All Posts Tagged With: "MCAT"

Hint: it’s not chemistry.

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Ever since I started studying for the MCAT, I’ve been worried about the physics section.

Apparently it’s just an irrational fear. Whenever I’ve brought it up here in my blog, most commenters have assured me that the physics questions are so basic, Forrest Gump could answer them all correctly and have enough time left over to start narrating his life story to the person sitting next to him. Which, of course, is why everyone who writes the test gets a perfect score on the physics section.

It turns out I might have been worrying about the wrong section. Apparently the lowest-scored section on the MCAT isn’t the physical sciences. Or biological sciences. It’s the verbal reasoning section.

According to this chart from the AAMC, verbal reasoning had the lowest mean score among test takers in 2010. The physical sciences, which consists of general chemistry and physics questions, had a mean score of 8.3. The verbal reasoning section had a mean score of 7.9 (this is on a 15 point scale). And Examkrackers claims that the average score on verbal reasoning is a 61 per cent.

For some reason I always thought that verbal reasoning was the section that most people could expect to score decently on. Perhaps it’s because, unlike the physical or biological sciences, there isn’t any specific background knowledge required.

But after looking at some practice problems, I think I’ve realized why it’s the toughest section. Most of the questions were apparently designed by Confucius, with some editorial input by Yoda and Master Po.

For instance:

1. According to the passage, an image is a versatile tool that:

A) is always visual, never abstract.

B) can be either abstract or visual.

C) is always abstract, never visual.

D) is neither visual nor abstract.

That leaves me with a new hobby for this summer. Instead of whining about physics, like I’ve been doing for the past couple months, I plan to whine about verbal reasoning instead.

Unless the patient is on a train, physics doesn’t help

Train photo courtesy of kaffeeeinstein on Flickr

I forgot how much I hate physics.

If studying for the MCAT only included biology, chemistry, and verbal reasoning, I might have a serious shot. But throwing physics into the mix has me worried.

Way back in first year, almost three years ago, I thought I was saying goodbye to physics. Forever. After writing my exam, I would never have to see its face again. No more calculating the distance traveled by a projectile. Or determining how long it takes a soccer ball thrown from a height of 80 metres with an initial velocity of 10 metres per second to reach the ground. As for those two trains —the ones that are speeding towards each other, with hundreds of hypothetical passengers’ lives at stake — who cares what their final speed is, or how long it takes them to collide? Not me.

At least, I didn’t care until this summer. Now that I’m studying for the MCAT, physics has returned from the past — like a bad guy in an action movie who I thought was dead, but instead of shooting him a second time (just to be sure), I turned my back and didn’t notice the ominous music.

The problem is that the last time we saw each other, it didn’t end very well. Every time I tried to patch things up, physics would bring up the centrifugal force. Now, I’m asking myself: why is physics even tested on the MCAT?

Biology makes sense. Mostly. Some of the specifics seem a little irrelevant, like the details of cellular metabolism, but hey, med school is all about biology, right? And as much as I hate chemistry, I grudgingly accept the fact that it has a place in med school, too. Sure, I’d like to lie to myself and claim that chemistry has no real-world applications in medicine. But then I’d have to ignore the existence of pharmaceuticals (even the boring sections in my organic chemistry textbook are important for future doctors).

But for some reason, back when the MCAT was being created, someone stupidly invited physics to the party. I just don’t see how physics can help a doctor treat their patients. Unless the patient is a passenger on a train. A train that is heading south at a velocity of 80 kilometers per hour, on the same tracks as a train that is heading north at a velocity of 72 kilometers per hour…

It’s coming in 2015. So write it now.

Although I’m feeling more and more nervous as the Medical Colleges Admission Test (MCAT) looms closer, a part of me is glad that I’ll be writing it soon.

Not just because I’ll be glad to get it over with, like ripping the band-aid off as quickly as possible. There’s an even bigger reason: even though the MCAT already covers biological sciences, physical sciences, verbal reasoning and writing, it’s about to become even more comprehensive.

For the first time in nearly 25 years, the MCAT is undergoing a revision.

Although the MCAT has gone through four major revisions in the past, it has supposedly been unable to “consistently predict personal and professional characteristics.” Meaning, although it can test someone’s knowledge of organic chemistry, it can’t evaluate their bedside manner.

The Association of American Medical Colleges recently released preliminary recommendations for the new test, such as lengthening the exam by 90 minutes and including questions on disciplines such as sociology and psychology. According to the article in the New York Times, questions about how “someone living in a particular demographic situation… might perceive and interact with others” could test analytical and reasoning skills in areas such as ethics, philosophy and cross-cultural studies.

