Michelson said that even if Harvard students score well below Harvard’s mean, their chances of going to medical school are still very good.
In fact, 94 percent of applicants from the senior class in 2002 were accepted to a medical school.
“In terms of whether how well I do will determine by entire career, I doubt that,” said Perez.
On each section of the MCAT, students can obtain a maximum score of 15. The mean scores of medical school applicants from the class of 2002, the most recent year analyzed by OCS, were 10.9 on the verbal reasoning section, 12.2 on physical sciences and 11.5 on biological sciences. This compares to national means for medical school applicants on the three sections of 8.7, 9.1 and 9.3, respectively.
The MCAT is offered twice a year, once in April and once in August.
According to Michelson, students base their test date choice on a variety of factors such as whether they are writing a thesis, the relevance of current coursework and their summer plans.
Despite months of preparation, many students said they will be studying until the very end, and the College has banned parties Friday night to respect late night crammers.
Bishay said that she would spend the remaining time before the test in the books.
“I feel guilty not studying,” she said.