Any good Medical Schools That do not require MCAT

[Experto]

The MCAT is a peculiarly American meassure of achievement.

This is one of the things that you have to understand. It does not measure aptitude, especially not aptitude toward medicine. It measures achievement, and not all of a person's achievement, but only verbal achievement. That's what it measures, even though it has sections on physical sciences, biological sciences, and so on. It measures your achievement in the physical sciences as a surrogate of just generic verbal achievement.

And, since a person's verbal achievement has a lot to do with such variables as parental education and income, in the end, the MCAT measures how educated your parents are and what was their income when you were growing up.

This is one of the reasons why today more than 50% of the American medical student population comes from families in which there is a lot of education, that is verbal achievement (MD-MD, MD, PhD, MD-JD, and so on); and why more than 50 % of that population come from families placed in the highest income brackets of America. Look at the statistics that are published by the AAMC.

This is really unfortunate. In the end the result is the emergence of a privileged caste of Americans who essentially pass on, through the culture of the families that they form, their own achievement, and the opportunity to go to medical school, to the next generation; while those Americans outside this emerging caste can do nothing but look on, hoping that medical school admission criteria will change someday and give them then opportunity to study medicine, or go outside of the US to a school where they laugh at something as discriminatory as a Medical College Admissions Test.

[BrendaB_MD]

Sorry, but the MCAT is a good predictor of success in medical school. You can do a search on medline and find many studies that show this. It is true that the verbal section on the MCAT is most highly correlated with med school performance -- which makes sense because medicine is mainly about learning a vocabularly.

I would not discount the fact that the MCAT partly measures achievement. Learning medicine depends, in part, on having a solid foundation. I am not sure whether to call this aptitude or acheivement but those who score well on the MCAT are better prepared and more likely to perform well in medical school.

Many people complain that the MCAT measures irrelvant material that you won't need in medical school (organic chemistry, physics, etc). I hate to break it to you but you will be faced with lots of mindless memorization in medical school -- except the volume will be 5 times anything you experienced before. If you take a broader perspective, the MCAT measures someones ability to study and successfully master a body of tedious information. Past success is the best predictor future success.

Finally, you will be faced with lots of standardized tests in your medical career. Believe me, the MCAT is child's play compared to USMLE I.

You shortchange yourself by limiting yourself to schools that don't require the MCAT. Your best bet is to go to a CA approved school that has Fed approved US loans. You want to go to a school with green book rotations. Taking the MCAT will give you access to better programs and has the potential to pay dividends throughout your career.

Originally Posted by Experto

The MCAT is a peculiarly American meassure of achievement.

This is one of the things that you have to understand. It does not measure aptitude, especially not aptitude toward medicine. It measures achievement, and not all of a person's achievement, but only verbal achievement. That's what it measures, even though it has sections on physical sciences, biological sciences, and so on. It measures your achievement in the physical sciences as a surrogate of just generic verbal achievement.

And, since a person's verbal achievement has a lot to do with such variables as parental education and income, in the end, the MCAT measures how educated your parents are and what was their income when you were growing up.

This is one of the reasons why today more than 50% of the American medical student population comes from families in which there is a lot of education, that is verbal achievement (MD-MD, MD, PhD, MD-JD, and so on); and why more than 50 % of that population come from families placed in the highest income brackets of America. Look at the statistics that are published by the AAMC.

This is really unfortunate. In the end the result is the emergence of a privileged caste of Americans who essentially pass on, through the culture of the families that they form, their own achievement, and the opportunity to go to medical school, to the next generation; while those Americans outside this emerging caste can do nothing but look on, hoping that medical school admission criteria will change someday and give them then opportunity to study medicine, or go outside of the US to a school where they laugh at something as discriminatory as a Medical College Admissions Test.

[Experto]

Of course! The MCAT is a good predictor of success in med school. I did not say it was not. Although it is a good predictor only for the first year of med school or so. But it does not predict how good a physician someone is going to be. And this is because success in medical schools depends on verbal ability and verbal achievement, which is determined by parental education and income.

Success in medical school does not depend on talent or commitment to be a good physician. To say it in educational terms: the MCAT is highly reliable, the score changes very little from one time to the next time you take it. But has no validity of any sort.

Again it measures verbal ability and nothing else, and in fact, it is just a big business - a huge educational scam - for the AAMC which makes millions off of it.

[BrendaB_MD]

The MCAT measures aptitude for medical school not for practice. As you say, those are tow difference things.

Let's assume that all you say is true and the MCAT is a completely meaningless exercise. You STILL should take it because it is a relatively minor barrier that stands between you and many potential benefits. Just hold your nose and do it.

Wait till you take USMLE I -- it is much like the MCAT in the sense that it contains lots of trial nonsense that has little to do with being a physician. I doubt that 50% of working physicians could pass that test because most of the content is irrelevant to everyday practice. Will you also boycott the USMLE?

[aranah]

If you are interested other than Caribbean medical college, then contact International school of Medicine in central Asian country. They do not require MCAT.

[martakruszcz]

SABA is the only one i can think of

[Experto]

A few years ago, an American medical school, the queen of them all: Johns Hopkins, did not require an MCAT score. Is that still their policy?

Also, it is interesting to note that the MCAT is heavily biased against people from the underrepresented minorities (these are minorities which were legally kept from attending medical school until recently: Native Americans, Mexican Americans, African Americans and Mainland Puerto Ricans.).

Don't believe me?

Do the following.