In other words, by adding additional material, the new test will require additional studying. So try to write the MCAT before 2015, when the changes come into effect.

-Photo courtesy of gadl

Here’s what you need to know

If you’re in high school and thinking about one day applying to med school, here’s what you need to know right now.

It all starts with choosing your undergraduate degree. The first thing to consider: you don’t necessarily have to go into the sciences. Although a degree in the health sciences is the traditional route to med school , it’s certainly not your only option. Most med schools across Canada treat every undergraduate degree equally, and embrace “well-rounded applicants.” Meaning, a degree in music or sociology might actually give you an advantage in terms of standing out from the crowd.

However, there’s a huge barrier facing non-science students: the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT), an exam that assesses problem solving, critical thinking, writing skills, and scientific knowledge. In order to score well on the MCAT, med school hopefuls should have at least a basic background in the sciences, something that a music or sociology degree doesn’t exactly cover. Further, many med schools have prerequisite science courses, such as organic chemistry or physics.  A more traditional pre-med program- such as the Biomedical Sciences- has the prerequisite science courses automatically built-in, which also has the helpful side-effect of preparing you for the MCAT.

Of course, a music or sociology student can still take these science courses as electives and prepare for the MCAT. Not to mention, some med schools don’t require the MCAT, such as the Faculty of Medicine at McGill and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. The bottom line: although there is no “right” undergraduate degree, when pursuing a non-traditional degree, you have to chase down those science prerequisites and keep the MCAT in mind.

Secondly, pay attention to the details. Specific admissions requirements vary between particular schools, and you don’t want to ruin your chances by missing something minor. For instance, to be considered at the University of Western Ontario’s Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, each year of undergraduate study must contain at least 3 full course equivalents whose published academic level is at or above the year of study. This means in your second year of study, 3 of 5 full course equivalents must be at the second year or above, and in your third year of study, 3 of 5 full course equivalents must be at the third year or above (in your fourth year, a mix of third and fourth year courses is acceptable).

There are plenty of other details that vary from school to school: Western considers an applicant’s two best years of study (the whole “3 full course equivalents” rule only applies to these two years), whereas McMaster’s Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine considers every single undergraduate course ever taken. Other med schools consider your two most recent years of study, while others let you drop a certain number of low marks.

Most importantly: although high marks will help your chances of success at any med school, they’re only one part of your application. Most med schools consider extracurricular experience and hobbies, volunteer work, medically-related experience, research experience, and so on.

-Photo courtesy of The National Guard

Plus, average GPA and test scores and which schools require the MCAT

Gaining admission to medical school is a competitive process. In the table below, Success Rate indicates the percentage of applicants who received at least one offer of admission. Note that success rates for in-province applicants are generally higher than for out-of-province, because most medical schools reserve nearly all of their seats for local students. The grade point average (GPA)—or R score in Quebec’s CEGEP system—shows the average for successful applicants. The medical college admission test (MCAT) is a standardized test required for admission at many faculties. CLICK ON CHART TO ENLARGE

Statistics on applicants, admissions and success rates are for 2008-2009. MCAT scores are for students entering in fall 2009. GPA scores are for students entering in 2010, except those flagged with an asterisk, which are from 2009. ††All figures for Queen’s are from 2006-2007. †Includes all Maritime provinces. **Located at Lakehead and Laurentian universities. Note: higher international success rates at some universities may be misleading, given that at some institutions the number includes students who applied for positions available under contract with foreign governments or educational institutions.

Source: Office of Research and Information Services, Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada; MCAT scores obtained directly from Canadian medical schools.

Getting a C in chemistry may not be a barrier to that white coat, as med schools reassess their admissions

If you ever wanted to be a doctor, but were scared off because of all the science you would have to learn, you may soon be in luck. Canadian medical schools are taking a closer look at their admissions practices, and prerequisites like the much-feared Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) are no longer seen to be as imperative as they once were.

Just how picky medical schools should be about students being well-versed in the scientific foundations of human anatomy is a decades-old debate. But now, lacking a solid grasp of science might not be a barrier to getting that white coat.

For 25 years, Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York has reserved around 30 spaces for students who haven’t taken physics, calculus, organic chemistry or the MCAT. A recent study on the Mount Sinai program, co-authored by the school’s dean emeritus Nathan Kase, concluded that students admitted through the humanities and medicine stream “performed at a level equivalent to their premedical classmates.”

