The new edition of the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), which will debut on April 17 and will include social sciences for the first time, creates new challenges for pre-med students.
While some students already signed up for the new exam, others have adjusted their plans in response. Many students rushed to take the old exam while it was still being offered, and others have delayed their plans in order to prepare for the new test.
The MCAT has not gone through a major revision since 1991.
Though the test will still require knowledge in biology, physics, organic chemistry and general chemistry, the new exam will also test students’ knowledge of psychology, sociology, biochemistry, genetics and experimental design principles.
The verbal section has changed as well, as it will no longer contain natural sciences-themed passages, but rather passages that require no previous knowledge about the topics they present.
In addition to modified content, the new MCAT is significantly longer and has an updated scoring system. The test will contain 230 multiple-choice questions in four sections, and will take six hours and 15 minutes to complete. The highest possible score is 528.
The old test, which was discontinued in January, consisted of three sections — Physical Science, Biological Science and Verbal Reasoning — and consisted of 144 multiple-choice questions over three hours and 20 minutes. The highest possible score was 45.
Gabriella Miller, a junior majoring in Public Health Studies and Natural Sciences, plans to take the MCAT on that first test date of April 17. The AAMC is providing a $150 Amazon gift card to every student who takes it on that date, to encourage students to be in the pilot group.
“I am very nervous,” Miller said. “It’s very stressful not having study materials to really go off of and not having as many practice tests. I think that’s probably the biggest challenge.”
This unease about the lack of practice materials is common among many prospective MCAT-takers, particularly those like Miller, who hope to start medical school in 2016. Miller is currently enrolled in a self-paced Princeton Review course.
Miller isn’t the only Hopkins student concerned about the new MCAT. Yi Shao, a junior neuroscience major and the president of the Women’s Pre-Health Leadership Society (WPHLS), said that the new test is a popular subject at her club’smeetings. Nearly all of WPHLS’s 38 members plan to attend medical school.
“I, myself, am taking the new MCAT in June, and there was a lot of talk with my peers about whether they would take the old or the new one,” Shao said. “The majority of my friends both at Hopkins and home have chosen to take the old one because there are at least 156 years of prep material.”
Shao said that she and her fellow WPHLS members have heard from the advisors in the Pre-Professional office that medical schools are always in pursuit of holistic doctors but will now take more interest in social competencies — practical professional skills — than they have in years past.
Sociology professor Emily Agree, who teaches the course “Sociology of Health and Illness,” wrote in an email to The News-Letter that although she does not plan to structure her syllabus around the test, she believes that a basic knowledge of sociology is useful in the practice of medicine.
“Changes in our population have contributed to an evolution in the practice of medicine,” Agree wrote. “I do agree that this understanding is fundamental to good clinical practice and being a more holistic physician.”
Agree wrote that her course addresses how social disparities affect health care.
“In social science we examine and evaluate evidence outside of laboratory or clinical settings, asking students to critically examine the social context of health and evaluate its contribution to illness and well being,” Agree wrote. “The recognition that critical thinking and ability to obtain knowledge is more important than memorization has been a long time coming, and our students benefit from the capacity to discriminate among different types of evidence and to access the dynamic compendium of medical knowledge.”
According to Katie Cruit, a pre-health advisor, about 450 juniors, seniors and Hopkins alumni are applying to medical school this year. In the freshman class alone, about 800 students have expressed interest in the pre-med track.
Cruit said that the new MCAT is changing students’ plans across the board; some hurried to take the old test, while others have committed to taking the newer version. According to Cruit, about 60 percent of Hopkins students opt for a gap year before medical school.
Nevertheless, Cruit said she believes the new MCAT is an important step for future physicians.
“One of the reasons the MCAT changed is because medicine has changed significantly,” Cruit said. “Medical schools are looking for different things in candidates, and the MCAT had to catch up. It will project a student’s success in medical school. The purpose of this new MCAT is to get a better sense of a student in a much more holistic sense because the material on the MCAT is broadening. It’s including the social sciences, the social determinants of health, things that are much more prevalent in current healthcare today.”
Because of this shift in focus, Cruit says that she and her advising team are encouraging students to pursue a background in biochemistry, psychology, sociology and statistics.
Cruit said that they are also working closely with professors to ensure that students are receiving adequate preparation in order to attain a good score. What exactly an impressive score is, however, remains to be seen.
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