Who takes the MCAT?

[SUP360]

I have a question: who takes the MCAT? If schools want to choose people in the 95 percentile, who are all those thousands of other people?

Is there a graph somewhere that shows what percent of the people taking the MCAT stated in their sign-up that they were taking it for pre-medical school?

Like, when they say you are "90th percentile", are you being ranked out of only people who stated they are going for medical school or are you ranked against everyone taking it--like people for vet school or podiatry school or other programs....

@efle @Lawper @gonnif ; thought maybe one of you might know the answer to this. Thanks

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[efle]

Medical schools are the only thing that take the MCAT, iirc. Vet takes GRE, pharm has its own PCAT, dental has its own DAT.

Podiatry I think also uses MCAT but considering how tiny that group is and how low the average scores needed are, I think you can safely think of it as just the people that survived the prereqs and are hoping to soon apply to medical school.

 

[SUP360]

Thanks for your answer! I'm surprised, cause when you register for the mcat, it asks you "What is your primary reason for taking this test?", and there are a lot of choices on the drop-down list. So I am wondering if AAMC produces a table with the numbers of people assigned to each choice from that list.

 

[efle]

What are some of the other answers? I mean the thing is even called the Medical College admissions test and I don't think I've ever seen AAMC describe it as anything other than testing for potential entry into medical studies

 

[SUP360]

I can't look at the menu right now since I have already registered for the test, my registration is locked in... I can't even remember but I think it was podiatry, veterinary, test-prep, some foreign things, and D.O./M.D.
I'd just be interested to know what group you're being ranked in when you get your percentile: ALL the people who took it, or just the people taking it for MD, or just the people taking it for MD/DO, or what...

 

[SUP360]

@efle
I can see the menu now: here are the choices for programs when you sign up for the MCAT

• M.D.
• D.O.
• D.P.M. (podiatry)
• D.V.M. (veterinary)
• Other doctorate

So, you see, your percentile is not out of only MD/DO applicants. So I'd like to know the adjusted percentile, like how do I rank only among med school applicants..........

 

[zukunft195]

@efle
I can see the menu now: here are the choices for programs when you sign up for the MCAT

• M.D.
• D.O.
• D.P.M. (podiatry)
• D.V.M. (veterinary)
• Other doctorate

So, you see, your percentile is not out of only MD/DO applicants. So I'd like to know the adjusted percentile, like how do I rank only among med school applicants..........

Vet schools generally prefer GRE scores over MCAT scores.

The AAMC publishes the average MCAT scores of allopathic med school applicants, as well as the average MCAT scores of matriculants -- and the standard deviations for each. You can find these data here: https://www.aamc.org/download/321494/data/factstablea16.pdf

You can assume a normal score distribution, so you can use the averages and standard deviations to roughly determine your percentile among applicants and among matriculants.

 

[efle]

@efle
I can see the menu now: here are the choices for programs when you sign up for the MCAT

• M.D.
• D.O.
• D.P.M. (podiatry)
• D.V.M. (veterinary)
• Other doctorate

So, you see, your percentile is not out of only MD/DO applicants. So I'd like to know the adjusted percentile, like how do I rank only among med school applicants..........

Interesting!

Are you asking how you rank among test-takers than plan for MD? Or among test-takers that end up applying MD? If you're trying to gauge your competitiveness as an MD applicant the MSAR gives you much more useful information about this.