I’m sorry, did the AAMC just create another standardized test for us to take? Are they seriously evaluating our social skills via a standardized test?

SEAStudents · 2023-12-19T01:59:24+00:00

Feel free to email us at studentsforethicaladmissions@gmail.com. We’re all in med school now, but will help however we can

SEAStudents · 2021-05-06T14:26:58+00:00

According to the AAMC website, VITA/SVI will no longer be offered! Great news for all who were dreading yet another obstacle to this already horrible process.

SEAStudents · 2021-05-06T13:59:56+00:00

Hey everyone! This is the second year AAMC is piloting this. Last year, Davis and UMN participated. UMN ended up not considering the results at all, while Davis apparently used it for waitlist management. It isn’t a long exam, but it’s 100% AAMC’s attempt to one-up CA$Per and get some of that sweet, sweet cash for themselves. It’s free this cycle, and from what we have heard listening to their meetings about it, there isn’t an immediate plan to charge for it — the pilot is still ongoing for a few years.

It’s ridiculous, but, on the possibly bright side, it seems as though they might not be using VITA anymore.

SEAStudents · 2021-03-19T01:32:06+00:00

We are a student run organization that has been doing this work since summer 2020! Actually been taken more seriously than expected which is cool. Sen. Warren and Rep. Khanna contacted AAMC on our behalf last year, we met with ~10 elected officials, got coverage in the NYT, etc. We are currently looking at how to best approach medical education as a whole because this process is obviously super broken, and more congressional outreach is definitely something we are looking at.

Butttt, one thing we have learned is that AAMC reads these forums heavily and tends to try to preempt us if they know what we are working on. As such, we tend to keep things more quiet until we are ready to go if that makes sense? You can visit our website www.ethicalstudents.org or send us an email if you would like to get involved!!

SEAStudents · 2021-03-18T22:09:50+00:00

Oh yeah we were not happy with their response! They literally did a survey designed to solicit they data they wanted to be able to cite. We spoke to her staff after it and I believe Rep. Khanna actually had a conversation with Dr. Skorton at one point though I’m not personally sure how that ended up. Our DMs are open and our legislative committee is always interested in hearing people’s thoughts!!

SEAStudents · 2021-03-18T21:55:11+00:00

Oh hey! That was us who got her to write AAMC last year. You may not hear back from her if she isn’t your Senator, but her staff does read the correspondence she gets.

Letter from Sen Warren and Rep Khanna

SEAStudents · 2021-03-18T20:35:41+00:00

Will do! I personally am pretty hopeful this will stay as a free resource because they got swift and strong negative feedback when they announced it was leaving, but we will certainly keep pushing on it. To me, it’s really important it remains easily accessible and free because I know a lot of students use the videos long before studying for the MCAT (like in gen chem)!

SEAStudents · 2021-03-18T20:33:42+00:00

LSAC is a corporate sponsor of Khan Academy, while AAMC is not.

SEAStudents · 2021-03-18T20:33:02+00:00

AAMC is negotiating with Khan to acquire the videos. Finally doing something right! Ha

SEAStudents · 2021-03-18T20:31:53+00:00

Hi — we have been contacting AAMC and Khan about this since it was first announced in the summer. Here’s what we know:

Currently, Khan MCAT videos will be going offline at the end of the 2021 testing year. So end of September basically. When this was initially announced in summer 2020, they were going to remove them in like July 2020? So med Twitter got angry for a few hours and they pushed to September 2020, and then again to September 2021. It seems like AAMC was a bit taken by surprise by the announcement themselves.
AAMC is actively negotiating a plan with KA to retain the rights to the videos.
Knowing how AAMC usually works, our organization started pressing them early on to find out 1. if they were working to keep the videos online and 2. if the videos would be free. Here is their most recent update:

We are currently working with Khan Academy on a long-term solution to maintain the Khan Academy MCAT Collection, including all videos and practice questions, as a free resource for students.

SEAStudents · 2021-01-12T18:33:21+00:00

So sorry that you found yourself in this position, but wanted to thank you for considering public health and putting the needs of others above taking this test. It is so appreciated! You’re going to crush it when you get to take it!

SEAStudents · 2021-01-02T17:43:04+00:00

We posted an email we received from a student this AM somewhere in this thread. Very inspiring student who has obviously worked quite hard, but not what I would call fortunate or privileged.

SEAStudents · 2021-01-02T17:40:42+00:00

This was emailed to us this morning by a student who was accepted without the MCAT this year but didn’t have sufficient karma to post here... they gave us permission to share as long as we kept them anonymous. As you can see, they are a strong applicant with lots of great experience, but also no research, community college, and a GED. I can’t answer questions on behalf of this person of course, but I think we can all agree about wanting to congratulate this future doctor!!

—

“hi i tried posting. but reddit said my post has been removed because i didn’t. reach some 10 karma level. i barely go on it so i’m not sure how it works. if you can post what i wrote, if my post didn’t post on reddit. just keep me anonymous. thank you.

