The MCAT is Harder According to 43% of Med School Adcoms

32% of admissions officers have Googled applicants. That’s a stat from Kaplan Test Prep’s 2013 survey of med school admissions officers (as reported in this press release). Below are some more highlights from the survey: †¢Ã‚  Last year, only 22% of adcom believed the new 2015 MCAT would be more difficult than the current test; this year, that numbered nearly doubled to 43%. 2% of admissions officers predict that the revamped exam will be easier; 55% think the difficulty of the exam will remain the same. †¢Ã‚  90% of survey respondents support the future changes to the MCAT. †¢Ã‚  This year, 71% of adcom saw an increase in the number of med school applicants who had enrolled in postbac programs; †¢Ã‚  90% of adcom officers say that high marks in a postbac program boost an applicant’s candidacy.   Ã¢â‚¬ ¢Ã‚  32% of admissions officers have Googled applicants and 22% use Facebook (or other similar social networking sites) to look up applicants. Of those who did this sort of research, 42% say that they came across something that negatively impacted the applicant’s chances of getting in. The Kaplan press release also reviews some of the changes to the new 2015 MCAT. These include adding more topics to the exam (like college-level biochemistry, sociology, and psychology); increasing the number of pre-reqs from eight classes to eleven; increasing the number of exam questions from 144 to 261, and the length of the exam from three hours and twenty minutes to six and a quarter hours; and adding new types of questions that test different skills. See the Kaplan press release for more details. //