption. If the ad com sees a good but expired mcat, they'll still impressed and it will help you....

A subsequent weak score would muddy the water sufficiently to give a completely different impression.

 

[Lawpy]

Will a poor score count against you even if it’s expired?

This is why it’s important to take the MCAT only once when you are most ready and then apply with the best possible application. Leaving too much time between MCAT score release and application submission risks having your MCAT score expiring, which forces you to retake the exam with the goal of matching or surpassing the score. This is not easy if the first score is already high but expired but it’s doable (there are people who retook expired 36 and got a mid-520s score on retake)

Poor scores don’t look good but if you do significantly better on the retake, it may help. But how adcoms see multiple scores for evaluation purposes is unknown and up to individual interpretation and preferences.

 

[Goro]

Will a poor score count against you even if it’s expired?

It will at my school. We average everything. EDIT: but going from low to high is looked upon more favorably than low to low, or worse, high to low. High to high won't get penalized.

The reason scores expire, but our averaging them doesn't, is because knowledge decay is a real thing. AMCAS has also found that averaging scores in more accurate of a predictor than the most recent score.