1. The AAMC publishes the average MCAT score of every state in the nation. Get them (may be in their website). Then rank-order them by putting the highest average score at the top and so on down until you put the lowest at the bottom.

2. Now go to the website of the Bureau of the Census and get the percentage of the population of every one of the 50 states that is classified as minority and rank order them in the same way as above.

3. Now put your two rank-orderings next to each other as look what you got: One rank ordering is the reverse of the other. The higest average MCAT scores belong to states like Idaho, Utah, New Hamshire, which have the lowest percentages of the population that classify as minority; while the lowest average MCAT scores belong to the states, like Luisiana and Mississippi, that have the highest percentages of minority populations. Massachussetts, which is the state that everybody believes should have the highest average MCAT score, because of the prestige of its universities, is where it belongs: somewhere in the middle and as a function of its large minority population; one Harvard cannot raise the score of an entire state.

4. But if you do not believe your eyes, do the statistics: do a correlation coefficient. You will actually get one of the highest correlation coefficients that you will ever get using real world social data, about -0.6. with a very significant p-alpha and all that. That is an almost perfect negative correlation.

As long as the MCAT score is required and used as the most important datum for deciding who enters med school in the US, underrepresented minorities will always be exactly that, underrepresented in medicine. And using the MCAT that way is what med school do, for one simple reason: if they were taken to court they could always defend their decisions, it's hard data. Been there and have seen them do it there boys and girls.

For years I have hoped that one of the organizations that works for the civil rights and the advancement of minorities (hint, hint, NAACP, **** Unida, and so on) would bring a class action suit against the AAMC for putting on the market a defective and biased product which is harming them. Such a suit would actually benefit everybody, including the most underrepresented minority in medicine, one that is invisible to everyone: poor Whites.

[BrendaB_MD]

The link between educational acheivement and income is well known. This does not mean the tests are biased. The MCAT (and other tests) are simply the messengers point to the problem. The disparities in educational achievement won't go away if the MCAT is removed.

Your correlation does not prove that the MCAT is racially biased. There are many potential confounders. As you suggest, income is probably one of them.


But, enough of these theoretical complaints about the MCAT. Let's assume that everything you say is true. What now? Unless you plan to go to Johns Hopkins, the MCAT stands between you and almost any decent med school. Are you avoiding the MCAT as some sort of social protest? Or is it because you are an underrepresented minority and you are afraid the cards are stacked against you because the test is biased? Even if everything you say is true, you are probably better off if you take the test. If you do poorly you can blame it on the above arguments. If you do well, options to attend much better programs become available.

Originally Posted by Experto

A few years ago, an American medical school, the queen of them all: Johns Hopkins, did not require an MCAT score. Is that still their policy?

Also, it is interesting to note that the MCAT is heavily biased against people from the underrepresented minorities (these are minorities which were legally kept from attending medical school until recently: Native Americans, Mexican Americans, African Americans and Mainland Puerto Ricans.).

Don't believe me?

Do the following.

1. The AAMC publishes the average MCAT score of every state in the nation. Get them (may be in their website). Then rank-order them by putting the highest average score at the top and so on down until you put the lowest at the bottom.

2. Now go to the website of the Bureau of the Census and get the percentage of the population of every one of the 50 states that is classified as minority and rank order them in the same way as above.

3. Now put your two rank-orderings next to each other as look what you got: One rank ordering is the reverse of the other. The higest average MCAT scores belong to states like Idaho, Utah, New Hamshire, which have the lowest percentages of the population that classify as minority; while the lowest average MCAT scores belong to the states, like Luisiana and Mississippi, that have the highest percentages of minority populations. Massachussetts, which is the state that everybody believes should have the highest average MCAT score, because of the prestige of its universities, is where it belongs: somewhere in the middle and as a function of its large minority population; one Harvard cannot raise the score of an entire state.

4. But if you do not believe your eyes, do the statistics: do a correlation coefficient. You will actually get one of the highest correlation coefficients that you will ever get using real world social data, about -0.6. with a very significant p-alpha and all that. That is an almost perfect negative correlation.

As long as the MCAT score is required and used as the most important datum for deciding who enters med school in the US, underrepresented minorities will always be exactly that, underrepresented in medicine. And using the MCAT that way is what med school do, for one simple reason: if they were taken to court they could always defend their decisions, it's hard data. Been there and have seen them do it there boys and girls.

For years I have hoped that one of the organizations that works for the civil rights and the advancement of minorities (hint, hint, NAACP, **** Unida, and so on) would bring a class action suit against the AAMC for putting on the market a defective and biased product which is harming them. Such a suit would actually benefit everybody, including the most underrepresented minority in medicine, one that is invisible to everyone: poor Whites.

[Experto]

Brenda:
I am an MD, took the MCAT went to med school and all that. And you consistently miss the point of what I say. You do not even understand the difference between validity and reliability, the evidence is your post above. And I have never said you should not take the test. If you read closely what I said, it implies it is the only way to get into med school. And, if the MCAT is not biased, why do you get the negative correlation that I mentioned. Did you know that one of the things that correlation measures is bias?

By the why, why do you need to broadcast to everybody that you have an MD?

[UHSADOC]

Most Caribbean Medical Schools, don't require the MCAT, some do........My medical school highly recommended it, but was not required. (University of Health Sciences, Antigua School of Medicine. )
Other good schools: SABA, SMU, MUA, St. Eustacious, St. James, and Windsor, all do not require the MCAT.
As long as you can pass the USMLEs no worries

Good Luck !