In Canada, there are already two medical programs, McMaster University and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, that have no science requirements, either through course prerequisites or the MCAT. Several others are reviewing their core application requirements.

The University of British Columbia is undergoing a curriculum review that could see a revamping of at least one first-year medicine course so that it no longer presumes an extensive science background. According to Joseph Finkler, associate dean of admissions for medicine, that could open the door to revising the selection process. “It is possible that we will end up with multiple admissions streams, including one without the prerequisites and MCAT,” he said. Lewis Tomalty, Queen’s University’s vice-dean, medical education, says that while some science is “necessary,” encouraging students with a range of academic backgrounds to apply is beneficial to the classroom. “We’re looking at how extensive [science prerequisites] have to be and are certainly looking to change the actual admissions requirements,” he said. Similarly, the Université de Montréal has put a committee in place to review whether its list of science requirements creates an unnecessary barrier to pursuing a career in medicine.

But the school that is farthest along in this process is McGill University. In July, McGill announced that it would no longer require prospective students to take the MCAT. The faculty of medicine will also be reserving three spaces for “non-traditional” students, giving great weight to things like work experience. They will also be exempt from having to complete their first degree full-time, a common prerequisite intended to ensure students can handle the workload. Saleem Razack, assistant dean of admissions at McGill, says these policy changes are needed “so that the excellence that students with diverse life experiences can bring to the medical profession can be assessed and valued.”

The key is finding the right balance, says Miki Rifkin, who oversees the humanities and medicine program at Mount Sinai. While her students are exempt from most science prerequisites, they still have to take introductory chemistry and biology, and have an otherwise exemplary academic record. The goal is to encourage students who might otherwise be deterred at the prospect of the MCAT to pursue medicine. “We want to make a difference for students passionate about some non-science area,” she said.

“The older way of thinking is that doctors should be scholars and scientists first,” says Terry Wuerz, who earned his medical degree from the University of Manitoba in 2007. “I think it’s great that med schools are starting to recognize the different roles doctors play.”

There are, of course, hurdles to reform. Using the MCAT and having science prerequisites are very useful for sorting through thousands of applications. “How do you choose the ones you’re going to interview?” asks Tomalty. While Mount Sinai non-science students do well overall, they do struggle during their first two years, and perform less well on medical licensing exams.

This is consistent with the experience at Canadian schools, says Harold Reiter, chair of admissions at McMaster, but that doesn’t detract from the generally high performance of the non-science students, he said. “Once they have caught up, they do every bit as well as their science-background peers.”

Why are Canadian law schools so wedded to a standardized test that has nothing to do with the law?

Last week all the scuttlebutt was about medical schools that are removing the MCAT as an admission requirement. Right here at home, McGill just axed the standardized test as a mandatory part of an application.

I’ve never written the MCAT, but from my understanding, it does, in fact, test things that one would probably need to know for medical school, like biological sciences. I know I like my doctor to know about biological sciences, personally.

So if medical schools are starting to ease up on requirements for a standardized test that appears to at least have some relevance to the future subject matter at hand, why are Canadian law schools so wedded to a standardized test that has nothing to do with the law? All of the English common law schools in the country have it as a mandatory requirement, and while the LSAT isn’t mandatory for the French schools, some do require applicants to disclose their score if the test was written and many use it as a factor in admissions.

Can anyone present a really strong argument for it as a requirement? I do see the value for admissions officers, to be sure. Potential law students come from literally every corner of the undergraduate academic world, and the LSAT is a ready-made, tried-and-tested way of assigning those thousands of people, with their varied backgrounds, a standard by which to judge them against one another.

But the trick comes, as always, with the word “standardized.” The LSAT is not immune to problems that come along with all such tests, like predictive abilities for law school performance that are mediocre and apparent bias against certain ethnic groups.

Yet it’s well-known among law school applicants that many Canadian schools sort their applications into piles by LSAT score and simply axe off those below a certain percentile. How many brilliant future lawyers are lost below that line, who, for one reason or another, simply can’t handle the LSAT?

It seems to me that there’s some room here for a Canadian law school to set itself apart by announcing a new, more holistic approach to admissions by waiving the LSAT requirement and perhaps doing something like having admissions interviews, which no Canadian law school does, instead, on top of using references and personal statements and extra-curriculars and undergraduate performance. If not for a whole entering class, then perhaps schools could set aside a certain portion of first-year seats for applicants that do not require the LSAT, like the University of Michigan law school did in 2008.

