Monday, August 10, 1998
The Big One
STUDENTS: It’s the
summation of many years of study. It only comes twice a year.
And it can make or break medical school admission chances.
It’s the MCAT
By Michelle Navarro
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
As the blazing summer temperatures soar up the mercury column,
student anxiety runs higher.
It’s the countdown to the meltdown.
It’s just five days until D-day, five days until pre-med
students spend their Saturday morning taking the most important
exam of their undergraduate career: the Medical College Admissions
Test (MCAT).
"It’s extremely important. For (students), this exam is going to
have an effect on the rest of their lives," said Adrian Jenkins,
director of Hyperlearning for the Los Angeles area. "It’s pretty
major in their minds. It’s something they want to do once and do
well."
In a survey conducted earlier this year by Kaplan Educational
Centers, 50 percent of students felt the MCAT scores were a
critical factor in their medical school’s decision to admit
them.
Aside from MCAT scores, medical schools also look over letters
of reference, grades and the application essay before deciding who
deserves an interview for admission.
Kaplan reports that only about one in three applicants to
medical school actually are accepted. For the 1997 entering class,
46,968 applicants vied for about 16,000 spots.
Even with such fierce, heavy competition, gaining one of those
coveted spots is not impossible.
It just takes a lot of ambition, dedication, hard work, and as
Jamie Polito, a fourth-year biology student, said,
self-discipline.
"I’ve never studied so hard for anything else in my whole life,"
she said. "It takes self-discipline more than anything."
The test consists of four sections: biological sciences,
physical sciences, verbal reasoning and a writing sample.
The exam alone is over five hours long and tests scientific
knowledge as well as critical reasoning skills.
The multiple choice grading scale ranges from one to 15, with 15
being the highest score. The written test is graded on a letter
scale, from J to T, with T being the highest score.
The average score among all test takers is eight for the
multiple choice sections and the letter O for the written.
However, according to the Association of American Medical
Colleges, the average MCAT scores for those applicants who were
accepted in 1996 were 9.6 for verbal reasoning, 9.9 for physical
sciences, P for the writing sample and 10 for biological
sciences.
When asked if she felt prepared to take the exam, Polito shook
her head. "I don’t think you’ll ever be prepared. There’s too much
information."
Certainly no one was prepared for the technical errors of last
April’s MCAT test, which caused many student’s scores to be
inaccurate or invalid.
That wasn’t the first time a mishap occurred, either.
"Last year, the test didn’t get delivered to one of the
centers," Jenkins said. "There’s at least one major glitch every
year. We’ll have to wait and see what the next one will be."
Hopefully a disaster won’t surface this Saturday, so the
countless hours of studying will pay off.
How much should students study? The MCAT is only offered twice
each year, once in the spring and once in the fall.
According to Jenkins, a safe time to start hitting the books is
eight to nine weeks prior to the exam date. Each day, he said, it
is wise to dedicate two to four hours a day working on one’s own or
taking a prep course.
One premedical survey conducted on the Internet asked students
how long they studied for the exam.
Only 6.4 percent reported having studied for over a year, while
38.3 percent said they prepared for only three months.
"I’ll have almost two months," said Bryan Wilbur, a fourth-year
paleobiology student taking a Berkeley Review course.
"If I’m not working, eating or sleeping, then I’m studying. This
last week I’ll be in the library for the most part and in a dark
corner of my room, curled up in a fetal position," he said.
Most of the major test prep centers advise students to spend the
last week studying or reviewing, but on the last day before the
exam, the best thing to do is relax and try not to learn anything
new.
Of course, that can be a little difficult when the butterflies
of apprehension start fluttering around.
"If I don’t do so well, my scores will be sent out no matter
what," Polito said, speaking about her biggest fear. "It’s more of
a pride issue than anything."
Wilbur also has his own anxieties for the upcoming exam, but he
has developed his own plan to bring in a little luck.
"Starting three days before the exam, I’m not going to shower,"
he said with a grin, "I’m going to wear a UCLA football jersey,
basketball shorts and my lucky green underwear. Either that or no
underwear at all."
Obviously, students are doing what they can to ensure their best
performance. The stress and amount of work that goes into the MCAT
is phenomenal, enough to drive anyone insane.
However, Jenkins said students should still remember it’s not as
bad as they might anticipate.
"It’s a serious exam," Jenkins said, "but realize, it’s not the
end of the world."