Imagine taking the SATs again. Now imagine them twice as long, three times as important and four times as competitive.

There you have the MCATs — Medical College Admissions Test — one of the major determinants in deciding which students are accepted into which medical schools, and which students are accepted at all. With registration deadlines approaching in about two weeks, students have been forced to scurry to secure study time.

‘I know one girl who was going a little nuts,’ said senior Scott Ekroth, one of Syracuse University’s top scorers in last year’s MCATs. ‘It’s a huge test no doubt.’

‘It’s it,’ said junior John Coppola. ‘It’s the only standardized test med schools look at. It’s more important than SATs because you can always take ACTs or SATs. Also you can take SATs more than once. With the MCATs that’s all you get.’

Students can take the MCATs three times, but each score is shown and more than one attempt is frowned upon.

Dean Thomas Lertz, associate dean of Admissions at Yale Medical School, said the MCATs are the No. 2 factor in the admissions process.

Admissions officers separate students into three tiers. Certain students, based solely on grade point averages and MCAT scores, are rejected. Others are immediately chosen for interviews. Lertz said the remaining section is where the process gets dicey. A standard is leveled somewhere in the middle of the remaining applicants. Those with an MCAT score above that level are called for interviews or looked at more closely. For those that fall below that level — tough luck.

Lertz said occasional exceptions due to outstanding service in the field are made but in order to practice medicine, each graduate student must pass a test similar to the MCATs. Generally students who do poorly on the MCATs don’t pass the second exam.

Lertz insists MCATs are necessary to weed out weaker students so admissions officers have time to concentrate on borderline students. Out of 3,200 applications last year, Yale admitted 100 students. These students averaged 11 out of a possible 15 on each of four individually graded sections.

After students make the first cut, MCATs become less important, said Marilyn Kerr, director of SU’s Health Professions Advisory Board. Admissions officers look for proof that a student has a desire to join the medical profession and a friendly personality.

‘When you have an applicant and they tell you ‘I want to be a doctor because I want to help people,’ I want to see how they’ve tried to help people,’ Kerr said. ‘Don’t just tell me that you want to.’

Nonetheless, students realize if they want their application looked at carefully, a good score is necessary.

Like most major schools, SU has gotten rid of the pre-med major. Very few institutions associated with churning out doctors offer one. Not Johns Hopkins. Not Stanford. Not even Yale.

Instead, students are required to take a core of science classes including biology, basic chemistry, organic chemistry and physics. Students are encouraged to major in whatever they choose, even if it isn’t a science course.

‘We feel that by letting students major in something of their choice, it will let them concentrate on what they enjoy,’ Kerr said. ‘It’s probably what they’ll do best in, and try to focus on eventually.’

Although academics have reasons for failing to offer the major, it has put students in a bind as far as MCAT preparation goes. Classes are not based solely on MCAT criteria, meaning information covered on the test may not be taught in classes. Kerr said the physics involved with levers, usually covered in high school courses, is one example.

Students must also do more than attend class. When they take the MCATs, normally in April of their junior year, most students haven’t studied biology — the first science course most students take — for nearly two years.

Kerr recommended that each student buy a review book during their sophomore year and read it from front to back. By doing this, students review material from previous classes. She also said that by perusing practice tests in each book, students will gain an idea of the types of questions on the MCATs. They will begin to see the topics they haven’t covered in class and can review these more thoroughly.

Ekroth followed Kerr’s advice, studying during the past two years with a review book.

‘I practically memorized the entire book,’ Ekroth said.

Kerr would not give figures on the percentage of SU students accepted into med schools but said every student averaging eight per section and with a GPA greater than 3.4 was accepted somewhere. Between 80 and 100 students apply from SU each year.

Still, many students feel studying on their own isn’t sufficient.

At SU, the only option for these students is to take a course at Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions. Kaplan’s courses consist of 18 three-hour long student-lectures on topics covered in the MCATs in addition to eight real-length tests.

Kaplan Director Bruce Daniels said the service is valuable to students because it creates a schedule for studying and forces them into a routine. Because students are required to attend lectures, they tend to brush up on topics beforehand. Kaplan’s course, which costs $1,299, also offers a variety of practice questions, practice books and flashcards to help students study.

‘I didn’t think I had enough self-discipline,’ said Coppola, who signed up for the Kaplan program. ‘I figured if I’d put all my money into it, I’d have to care.’

Daniels said past students have raised their grade an average of six points through the program. Final grades are compared to tests administered by the center early in the session.

Despite Daniels’ claims to the contrary, Ekroth and Kerr don’t feel the services Kaplan provides are as good as a determined student can obtain on their own. They insist a good set of notes and a review book are more beneficial than any student-lecture.

Administrators at other schools, however, feel these two options still leave students unprepared. Professors from both Johns Hopkins and Kansas University offer review sessions three months before the MCATs. At Kansas, students pay $700, a little more than half what Kaplan charges. Fifty students attended the program in its inaugural session last year, but only 15 registered this year.

‘It was set up because students wanted a cheaper alternative to Kaplan,’ Kansas biology professor James Orr said. ‘Also, students wanted faculty to run the review sessions rather than their fellow students.’

Although Kerr, Orr and Daniels disagreed about the best way to study, all three agree students should take a full-length practice exam before taking the MCATs. The actual test lasts eight hours with 85 minutes devoted to verbal reasoning, 100 minutes to the physical sciences (chemistry and physics), an hour for a writing sample and 100 minutes for the biological sciences (biology and organic chemistry).

The importance and length of the exam make it so grueling that Ekroth walked out of the practice after completing three sections.

‘It’s critical to have experience with a test this length,’ Daniels said. ‘You have to have as much stamina as possible for the second half. It’s physically exhausting.’

Kaplan students take five seven-hour tests while the Health Professions Advisory Board offers a full-length practice exam two weeks prior to the MCATs. Kerr said this allows students to get a feeling for how much time they can spend on each question and prepare themselves for the long day.

Ekroth said the time and importance of the test made it one of the most tiring experiences of his life.

‘By the third section I was just filling in bubbles,’ Ekroth said about the practice test. ‘I had to take (the MCATs) on my 21st birthday. You need to take it to know how draining it is. You’ve studied for it so long that when you’re done you don’t care how you did. It’s done.”

Published on February 28, 2002 at 12:00 pm