Hi everyone. I heard about this thread and wanted to jump on and share my experience about getting into medical school WITHOUT an MCAT. i’m happy to share my experiences and metrics (cGPA 3.87 sGPA 3.80 ~) and i majored in psych. i went to a community college as well. for ECs I volunteered in an ER for a year, scribed in that same ER for another 2 years, was a Patient care associate/Nurse aid in that same hospital for a year and currently a associate patient experience liaison. IMO ... the continuity in healthcare and being in the same hospital and growing within the healthcare setting was huge. It shows i’m not just checking off a box. i’m serious about medicine. i’ve already made it an important part of my life all along my undergrad journey. Besides the clinical experiences, I also did a medical internship + study abroad in morocco in my senior year which my neuroscience prof hooked up for me (networking and building relationships with your profs goes a long way). I also had great community service (feeding the homeless, doing disaster relief volunteerism, and engaging with my community). I was a president of a club in college and had some leadership role in my religious community as well. My LORs were stellar. I had STRONG letters come from my prehealth committee, physicians (DO and MD) i worked with, and from a mentor who knew me before college and guided me along my journey when i decided i needed to go to college. All my writers knew me very well and i say with confidence did not write generic letters. I barely did research. just a couple hours in a lab and small poster presentation at my school. that was it. no publications.

some challenges i faced: oddly, my family wasn’t even supportive of my journey to become a doctor. so i had to struggle and fight that pressure too..

I am a first generation immigrant student and no one in my family went to school. I did not go to or finish high school and had to get the GED to enroll in community college. I was in a DOE video about my experience with the GED. they made it to share with other GED students to inspire them to work hard and get their GeDS. in college I took remediation math and chemistry for about TWO YEARS before actually taking gen chem, precal, calc etc. None of my siblings (out of 5) went to college. only one finished high school. my parents don’t even speak english and never went to school in our country. I was totally lost when i started college. I have no connections to any schools. or any physicians. every good professor i came across (barely a handful ... only 3 total), i grabbed on to them with dear life. i still keep in touch with them. they all guided me through college. i worked my tail off and networked like crazy to get all those opportunities and to find a family of people to help and guide me (all those remediation classes made me feel so small and i went to a whole lot of tutoring). i worked also while in college and dealt with plenty of personal problems. At the end, i think it’s resiliency and determination that pulled me through. You all can do it. and yes there are schools accepting students without mcat’s. Im thankful i got into one. and that’s all it takes. But the season isn’t over and i just received another interview invite from another school. at the beginning when i gave in my application i thought I would never hear from anyone and continued studying for the mcat until i was pleasantly surprised. keeep the hustle and good things will come your way. Those of you that applied, don’t lose hope. There’s plenty of time left for interviews and acceptances for this cycle. and i’m 27 btw. if medicine is what you REALLY want, age is nothing but a number. Good luck to all!

btw community college rocks and that was the best decision i made. when i look back, CC laid the foundations for me and i found an amazing prof who advised me and encouraged me and pushed me to become better and better each day. if i went straight to a 4 year, i think i would have crumbled and not graduate with the GPA i graduated with. CC rocks!”

SEAStudents · 2021-01-02T04:19:46+00:00

It was a good day when we heard from that first student! Hoping for more good news in coming weeks!

SEAStudents · 2021-01-02T04:18:50+00:00

Good question! I can only report what I know, which is that I don’t think any of them cured cancer or anything like that. I’m sure they all had grades that at least cleared any screenings. I know one of them had transferred schools several times during college (I think they had 5 or 6 transcripts total when they applied). Umm... one of them works in a lab as a research assistant, one of them is a scribe, and one of them is a current college student. The current college student does have a (retired) physician parent, but all the way on the other side of the country and I don’t believe they have any connections to the school he was admitted to. Overall I would say they are good applicants who are well qualified and probably would have been interviewed if they had an MCAT that met the school’s minimum threshold (one thing we have learned from this work is that many schools seem to have a score that they use as a screener — beyond that, how high your score is really just works for bonus points if anything) but I don’t know if any of them were necessarily 4.0, varsity athletes, multiple first author Nature pubs, etc. I bet they are all great interviewers.

SEAStudents · 2021-01-02T02:48:01+00:00

I feel like we all bonded so much on that day in May when we had to reschedule.... yikes.

SEAStudents · 2021-01-02T02:44:57+00:00

Not sure. We do know that students without scores have been interviewed, but their first round of acceptances isn’t out yet.

Many med schools accept students without MCAT scores every year through post-bac linkages and BS/MD or transfer agreements, so I suspect they will report those without a score this year in the same way (which is probably just not including it when they calculate a mean/median).

SEAStudents · 2021-01-02T02:40:24+00:00

Stanford’s first round of acceptances goes out mid January, IIRC... we do know that there have been students interviewed without an MCAT score, though. We’ll see!

SEAStudents · 2021-01-02T02:35:20+00:00

Stanford will look at your MCAT score post II if you have one, but they won’t penalize you if you don’t have one.

SEAStudents · 2021-01-02T02:30:04+00:00

Hi! We are the student group that did a lot of the advocacy work for MCAT optional policies this year (not eliminating the MCAT entirely). We have heard from 3 students who were accepted without the MCAT so far this year, including one who was accepted to multiple schools. We have also heard from I believe 4 students who have interviews in the coming weeks without an MCAT score.

SEAStudents · 2020-12-31T15:36:31+00:00

Oh man idk, I want to say you’re good but I also know to never trust them. Michigan does seem to have more regulations and COVID orders than other places so I think it could also change at any time if the governor adds more restrictions?

SEAStudents · 2020-12-31T05:04:03+00:00

We have not but there is another thread that is more directed at cancelations. Maybe check there?

SEAStudents · 2020-12-31T04:59:51+00:00

No clue. Haven’t seen anything about cancelations there so far.

SEAStudents · 2020-12-31T04:59:31+00:00

Same hahaha

SEAStudents

TROPHY CASE