This may be old news to some of you and of zero interest, obviously, to those of who took the MCAT this year:
The writing section on the 2013 MCAT will be eliminated.
https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/mca t/
https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/mca t/reserv…
I find this really odd as I thought most med schools were looking for well rounded students who could at least put pen to paper and formulate thoughts. With the other changes upcoming in 2015 I would never have guessed they would have decided to eliminate the writing section. Interesting indeed. I was never worried about the writing section or preparing for it as I feel pretty good about my writing abilities but certainly there is the stereotype that most premeds dread it. I really wonder what the reasons behind this decision are. I thought med schools were trying to get away from the typical “science only-all the time” type student.
The explanation is somewhere on the AAMC’s website. I’m going to heavily paraphrase it. The writing section has very poor correlation with success in medical school and as a physician. The new 2015 MCAT will have sociology and psychology stuff to “actually” ensure that well-rounded candidates are assessed accordingly (I would expect a lot of the candidates’ scores on this site to go up relative to the applicant pool). It is said all over this forum that the writing score is hardly ever looked at. I’ll repeat what I said in another thread that was told to me by advisers/doctors/adcoms: if you are a good writer, show it in the personal statement and secondary essays.
Makes sense the way you put it, Matt1986. Thanks for the explanation as you understand it. I guess those of us taking the 2013 and 2014 MCAT’s will be somewhat test driving the new format with the voluntary trial section. I do, wonder, however, how the new format of psychology and sociology will be balanced with the hard science on the actual exam. I think it’s lovely they are changing the format when tradition, especially in medical education, is so darn hard to break. The “we had to do it, now they have to do it, too” mentality. From what I hear, and this is controversial, there are many in the field (medical educators, physicians, and the like) that also believe a revamping of the prereq’s wouldn’t be a bad idea either. Maybe there are some real progressives out there who managed to get the MCAT changed and it will only be the tip of the iceberg. But, I digress, because in the end, it often feels like a game, and you have to either play by the rules or quit and I’m not one to quit, so I’ll play the game and work with the changes and whatever else gets thrown at me! 