Is there anything about the LSAT that makes it sacrosanct?

Claims the exam creates unequal access for Francophone applicants

McGill’s Faculty of Medicine has announced that the MCAT will no longer be a requirement for Canadian applicants.

Many med schools across Canada claim to treat every undergraduate degree equally. For these schools, the context of your GPA supposedly doesn’t matter: a 3.8 in Health Sciences, Philosophy or Social Work are all equivalent.

Some schools hedge their bets, encouraging students from a variety of backgrounds to apply, while noting that “the difficulty of the program” is taken into consideration.

The whole ‘every undergraduate degree is born equal’ policy is somewhat misleading. In addition to some schools having science prerequisites (including organic chemistry and biology courses), the MCAT has always been an Arts Degree Killer. The majority of Canadian med schools (11 out of 17) and almost every school in the U.S. require the MCAT, a multiple choice exam that assesses “problem-solving, critical thinking, writing skills and knowledge of science concepts.”

A degree in a traditional pre-med program, such as the Health Sciences or Biomedical Sciences, prepares students for the exam (and usually fulfills the prerequisite course requirement for most med schools).

Getting through the Verbal Reasoning and Writing Sample might not require any advanced scientific knowledge, but the physical sciences and biological sciences sections can pose a serious barrier to arts students with dreams of med school.

Fortunately for non-traditional pre-med students, the MCAT is becoming a thing of the past.

At least, it is at McGill.

Applicants from Canadian universities are no longer required to write the exam.

“I feel what we’ve put in place is very acceptable and will allow us to properly evaluate candidates,” Dr. Saleem Razack, assistant dean of admissions for medicine at McGill, said in an interview with the Montreal Gazette. Dr. Razack says McGill would have kept the MCAT requirement if there was a French equivalent. “But we want to make sure there’s no barrier for a major segment of our population.” According to Razack, the regular med school class from undergraduate programs doesn’t have as many francophones as McGill would like.

The Northern Ontario School of Medicine, the University of Ottawa, and Francophone medical schools in Quebec don’t require the MCAT. After meeting with MCAT representatives about translating the exam- but ultimately finding it was “too complicated”- McGill is joining their ranks (some schools that require the exam actually make certain qualifications- such as McMaster University, which only uses the Verbal Reasoning section to determine interview eligibility and admission rank).

Interestingly enough, if you check out McGill’s Faculty of Medicine website, you’ll note that candidates who are not required to write the MCAT can still submit their scores, and the overall score will be evaluated by the Admissions Committee.

Related: McGill wants ‘non-traditional’ students

-photo courtesy of comedy nose

Government caps set limits on seats

Hoping to get into med school? Great marks, tons of unique extracurricular experience, volunteer work, and high MCAT scores aren’t necessarily enough.

I recently read an article in the Globe and Mail (I happen to know the writer) that gave an overview of the whole application process. For med school hopefuls like me, it didn’t paint a very optimistic picture for Canadians. According to the article, due to government caps on med school seats, only a fraction of the qualified applicants to Canadian med schools are actually getting in.

If you were unlucky enough to be born in Ontario, your chances of getting in are the lowest in the country. The article mentions that in 2009, there were almost 5,000 qualified applicants to the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, with only 194 accepted. Given the fact that Ontario has more med school applicants than any other province, there’s a disproportionately low number of seats in the province’s med schools. In-province applicants to the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Medicine, class of 2013, had about a 33% success rate, with 295 applicants and 98 students enrolled. The success rate for Ontario applicants to the Northern Ontario School of Medicine? Only 4.3%, with 1,845 applicants and 64 seats in 2006/2007.

It’s not much better anywhere else in Ontario. Applicants to the School of Medicine at Queen’s University had an 8% in-province success rate in 2006/2007, and applicants to the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto had an 11.4% in-province success rate. As the article from the Globe and Mail points out, it’s the opposite of what you’d expect: Ontario has more med schools than any other province. But it has the lowest applicant success rate in the country, at 19%. Keep in mind, these are all excellent applicants, with high GPA’s and the qualifications each med school demands as a minimum to even apply.

It’s a little scary. For students working towards med school, the course of your future is riding on that application. But regardless of how hard you work to earn and maintain a high GPA, volunteer countless hours towards a worthy cause, and want to have a career one day in medicine, at this stage, so much is beyond your control.

Well, unless you move to Grenada. Or Manitoba.

-photo courtesy of salimfadhley