Summary: Episode 49: Learn 5 electives that will help you on the new MCAT. Stay up-to-date with the new 2015 MCAT changes. Download transcript: The New 2015 MCAT The MCAT is Changing, again… In this episode, I’m going to be discussing the upcoming changes to the new MCAT in 2015. There are three or four transitions that they’ve announced, and they pose to be big. It’s January of 2014, so I’m hoping that this podcast will be useful to you as you plan the rest of your undergraduate coursework now to help put you in best position, because the published books out there on the MCAT obviously take a while to hit print, so an MCAT book you pick off the shelf is not going to be ready to go for 2015. No one knows quite the emphasis or volume and scope of material that’s going to be used for these changes, especially with the new sections on the MCAT. What you need to do is, as we’ll get to, get a broad based education in these new topic areas. Let’s begin by setting the stage just a little bit. For a long time now, and since the MCAT’s creation in 1928, the Association of American Medical Colleges … Yes, it’s the same one that covers the MCAT’s application, and accredits the allopathic MD medical schools, so they’re a big deal. They oversee the MCAT as well. They have been pushing and pushing to emphasis that it’s not just about science coursework, as you’ve heard me talk about on the podcast before, but there is an ever increasing emphasis on critical reasoning skills, and the ability to apply knowledge into a different situation. They are going to intentionally on the MCAT put you in a situation of perhaps some kind of book, or essay, or scientific scenario that you could not have prepared for, and you’re supposed to exercise what science knowledge you have into a new environment. They are testing how you think. And isn’t that kind of a cop out? Why do I say that? Because they’re essentially testing how well a pre-medical student already thinks like a doctor, and yet you haven’t been to medical school. The message to me is the medical schools, at least according to the AAMC and their allopathic medical schools, need more and more for doctors to come up to medical school, show up on day one, and already know how to think critically and analyze critically, and I’d say that was kind of a weakness of mine. A Kaplan course did help, but it did not raise my score. It did come out in other ways, as you can possibly tell that I’m a little bit critical and analytical with some of the research I do. There are a couple of foundation articles that you can look up on your own if you would like. The words in the transcript for this episode will be available for download. By the way, I started making transcripts available a few episodes back, so if you ever want to find a reference, or what I said, go back and look at that. We appreciate Rev.com in helping with the podcast transcripts. And honestly I have to say as an aside, their app that allows me to do some podcasting on the phone and on the road has helped me be more prolific with the podcasts. So, give a big shout out to Rev dot com. That’s a cool thing. That, also, explains why sometimes there’s some background road noise. I apologize, but if I didn’t have the flexibility to do some podcasts spontaneously on the road, I would have about half as much out there. 2014 is a huge podcasting year. They’re coming out almost weekly. These foundational articles are, number one, in 2009, a document called Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians, was released, and in 2011, a separate paper called Behavioral and Social Science Foundations for Future Physicians. They were essentially a work of a group of experts, not just doctors, students, pre-medical advisors and even residents, but, also, psychometric experts. These are the people that have essentially b[...]
