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According to the AAMC, The Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) “is a standardized, multiple-choice examination created to help medical school admissions offices assess your problem solving, critical thinking, and knowledge of natural, behavioral, and social science concepts and principle prerequisite to the study of medicine.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is a very difficult standardized test. Standing in at 7.5 hours to complete, students can score between 472 and 528 points. The scoring follows a normal distribution, with most students falling around the average of 500 points: for example, a score of 501 would be a 51 percentile. The test is not curved: it is scaled so that scores have the same meaning, regardless of test date. For context, Harvard Medical School has an average MCAT score of 518. Also of note is that MCAT scoring is not perfectly precise: your scores will come with a “confidence interval,” a band wherein your true score likely lies. AAMC argues helps discourages distinctions between similar scores.

The MCAT is a computer-based test with three topics in four sections: Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems (Section 1 and 3); Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills (Section 2); and Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior (Section 4). There is a break on the test, which is normally 30 minutes (10 minutes during the shorter version of the exam provided for the Covid-19 Pandemic).

MCAT test preparation is an involved affair. AAMC has developed a guide for creating your own study plan based on the number of weeks you have until you take the test as well as the time you can spend studying per week. For the actual preparation, AAMC highly encourages best practices including: reviewing small chunks of information each day; practicing timing; creating and answering questions based on watching videos or reading a textbook; creating flashcards and vocabulary; studying with partners; studying different topics in each session; check in with professors or advisers; summarize from memory; and use online forums.

AMMC does provide free/low-cost official prep resources to students. As always, official standardized test resources are very valuable studying tools to be used under the best conditions possible – timed, proctored, and done as faithfully as possible to get the absolute best preparation imaginable.

As a final note, like all standardized tests -- whether it’s the SAT, LSAT, GRE, or so on -- the MCAT alone is just what we might call a “gatekeeper:” a good MCAT score is necessary to get considered for the best schools, but it alone is not sufficient to guarantee admission. As Magoosh points out, academics gets you into the door (an interview), but the actual interview and recommendation letters matter far more after the interview for the final admission decision. This should make perfect sense: if academics are used to see who gets interviews to medical schools, differentiating candidates after getting an interview must take into account different, non-academic factors (in other words, not GPA or MCAT scores). So, again MCAT is very important to your overall chances of admission to medical school, but is not the only determining factor.

This begs the question of why the MCAT is important to medical schools to begin with. It is the only standardized portion of medical school admissions, which are highly competitive, and it’s a very demanding requirement. Why bother? According to U.S News & Report’s Contributor, Renee Marinelli M.D, MCAT scores correlate highly with the United States Medical Licensing Examination, which has three “Steps.” Step 1 is taken after the second year of medical school, and MCAT scores correlate very well with the ability to succeed on the USMLE, especially on Step 1. Step 1 is considered the most significant USMLE exam in residency admissions decisions – as in, whether you’ll actually get to practice medicine at a good place. How big this effect is is unclear, but it’s nice to know the MCAT is a good predictor for future medical success, and hence its use.