<p>I'm a freshman (I'm classified as a sophomore, however) and I'm planning on taking the MCAT next summer. I'm currently finishing up my second semester of Biology and General Chemistry. I still have yet to take Organic or Physics. Today I completed the Physical Sciences portion (just out of curiosity) of a practice MCAT on AAMC and I scored a 8 on the section. I read online that anything above a 10 on each section is considered sufficient. I completely guessed on the physics portion, but is this a good start? I got 33/52 of the questions correct.</p>
<p>**Next summer as in 2013</p>
<p>A “good” MCAT score depends on a number of things–including what kinds of med schools you’re aiming for and your state of residence. (Some state med schools have strong in state preferences. Some less populous states have less competition for in-state admission.)</p>
<p>Here’s aggregate data for 2009-2011:</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/161690/data/table17.pdf[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/download/161690/data/table17.pdf</a></p>
<p>If you’ll notice the median MCAT score has been rising steadily for the past 3 years and is now at 31.1 for all matriculants. And remember this data include the MCAT scores of students in guaranteed admission programs.</p>
<p>In general, one should aim for an evenly balance score across all 3 sections. The verbal score is particularly important. You should be aiming at a minimum of 10-11 in each section.</p>
<p>One section of one practice MCAT exam tells you nothing about your potential score. You might have gotten lucky on the question selection. (It does happen.) IOW, don’t get too excited by your practice results. They don’t mean anything yet.</p>
<p>Also as an aside, practice exam results tend to be higher than actual exam scores due to a variety of reasons–usually by 2-3 points.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And URMs, and hooked candidates, and D1 and Olympic athletes…</p>
<p>Well does it help that I’m a URM?</p>
<p>It WILL help that you are a URM but you’re MCAT practice experience is so minimal that to draw any conclusions now from one time taking one section is silly.</p>
<p>30+ is good if you are a URM
33+ is good if you are white
35+ is good if you are asian
37+ is good if you are asian AND from california</p>
<p>I completed verbal reasoning and biological sciences today. </p>
<p>VB: 10
BS: 7</p>
<p>Overall: 25</p>
<p>I didn’t do the writing portion because it will be eliminated by the time I take it (August 2013).</p>
<p>@Rainbowbrite: While you have the right idea, I don’t think Asians from California need a 37+. A 36 is already the 99th percentile, I believe. I know a lot of asian med school matriculants in Cali with 32’s. </p>
<p>The key to getting into Med school isn’t just your MCAT score; it’s the overall application: GPA, MCAT, Extracurriculars, etc.</p>
<p>^ Maybe there is some difference between 1) those from California who get into any California med school and 2) those from California who get into a non-California, non-top-20 med school.</p>
<p>I think it is all about supply-and-demand: If too many asians flock to a med school, like in the case of ALL California med schools, the standard becomes higher for that school. If too many asians flock to any other med school that is not in California, the standard for that school and for that specific ethnic group will likely be higher.</p>
<p>As another example (for ECs required in the college application cycle though), if there are very few asian applicants who excel in a major D1 sport but too many golf players or math competition winners, the one who excels in D1 sport is rarer and more easily stands out and get accepted by a college.</p>
<p>Any ethnic group (and gender) needs to go through this process over the years as it was the case for Jews (and females) about 50-100 years ago; before that, likely German descendents, Catholics, etc.</p>
<p>@Mcat2: That’s very true too, which isn’t quite fair in my opinion. What constitutes the difference between a rare white with a 32 from a super common asian with a 36?</p>
<p>“Rare white with a 32”, “super common asian with a 36”? What exactly is your evidence to support this?</p>
<p>Look at <a href=“https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/157998/mcat-gpa-grid-by-selected-race-ethnicity.html”>https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/157998/mcat-gpa-grid-by-selected-race-ethnicity.html</a> . It contains tables breaking down MCAT and GPA by ethnicity.</p>
<p>For 4.0 GPA and 39-45, for White people there are 784, for Asians there are 432. For Black people there are 12, for Hispanics there are 34.</p>
<p>To look at the number you used, of 36, at 4.0 GPA and 36-38, there are 2175 White people and 994 Asians.</p>
<p>White people are not super-low scoring. I took the MCAT with only one month of studying and scored in the mid-30s, sufficient for Ivy League. And judging by the statistics, “32” is not a “rare white”, and 36 is not “super common” for Asians.</p>
<p>And in regards to Mcat2, that last paragraph seems something of a jump from the economic perspective above it in your post. Did you mean to imply that woman had gone through a Holocaust of male oppression in this country? The juxtaposition of elements makes me wonder about that.</p>
<p>My own comment on this: the soft science of class identity involves inducing knowledge of shared suffering. Ellul briefly touched upon this general topic. Note that I say “induce” because it can in fact be artificial. In a country of 300 million, you have a limited amount of television air time and with such a large population you are never going to lack for incidents of one crime committed by one group against another, so consequently if one wishes one can use the psychological tactic of framing and proceed to report all the crimes of one group against another as racial crimes or hate crimes, while ignoring and choosing not to report any crimes committed in the reverse direction. For example, in school we are all taught about the KKK, at a vulnerable age when we are easily scarred (which is the point), but the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam committed acts of racial terrorism at the time as well. But no one teaches people about that in school (isn’t that convenient?) so it isn’t part of the popular experience or popular psyche. Much of history thus as it popularly exists is actually a fiction of selective editing.</p>
<p>In other words, as Hayek commented concerning unions, because groups are able to highly organize themselves, they are able to force preferential conditions for themselves, and the unorganized groups end up increasingly bearing hardships to balance the budget and the results of economic recession. And this is why we have people who are given preferential access to medical schools because of their ethnicity / sexual orientation / factional membership when their scores otherwise wouldn’t deserve it. The concept of “under” in “under represented minority” is an entirely arbitrary one and people only begin keeping figures and statistics on a group when they already are a politically powerful lobbyist group.</p>
<p>There are all sorts of groups that could contribute to “Diversity”, but that actual concept is very narrowly used. It is not a question of economics as Mcat2 suggests, but rather of politics.</p>
<p>^Satire? </p>
<p>
<a href=“http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886914000324”>http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886914000324</a></p>
<p>And just in case anyone didn’t notice, this thread is 2 years old</p>
<p>HK, please use old threads for information only, do not post and revive them. If there is a subject you want to discuss, please use the New Discussion button to start your own thread.</p>