<p>Eagles, if you must prepare for a section this early, I recommend the VR. This is not general advice, but I think your posts here suggest that this might be best.</p>
<p>quick question about MCAT scores:</p>
<p>Is it true that MCAT scores are valid for 3 years??</p>
<p>Yup .</p>
<p>OMG just took the MCAT. I don't really know how well I did but I sorta felt it was harder than the practice for some of the questions. It might also be beacuse I spent an hour trying to find the testing center... I even googled, but it ended up giving me the wrong address.</p>
<p>Remember, the curve is everything that matters. Harder questions -- if they're actually harder -- won't change anything in the grand scheme of things.</p>
<p>(Of course, if you excel with easy questions or disproportionately struggle with harder ones, they might disproportionately affect you.)</p>
<p>okay, i know this is a stupid question, and ive been trying to avoid asking it, but i just wanted to see what you guys thought. My MCAT score from the May 11 exam was 10 VR, 12 BS, 14 PS, (36R). I know this is a high enough overall score for the majority of med schools, but is the 10 in verbal going to set me back much? I have absolutely no intentions of retaking, but I was just wondering how I should go about picking which med schools to apply to... is this score good enough for top-25 schools? Or should I have more "safeties"? Thanks.</p>
<p>no such thing as a safety. You will get rejected from at least one school you apply to at which your MCAT score is well above their average.</p>
<p>12's across the board would have been better. You have a score which will make you competitive at pretty much every school in the country. Even with the 10. And that's all you can ask for - to be competitive. That said, you're only competitive as far as MCAT goes, and without knowing the rest of your application, I can't say that you'll get anywhere near admission at any school in the nation. For all I know you could have a 2.8 GPA.</p>
<p>If you do get rejected anywhere you know it wasn't because of your MCAT.</p>
<p>One should never apply only to top-25 schools. You should think of your score roughly as being somewhere between your lowest score (i.e. 10*3 = 30) and your actual score (36), or roughly a 33-34-ish range. Still very respectable.</p>
<p>"One should never apply only to top-25 schools. You should think of your score roughly as being somewhere between your lowest score (i.e. 10*3 = 30) and your actual score (36), or roughly a 33-34-ish range. Still very respectable."</p>
<p>That seems shady; what's the point of listing the toal score if adcoms "give you a new score"</p>
<p>They don't "give you a new score", he meant to use it as a rule of thumb to get a better idea of what kind of shot you have at a school.</p>
<p>How does the difficulty of MCAT verbal compare to that of SAT verbal?</p>
<p>No comparison. MCAT is much harder, because the curve is tougher. Obviously there's a correlation; an 800 SAT correlates well with a high MCAT score, but the exact regression equation is unavailable to me.</p>
<p>"an 800 SAT correlates well with a high MCAT score"</p>
<p>Not in my case :(</p>
<p>Given that overall MCAT percentiles tend to match up pretty well with overall SAT percentiles, I suspect the best equation is to match up your overall SAT percentiles to get a feeling for where you might land on the MCAT.</p>
<p>I recommend all of the SAT simply because more statistical information can very rarely make a situation worse, unless a math SAT score is negatively correlated (i.e. not random or positive covariation) with an SAT verbal score.</p>
<p>How is retaking the MCAT viewed by adcoms? Do they look at all the trials? Do they consider it as a weakness to take the MCAT more than once?</p>
<p>Also, what kinds of Orgo, gen chem, intro bio, and physics questions are asked on the MCAT? What is the best way of preparing for each of those subject portions?</p>
<p>Is MCAT more important or BCPM GPA?
My friend is taking MCAT this fall but she is still at the CC with me. Is that ok? Some how she has this idea that you can apply to medical school with out having your undergraduate degree. She won't listen to me. That true right? You need your undergraduate to apply to medical schools.
Since it is recommended to take MCAT early in your junior year, do you think that community college science and math combined with Kaplan tutoring book and online course would be sufficient to get a good score 35+?</p>
<p>pakbabydoll: I think the MCAT and BCPM GPA are of about equal importance. Yes, you can apply to med school without an undergrad degree. The basic things you need to apply to most med schools are only the required premed courses and your MCAT. As for getting a score of 35+ in your situation, I think you'd need to put in much effort than any other undergrad at a non-CC college. I heard that typical CC courses are generally much easier than those of non-CC colleges. I'm guessing that you'd need to do more studying on your own to do well on the MCAT.</p>
<p>then I wonder why people get there undergraduate degrees? I would say the MD schools must prefer people with undergraduate degrees. So what if you go your pre- med requirements and applied and if you don't get in then can you go to undergrad school get your degree and apply again?</p>
<p>Candidates without a bachelor's will be at a major disadvantage.</p>
<p>Taking it more than once should be avoided if at all possible...it's just a crappy, crappy, test. You should not plan on having to take it more than once - this is not the SAT or ACT.</p>
<p>Also keep in mind prior to the full switchover to computer, taking the test more than 3 times required written permission from the AAMC to take the test again. While that changed with the computer switchover, med schools will probably not be very forgiving of those with multiple attempts for a super long time, if ever (old habits and standards die hard).</p>
<p>As for the bachelor's degree - there are actually very few schools that I know of which publicly state that you don't need a bachelor's degree: Harvard and Nebraska are the only two I know of. Of course I don't spend a whole lot of time scouring med school websites for this info, so there may be a lot. But a run through of the MSAR shows that probably close to 99% of first year matriculants start medical school with bachelor's degree in hand.</p>