<p>“One of my classmates scored a 21 on the MCATs. Now, he is chief of surgery at a top 5 hospital.” </p>
<p>You know, frugaldoctor, this is nothing to brag about since it calls your own credentials into question. Also, care to mention who this person is – assuming this isn’t another College Confidential Confabulation – so we know what hospital to avoid?</p>
<p>@PolarBearVsShark: Sorry, but MCAT has never correlated with the effectiveness of a physician or any practicing MD (I don’t really even know if the boards are), only first year and foundation medical school courses which are, of course, only focused on rote memorization of facts that will be hardly retained after such classes. The “avoid the hospital where a student had a low MCAT score” is complete BS that I hear over and over again. The MCAT would honestly make more since for those going into science doctoral programs that it does for medicine (but we have GRE subject tests for that). “Avoid the hospital where students had poor residency training/evaluations” is what I would buy. The non-clinical part of medical school training is essentially obsolete now in this day and age of chronic conditions. It and the MCAT only serve to haze pre-meds and medical students at this point and the two are misaligned in structure: Think about it, the MCAT sometimes tests things like critical reading of science based passages and an understanding of experimental results within a new context. The exams at the overwhelming majority of medical schools in foundation courses do not do this. It is mostly recall of scenarios and facts that you were taught directly (and any “higher order” questions are still restricted in a multiple choice or matching format. This of course limits how high they can go). Little analysis is required (again, better undergraduate courses have higher expectations when it comes to cognitive ability and level of understanding required and also are not multiple choice. Most medical schools still defy the research that has come out about just teaching undergraduate biology as if the same critiques should not apply to them. It’s pathetic…). The only reason I imagine the two correlate is because it gauges students’ ability to prepare specifically for one exam and do well on it (and medical school is based on non-stop assessment like it or not and whether or not the quality of the assessments are poor) and perhaps measures some foundational knowledge in science. However, again, most medical school exams do not require the same cognitive abilities needed to do well on the MCAT (an admitted pre-med can take the skills needed to do well on the MCAT and rigorous undergraduate courses and throw them in the trash for their foundation medical school courses. One only hopes the skills come out of hiding in the clinical portion and in residency). My guess is that a person good enough to get through medical school with good enough standing and then excel in their residency program of choice to get to high positions is indeed qualified regardless of the MCAT score. </p>
<p>Is OP a ■■■■■? </p>
<p>Thanks for your reply, bernie12 – but… ever hear of paragraph structure? (They cover it in the SAT Writing section.)</p>
<p>The MCAT isn’t hazing. Hazing is when a frat bro turns you upside down and funnels whiskey into your mouth when you request that you only want seltzer water. I believe, to use medical school jargon, they refer to the MCAT as a selection tool. </p>
<p>I can appreciate your opinions, however, although I disagree with all of them.</p>
<p>@PolarBearVsShark: It’s very early in the morning (I’m only up due to a shifted sleep schedule), you know what I’m saying and this is an internet forum, not a professional forum or interview. I consider a weeder tool as hazing when it does not emphasize the skills actually needed to be successful in the environment…You can disagree with it, but the vast amount of literature supports the idea that medical school exams and the basic sciences curricula at medical schools DOES NOT emphasize analytical abilities.</p>
<p>The testing style of the MCAT is probably actually better at that. The two are misaligned. They want the students who can think critically in science and then they bring them in and then use pedagogical techniques and assessments that de-emphasize the same skills used to select them. The clinical years emphasize it and the licensing exams reward them to some extent, but the foundation courses do not. You can look this up. Feel free to disagree with me and the vast amounts of literature that criticizes (in almost a scathing fashion) medical education including the structure of clinical years and residency. Much of the critiques comes from MD’s, medical school associations, and medical school administrators themselves. I mean, there are whole documents charting the efforts of several institutions, even elite ones, attempting to reform medical education. They acknowledge that there are problems and that it is very difficult to reform it. I believe that many people even question the selection process. It has obviously had profound effects on the academic environments of both undergraduate institutions and the medical schools themselves. </p>
<p>Feel free to remain in denial about the state of pre-medical and medical education and the supposed links of the MCAT score to being a good physician. Noticed how they’ve changed the MCAT again as there is a movement toward competency based medicine and integrated science so they claim (not being adopted by hardly any of the medical schools, but it has been established as the ideal in the medical community apparently). If they thought the MCAT was so awesome for the purposes they claim, it would just stay the same for an eternity (as it probably should, most medical schools can’t move any slower reforming the curriculum. Students don’t seem to failing the foundation courses at most). You know, like how the SAT is awesome and has never changed at all. </p>
<p>@polarbearvsshark: Actually, that is something to brag about when the thread is about who deserves admission based upon scores. I am absolutely proud of my classmate because he was my anatomy partner, his wife babysat my daughter and he accomplished so much despite what CC would have judged to be unacceptable MCAT scores. If he was a URM, there would probably be a LONG thread about the unfairness of his admission. Nevertheless, I am most proud of him for revealing his MCAT score after he heard some of the rhetoric about AA. It demonstrated that there was a double standard applied to the AA argument; it was completely unfair and possibly racist. But I am not going to reveal his name. Hopefully one day he will become a member of CC and will do so on his own. I wish more providers would reveal their scores help put the MCAT score in context with achievement. </p>
<p>Why don’t you ask the OP to reveal his/her true identity? </p>
<p>The OP has already revealed enough for Emory students to know more or less who he is… If we took the effort to find him.</p>
<p>There is no context lol. The people who did well are smart by certain standards. Primarily, the ability to handle difficult multiple choice test that stresses higher order skills. But guess what, some students may be able to outperform them on free response exams of the same caliber. Of course, many such students are in grad. school or are MDPh.Ds. The test hardly measures what we want to believe it does. It’s a weeder tool just like GPA. Of course that weeder tool has been hijacked and compromised by those involved in the pre-med culture that encourages students to avoid challenging courses and instructors (seriously, unless you’re brilliant, challenging yourself more than normal can only hurt you if you want to get in). The rigidity here has resulted in artificial inflation that has benefited higher ranked medical schools. </p>
<p>Oooh, Bernie. I got something for you to read. Check your PMs</p>
<p>I took my MCAT exam almost 20 years ago. Recently, I noticed someone studying a Kaplan MCAT book that had relevant medical topics. I believe she was studying an immunology section and it looked like an introductory level review to clinical immunology. This was so different from the exam I remembered. Mine was related to the standard premed courses that I was required to take and had minimal clinical relevance. Has the exam become clinically relevant over the years?</p>
<p>@frugaldoctor: No, she just needed to know the body systems which includes immunology, and she was probably nervous and went a step forward to review clinical immonology. BTW, I unfortunately believe that many students, up until they start prepping, believe that the MCAT is a content based, regurgitation oriented exam (and try to absorb and memorize as much information about topics being covered on it as possible). I would honestly have just stuck with the Kaplan book unless I was curious. I think that, even though the student was studying Kaplan, they still thought that lots of clinically related situations would appear on the MCAT. I don’t think it’s supposed to emphasize that. Most of my friends tell me that much of the passages (and some free-standing prompts) that involve any research based or truly analytical scenario are ground in the basic sciences just as the GRE subject tests in biology and biochemistry are (the MCAT biology is just easier in my opinion because it assumes less knowledge). </p>
<p>just wanted to put it out there that I am a URM and dux of my school and I just got waitlisted at a school for which my stats are comfortably in the top 25% and rejected at a school where my stats were nicely on pare. So the notion that URMs have it easier than others seems to me a little misguided </p>
<p>The fact that you are feeling this emotion proves you to be a deserving candidate at Emory. </p>