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11 Vr But 130 Cars?

UWOMedSci16

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freewheeler Newbie

freewheeler

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I haven't looked at the percentile comparisons for each (VR/CARS) but I would anticipate that it has more to do with looking at how they could narrow down the number of applicants rather than whether 130 CARS is necessarily equivalent to 11 VR. At least that is my understanding.

 

My initial impression is that the old MCAT is likely a little favoured in this cycle for Western considering that there just aren't that many people who will have 130 CARS scores to begin with, let alone 130 CARS and then 127+ in Bio and Chem/Phys. Also, with Bio on the old MCAT being lowered and the total score lowered, even if the C/P cutoff was raised by one point.

 

These are just some of my initial thoughts.

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elcrew Newbie

elcrew

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I anticipate CARS will drop once they start looking at social/psych next year....but then again just looking at how much their bio score has gone down I have no idea what's going to happen anymore. This game is too confusing

Well it's unlikely to rise above 130, because that will leave a very limited pool for selection. It just seems weird that they would choose such a high cutoff for the new MCAT, only to lower it the next year. After all, those who wrote the MCAT this past summer had (basically) nothing to study with. No leniency for that I suppose.. 

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rmorelan Community Regular

rmorelan

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extremely disappointed since came up short by two points on verbal for this mcat but would have been sitting comfortably with an interview had I not rewritten

 

gutted. 

 

disappointing - I am really surprised how high that is, and yet they obviously found a lot of people with that score.

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a7x Newbie

a7x

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They convert to a common percentile scale based on the applicant pool, this is the crucial difference. People with VR 12+ likely got in last cycle so only lower scores are left. The applicant pool just must have had many high CARS scores.

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rmorelan Community Regular

rmorelan

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They convert to a common percentile scale based on the applicant pool, this is the crucial difference. People with VR 12+ likely got in last cycle so only lower scores are left. The applicant pool just must have had many high CARS scores.

has to be some limit to that - I mean wait long enough and you are going to have an old mcat applicant pool of very few people :)

 

you would think there still should be some form of cross linking between the two. We really don't know who they are merging the two pools.

 

still gah 130 gezzz. Always good to know that you wouldn't even get an interview anymore to the school that you graduated from.

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PurpleS Newbie

PurpleS

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They convert to a common percentile scale based on the applicant pool, this is the crucial difference. People with VR 12+ likely got in last cycle so only lower scores are left. The applicant pool just must have had many high CARS scores.

 

This is so important. Western doesn't selected their MCAT cut-offs based on the percentiles of the scores. They take all of their applicants, and basically pick the top 10% based on GPA and MCAT. If there were a lot of people with 132, 131, and 130 on the new MCAT, that cut-off is going to be higher. From the trends I've seen on the forums so far, it seems like there are more people with perfect CARS scores compared to the rare 12+ on the old MCAT (take that with a grain of salt). Chances are only a handful of people with the old MCAT had scores above 11 - thus 11 was chosen as a the cutoff.

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sart11 Newbie

sart11

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According to AAMC, an 11VR is 95th percentile, while 130 CARS is 97th. They're not that far off. 

 

https://aamc-orange.global.ssl.fastly.net/production/media/filer_public/43/5a/435aff7b-3db8-4aa0-90cb-70184be8c8b8/percentilenewmcat.pdf - New

https://aamc-orange.global.ssl.fastly.net/production/media/filer_public/5f/16/5f169a91-12b7-42e0-8749-a17f3bebe7a4/finalpercentileranksfortheoldmcatexam.pdf - Old

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Neurophilic Newbie

Neurophilic

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They're actually quite a ways off. You need to look at the bottom of both ranges because everybody who scored in that range on their actual exam will have been given a 130 or an 11. 130 is 94-97 percentile while an 11 is 85 to 95th percentile. This means that only 6% of people writing the new mcat were able to achieve a score of 130 or better while 15% of old mcat takers were able to achieve a score of 11 or better. There is quite a difference between 6% and 15% being able to meet a cutoff.  

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sart11 Newbie

sart11

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They're actually quite a ways off. You need to look at the bottom of both ranges because everybody who scored in that range on their actual exam will have been given a 130 or an 11. 130 is 94-97 percentile while an 11 is 85 to 95th percentile. This means that only 6% of people writing the new mcat were able to achieve a score of 130 or better while 15% of old mcat takers were able to achieve a score of 11 or better. There is quite a difference between 6% and 15% being able to meet a cutoff.  

That's true - it's possible that AAMC could be off on their percentiles for the new MCAT, as it primarily includes data from only 2 months of testing. In actuality more than 6% of testers could be scoring 130+. 

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Neurophilic Newbie

Neurophilic

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That's true - it's possible that AAMC could be off on their percentiles for the new MCAT, as it primarily includes data from only 2 months of testing. In actuality more than 6% of testers could be scoring 130+. 

This could be true however that is a huge discrepancy and I don't see random error being so significant. I think it has to do with how Western converted the scores. If they converted the scores according to the applicant pool then it will be different from converting the scores to the AAMC percentiles and THEN comparing everybody in the pool. It seems as though the old MCAT was favored. Considering that there was still only three sections being evaluated, the cutoffs should have stayed relatively close wrt percentile ranges, however this did not happen.   

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