MCAT to be significantly shorter, completely computerized in 2007

By: John Ray

Posted: 10/18/06

Syracuse University students taking the Medical College Admissions Test this coming January will notice several significant changes, including full computerization and a significant shortening, from eight-and-a-half hours to five-and-a-half hours.

The test will also be administered on 22 dates scattered across the year, as opposed to the previous two testing dates, said Amjed Mustafa, manager of the MCAT preparatory program for Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions.

"Many students will see this as good news, that there are more testing options," Mustafa said. "(But) they also need to realize that although the test dates have changed and now there are 22 days, the medical admissions timeline has not. So, students are still encouraged to take the test as early as possible so they can still apply along with the med school process."

Because the test will be fully computerized, the results will be available in 30 days as opposed to the 60 days required for the old, paper exam, Mustafa said. This allows students greater flexibility when deciding when to take the test.

John Russell, professor and chair of the biology department, said the biology curriculum is constantly reviewed, but the department will not revise the curriculum to address the MCAT changes. The content of the MCAT itself won't change, so the same curriculum used for the previous test will still apply.

Pre-med students themselves - facing a shorter test, a less tedious, computerized version and no changes to their curriculum - seem unconcerned.

Pat Gonzales, a freshman pre-med student, said he was unconcerned so long as it didn't mean having to relearn a semester of classes.

"The more detailed test could prove beneficial for future medical students, as long as current pre-med instructors know how to prepare students for it," he said.

Mustafa, however, cautioned that the computerized version may prove daunting to students unaccustomed to computerized testing, particularly since the test is five and a half hours long.

"We did a survey, and in that survey it netted out that over 80 percent of students haven't taken an exam on computer," he said. "This means not only taking the longest exam you'll take in your life, but also taking it in the computer format."

Mustafa recommends students begin preparing for this new format well in advance, and recommends taking preview tests available on the Kaplan Test Prep Web site at kaptest.com.

Plans for updating the test have been in the works since the Association of American Medical Colleges began experimenting with a computerized format as early as 2002, when it began offering the MCAT via computer to international students, Mustafa said.

The AAMC has been piloting the new test in small facilities nationally and internationally, Mustafa said. It ran a large-scale test Aug. 16, 2006 where approximately 3,000 people took the test on computer, just to make sure everything was going to be OK when it moved it to computer in 2007.

The MCAT test has been in use since 1928 and has been updated many times throughout its history to accommodate for emergent research. This, however, will be the first time that it appears in computerized format in the United States for consequential testing.