The MCAT is a standardized test required for medical school admissions, consisting of three multiple-choice sections and an essay section. MCAT percentiles measure a student’s performance relative to the average and determine their numerical score. The scoring scale is based on the previous year’s performance, and the distribution of scores is slightly skewed to the left. Top scores range from 42 to 45, while bottom scores range from three to nine. MCAT percentiles are also available for individual subsections.
The Medical School Admissions Test (MCAT) is a standardized test required for medical school admissions, and the MCAT percentiles measure a student’s performance relative to the average. This test consists of three multiple-choice sections covering physical, biological and verbal sciences, plus an essay section. The three multiple-choice sections have a maximum of 15 points, while the writing portion is scored on a letter scale from J to T. The MCAT percentiles, which are based on test performance, will determine the candidate’s numerical score.
Each year’s scoring scale is based on the performance of candidates from the previous year, so the MCAT percentiles for the current year are estimated, although they are generally very similar to previous years. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) periodically releases data on the different percentile brackets for each MCAT score. In 2008, the average MCAT score at the 50th percentile mark was 24.9, with a standard deviation of 6.4 points. The overall distribution of scores is skewed slightly to the left, meaning that there were slightly more above-average scores than below-average scores. Since scores are given in whole numbers only, each score is assigned a percentile range rather than a definitive percentile number.
Top scores on the multiple-choice sections range from a perfect 42 to a perfect 45, and all of these scores hover close to the 99.9% range. Bottom scores range from three to nine, and these scores fall in the zero to one percentile range. Scores that fall within one standard deviation of the mean range of 19 to 31, and about 68% of test takers score somewhere within that range, have MCAT percentiles ranging between the 16th and 85th percentiles.
MCAT percentiles are also available for individual subsections. In the biological sciences section, the average was 8.7 points, with a standard deviation of 2.5. The physical sciences section produced a mean of 8.2 with a standard deviation of 2.4, while the verbal reasoning section produced a mean of 8.0 with a standard deviation of 2.5. In the writing section, which grades the essays on a scale from J to T, there was a slightly larger percentage gap due to the lower number of possible scores. The 25th percentile for the handwriting sample was an M score, while the 50th percentile was a Q score, and the 75th percentile was an O score.
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