Getting Into Medical School

Everything You Need To Know About MCAT Scoring

The MCAT test is broken down into four sections: physical sciences, verbal reasoning, biological sciences and writing. The first three sections are scored on a scale from one to fifteen with fifteen being the best score. The writing section is scored on a J - T scale. The writing section is scored by two highly trained scorers. These four scores are what make up the MCAT scoring in its entirety. If you look at the first three sections of the test, the lowest possible score is a three and the highest possible score is a fifteen. Most medical schools are looking for a score of thirty or higher and they would like to see a written score of P or Q.

MCAT scores are extremely important for students attempting to enter medical school. While having an outstanding grade point average is also very critical, having an MCAT score that falls within the schools minimum MCAT scoring range is just as important. Many schools tend to look more heavily at the MCAT score if there is a judgment call to be made about a student with an average grade point average. While many schools are looking for a score of thirty as mentioned earlier, many of the top medical schools in the country are not going to even look at students that don't score thirty five or higher.

Each of the first three sections of the test are multiple choice questions. These sections are scored based on the number of questions that are answered correctly, but each question is also weighted for difficulty. It is also important to note that there is no penalty for guessing on questions as this is a good move because there is at least a chance that the question will be answered correctly. Medical schools will look at the individual scores from each of the first three sections, but the overall combined MCAT scoring is what they are really most interested in.

The writing section is comprised of two essays that are scored by two separate trained scorers. These scorers will give each essay a grade of one through six. These two scores are added together and then converted to the letter scale that was mentioned at the top of the article. This writing score is then combined with the multiple choice section scores to give an overall MCAT scoring picture of that student. Consistency is also very important in this test. If a person were to score very high in two sections, but very low in another, their overall score might be good, but most schools want consistency in all three areas.