Best Foreign Medical Schools

Four separate scores are derived from the MCAT, one for each section and the total score. Each score that you achieve on the multiple-choice sections (Physical Sciences, Verbal Reasoning, and Biological Sciences) is based on the number of questions you answer correctly. This raw score is a reflection of your correct answers only. This means that a wrong answer will be scored exactly the same as an unanswered question; there is no additional penalty for wrong answers. Therefore, even if you are unsure of the correct answer to a question, you should make your best guess.

Your raw score on the Writing Sample is determined by adding the scores you receive on each of the two responses you write. Because two different readers rate each response, your total raw Writing score is the sum of the four scores: two for the first response and two for the second. From the raw scores we calculate scale scores (see below for why we do this), and these scale scores appear on your final score report. The scores for the multiple-choice sections—Verbal Reasoning, Physical Sciences, and Biological Sciences—will be reported on a scale ranging from 1 (lowest) to 15 (highest).

The raw score you receive on each section is converted to a score on this 15-point scale. For example, if your raw score on one of the sections is between 40 and 43, your converted score might be 11. Scores ranging from 44 to 46 might have a converted score of 12, and so forth.

Your raw score on the Writing sample will be converted to an alphabetic scale ranging from J (lowest) to T (highest). Each letter represents the sum of two scores on the two Writing Sample items. The sum can result from different combinations of individual scores. (Individual scores are assigned along a 6-point scale.) For example, a student whose scores are 4 and 5 on the first item and 4 and 4 on the second—a raw score of 17—would receive the same alphabetic score point as student who scored a 3 and 3 on the first items and a 5 and 6 on the second.

In addition to scores for the individual sections, a total score will also be reported. This total score will consist of a combined multiple-choice score conjoined with the Writing Sample score, e.g., 42T.