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March 5, 2008
1 Introduction
2 Data
You will need to nd current data rst. This is easily available from the MSAR,
US News, or AAMC's website.
1. Mean total and science GPAs for every school you are interested in (MSAR)
2. Median MCAT scores for every section except writing for each school,
which I will neglect (MSAR)
3. Number of people accepted and total number applied in your category (ie
in state or out of state) for each school (US News and World Report)
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4. National Standard Deviations for Matriculants for total and science GPA
and each section of MCAT (AAMC)
3 Assumptions
This is where I get to point out the massive aws of my calculations but due to
limited data, most of them cannot be helped.
2. The median MCAT scores for each section are equal to the mean: I'd
expect the median to be slightly higher than the mean by as much as 1
point because of skew but for simplicity, lets keep it this way.
3. The standard deviations of all stats for all schools are equal to the standard
deviations of stats for matriculants: Probably not a good estimate since
all schools dier from each other and from the national average but the
data just doesn't exist for every school.
4 Calculations
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4.2 Calculation of L' Standard Deviation
Here, I just use standard error propagation methods to nd the SD for L'. Given
thatL0 = (4GP p A + 6sGP A) + (V R + BS + P S), then
sd{L0 } = 16sd{GP A}2 + 36sd{sGP A}2 + sd{V R}2 + sd{BS}2 + sd{P S}2 .
This value turns out to be σ = 3.84 for 2007 data.
1.8
1.7
1.6
1.5
Multiplier
1.4
1.3
1.2
1.1
0.9
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Px
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0 0
have the multiplier applied to the average: Px = P̄x M (LY ou −Lx )/σ . This gives
you a rough estimate of your probability of being accepted to that school.
5 An Example!
Here are some schools that I am considering and I ran it through my equations
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with my stats (LMe = 79.8), VA Resident:
6 Conclusions
Alright, I have to admit that this probably does not give the most accurate
results. However, it is a very interesting tool to give a rough estimate of your
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admissions probabilities based o of your numbers and published statisitics of
each school you are interested in. It also gives a rough estimate of your chances
of being accepted anywhere so it can help you decide where you want to apply.
The major weakness I see in it is that it overestimates your chances of getting
into at least one school. I will try to nd a way around the independence
assumption if I can. Let me know what you guys think and I'll try to ne tune
this if I nd time.