MCAT Scoring 101

MCAT Score Frequently Asked Questions

MCAT scoring information will no doubt have you lying awake at night, worried that you may have missed something. Sometimes, you can get so worried about your score, that it prohibits you from doing your absolute best on the exam itself. Let's not go there, shall we? Here's MCAT Scoring 101. This article contains details about how your MCAT score works, so you don't divert any of those very important brain cells toward needless fretfulness. Trust me, you'll have enough to worry about when it comes time to prepare for this bad boy!

MCAT Scoring Basics

When you get your MCAT score report back, you'll see scores for the four multiple choice sections: Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems, Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems, Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior, and Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills (CARS).  

MCAT Score Report

When you get your score report back, you'll see your percentile ranks, confidence bands and score profiles. The percentile rank is merely how well you've done in comparison to others who've taken your exam. You'll see percentile ranks for every one of the four sections and your overall score. The confidence bands are visual clues to show the approximate area where your score lies, since the scores from the MCAT will never be perfectly precise (statistics rarely are). The confidence bands help discourage distinctions between test-takers with really similar scores. The score profiles show your weaknesses and strengths across all four sections. 

MCAT Scoring Numbers

Each one of the four sections can earn you between a 118 and a 132, making your highest possible cumulative score a 528 since the cumulative score is the sum of the four sections instead of an average. At press time, the national MCAT score average was a 500. 

MCAT Raw to Scaled Scoring

Your scores are based on the number of questions you answer correctly, but since you realize that you will be answering more than 15 questions per section, there is some score scaling involed. You are not penalized for incorrect or incomplete answers; only your accurate answers are counted. The scaling system is not a constant thing, either, in order to account for different questions on different exams. A new raw to scaled score table is defined for each MCAT administration to provide for variances in testing questions.

MCAT Scoring Retrieval

So, how do you get your score report? In order to retrieve your MCAT scores, you'll need to use the MCAT Testing History (THx) System on the AAMC website and will have to have an AAMC login user name and password. The THx is the online score release site that you use to view your scores and send them to different application services/schools. Your scores will be available about 30 – 35 days after you test, so keep that in mind when you register if you're pushing your application deadline!

Current MCAT Score Release Dates

Sending Your MCAT Scores

Once you access your score report after logging in, click the link that reads “send all my scores.” On the next screen, you can scroll through different application services and schools to which you'd like to submit your scores. Click the recipients you'd like and then scroll to the bottom of the screen and hit "Submit" to send your scores. Since AAMC has a full disclosure policy, you may not send select scores to schools. If you choose to send, you'll be sending every one of your MCAT scores from each test administration if you've tested more than once.

More MCAT Scoring Information

So, now you know the basics! If you'd like more answers to all of your MCAT scoring questions, then take a peek at these MCAT Score FAQs to find out about things like what good MCAT scores look like based on the top 15 schools, average national MCAT scores, score percentiles and more!