Anyone else scared about low MCATs?

[Guest LIchtman]

After my interview, I am coming to grips with the fact that I may not "make the grade" so to speak...with my 9/P MCAT...and my 3.83 GPA....

 

Anyone know of anyone who got in last year just making the cutoff's for MCAT?

[Guest juniper]

no worries, lichtman... your mcat IS boderline, but you gpa is REALLY strong. and don't forget that they take a cumulative mcat mark, so even if you'r verbal/writing scores were low, you're still fine with high science marks. and get this: a friend of mine got in (first round of invites, too!) with a gpa 0.1 points lower than yours, and with a cumulative mcat under 30...

 

bascially, if you had a good interview, i think your chances are still amazing...

 

as for me...oh brother...don't even ask. i've already convinced myself that i'll be doing this again next year!

 

good luck

[Guest 9901birdie]

O they also look at the cumulative MCAT?

 

Thought the 25% of MCAT is only V+W ?!

[Guest JSS02]

They count ONLY the verbal and writing sample in the MCAT portion of their post-interview decisions...

[Guest Lichtman]

Hey Juniper

I see you and I have the same negative feelings, as expressed in the Western forum, but everyone else tells me to think positive.

 

By the way, I do believe that they do NOT look at your cumulative MCAT..only VR and WS combined, even if they did, I wouldn't fair much better with my 10 and 11....

 

think positive though!

[Guest UWOMED2005]

I don't really know my classmates MCAT scores. . . on the first day they showed us a bunch of stats on the class but made a point of NOT showing MCAT scores or GPA. I think it was to discourage the kind of competition that might result (my MCAT score is bigger than yours!) It's also not really the kind of topic that comes up in conversation much.

 

For some reason, I do know a number of people's GPAs. . . (it's come up in conversations about undergrad programs, etc.) and I know a fair number of people who were right at the cutoff for GPA and had no problem getting in. As GPA is weighted the same as MCAT, I don't think having MCATs right at the cutoff is a big deal. In fact, remember these two things:

 

1) The MCAT is on a bell curve. . . so there's more people right at the cutoffs and very, very few people with 15s.

2) The MCAT is worth only 25% of the Western calculation and as you've read on the Western admissions forum a P OR A 9 IS NOT EQUAL TO ZERO. I'm not sure of the exact calculation, but my impression/the rumour I've heard is that 'P's and '9's are worth closer to about 75-80% (the GPA cutoff if you try to calculate 3.65 back to percentage) so that MCAT and GPA truly are equal weighting in the end. In other words, YOU'RE GPA AND MCAT DON'T COUNT FOR ALL THAT MUCH! A good/great interview score can make the difference.

 

Good Luck and hopefully I meet you guys in late August.

 

-JJ

[Guest TimmyMax]

Hey guys,

 

Seeing as how most of you just interviewed this past weekend, you all seem to be going through the "I'm not good enough therefore I'm not getting in" stage, which is perfectly normal- I know b/c I went through it myself! The good news is that it'll pass, so no worries!

Okay, wrt the MCAT evaluation. Here is the impression that I get. Last year, with the VR+WS=21 deal, VR was taken at face value and for WS, a numerical score was assigned to each grade, I think it was P=10. I think what happen is that they'll add your scores together and then multiply it by some factor to get a score out of 25. Considering that the maximum score by this formula (WS of T=14, and VR = 13 for a total of 27), just by making the cutoffs (9P), you've got like a 19 already, so don't sweat it! This is strictly conjecture on my part, so don't quote me on anything, I'm just a lowly applicant like yourselves, on the outside looking in.

Besides, it's all done now, so the best thing to do is just let it go, cuz there's nothing you can do to change anything at this point anyway! Admittedly, the temptation to overanalyze our performances is overwhelming at times, just like the need to post on these forums- I'm guilty of it, just like the rest of us!

BTW, I heard that a 3.83 GPA was a very good entering grade!

 

Best of luck to all of you and may we all get the chance to meet in September!

 

Timmy

[Guest UWOMED2005]

Thanks for the bout of confidence, Timmy!

 

Unlike other schools, which look at your cumulative GPA, Western, lucky for me, uses your last best year as the addmissions GPA. Woohoo! I can't tell you how happy I was to find out about this. More importantly, I thought at first the two year GPA thing was two previous years, but they include the current year as well! We all know this, I am sure, but I am very happy about it.

 

It's my one shot into medicine, I think, because even if I get 4.0 this year, it wouldn't make to much of a difference for any other schools, or admissions this year.

 

Hopefully, the MCAT cutoffs don't change again next year, or else I have to write it again, and that is an experience I am sure nobody would want to go through again.

 

Lets just hope my interview wasn't the bomb I, and many others with their own, think it was.

[Guest UWOMED2005]

Hey Lichtman,

 

You might have noticed that I 'edited' your message. . . I'm still new to this 'moderator' thing and I wanted to check out this editing feature I'm supposed to have - I changed a "there" to "their" (grammar correction. . . good thing nomuS isn't a moderator here or you'd see alot more of them.)

 

BTW. . . also just wanted to also point out that just because some of us who post here are in med school, doesn't mean we're really on the 'inside' or anything. Alot of the admissions process is a mystery to us as well. . . but our classmates and ourselves have been through it, and a couple of them are on the admissions committee, so we might be a little more 'in the know' than some of the other applicants. So take our info with a grain of salt, but I do hope it is of some use.