Taking practice exams throughout your MCAT preparation (including an initial diagnostic) is one of the strategies that helped me to reach my personal target score of 516. But what is a good diagnostic MCAT score? How does it fit into your MCAT study plan? And how will it help you to get to your personal goal score? I will answer all of those burning questions in this blog post!
This post is all about what is a good diagnostic MCAT score.
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Find Out What is a Good Diagnostic MCAT Score
First of all, what is a diagnostic exam?
When preparing for the MCAT, I always preach how important it is to take regular practice exams. These are either full- or half-length exams that simulate the real MCAT exam so that you can check your knowledge and practice the test day.
What’s usually called “diagnostic” is the very first practice exam you take in your MCAT preparation.
When should you take it?
Ideally, on day 1 of your study plan, before you even risk a glance at any of your material. If you are now thinking “but wait, I am not ready yet” or “let me just study a little bit first” – I still recommend taking the diagnostic test beforehand.
I followed this advice for my own MCAT and it was the perfect foundation for creating the ideal study plan. A few years later, I didn’t follow my own rule for Step 1 studying and it was one of the mistakes that made my study journey unnecessarily nerve-wracking. Gladly, I still passed, but it made me an even stronger believer of “take that diagnostic right away”.
Why should you take a diagnostic?
Again, I know the urge can be there to just skip it for now and study a bit beforehand. So here are the reasons why you DON’T want to do that and how the diagnostic can make your studying that much more effective:
- Giving you a baseline: Knowing exactly where you stand at the beginning of your MCAT journey can not only be super motivating along the way but also give you important insights for your study strategy.
- Identifying weaknesses: By finding out where you have some hidden strengths vs. which topics you might be struggling with more – you get valuable input to direct more or less attention to some areas. If you start right with a full-length diagnostic, this might also give you insights about how well you can already manage your time during the test as well as your mental stamina for such a long exam.
- Creating a study plan: Now, this will all help to create the perfect MCAT study plan for yourself. How far away from your target score are you? Any areas that need more study time than others? Specific topics that could use additional study material for better understanding? When can you expect to be ready for your exam?
- Tracking your progress: Of course, it’s almost impossible to know exactly how much time it will take you to get in shape for your final MCAT test date. But having this starting score is the first point in your score progression which will over time give you a better and better idea of how long it might take you, if your plan needs adjustments and when you could be ready to score well.
Importance of simulating test day
If you create similar conditions, practice exams in general also help you to practice your time management, increase your mental endurance, experiment with different test-taking strategies and even reduce any nasty test anxiety.
One of the study materials that have been a blessing in my preparation for the biochem section has been my own quiz sheets for biochem pathways. You can download them for free and use the blank sheets to quiz yourself. Can you fill in all the blanks, without looking at the answers?
How long is a MCAT diagnostic test?
If you opt for a full-length diagnostic test, it will be 7 hours and 27 minutes, just like the real MCAT exam. As mentioned previously, there are also half-length diagnostics that give you a shortened version of the full exam.
Going for the full-length option will definitely give you a more conclusive, realistic result of your actual knowledge for the MCAT. On the other hand, if your schedule truly doesn’t allow you to take the full thing before diving into your study plan, a half-length option can be the perfect solution for you, at least to begin with.
What is a good diagnostic MCAT score?
First of all, when we talk about the diagnostic as your VERY first practice exam, there is absolutely no need to start the comparison game. If your score is much lower than expected and you are wondering about the average mcat diagnostic score, drop it.
Instead, see your diagnostic MCAT score as a baseline. This is the “You are here” sign on your MCAT roadmap and doesn’t necessarily dictate which far away location you might be able to reach over the next months (aka your final MCAT score).
What can be super helpful to know though is your target score! And although your diagnostic score might not be the best indicator just yet, it can still give you an idea of what might be realistic for you to achieve, considering the study time you have available over the next months.
In 2022-2023 the average MCAT score for medical school applicants in the US was 506.5, which also includes applicants who didn’t get accepted. For those who actually ended up enrolling, the average MCAT score was 511.9.
What does this mean for your personal target score? Aiming for something around 512 would be ideal. I personally got a 498 on my diagnostic and after 5 months of consistent studying was able to reach a competitive 516 score.
What to do if you end up with much lower score?
Keep in mind that the stats look a bit different for each med school. So apart from improving all other factors in your control, applying to schools that accept a lower MCAT score on average can be a powerful strategy to still get accepted this cycle.
In case you have any weaknesses in other areas of your application (e.g. lower GPA or limited clinical experience) you might want to aim for a higher MCAT score in order to still be a competitive candidate. This was exactly the case for me, coming into the application process with a lower GPA of 3.3.
How to use your diagnostic results
As I preach for all your practice exams including the diagnostic – don’t just take them, glance at the score and let them get lost in one of your sub-folders. Here is how you get the most out of them:
- Keep track of your scores: This can be such a fantastic motivator along the way, especially for such a marrathon like the MCAT. On the other hand, your score progression clearly shows you if a certain study strategy isn’t working and needs minor (or major) adjustments so you can get back on track to score well.
- Identify weak spots: Start by checking the sectional scores and see where you are fully on track vs. which areas might need extra attention throughout your study routine. This can also mean to make use of new materials that can deepen your understanding of topics that just didn’t click yet or put more focus on exam strategies like timing.
- Review every single question: Now, dive deeper into each answer figuring out which concepts and questions you need to practice more. Properly reviewing your diagnostic exam is the perfect beginning of a thoughtful and focused MCAT preparation.
- Adjust your study plan: If you already had a study plan mapped out, you might want to make some changes after everything you learned from your first practice exam. If you are coming in fresh, take all the insights about your performance to create the study plan that fits your personal knowledge level.
How to get the most out of practice exams
Learn more and see meaningful progress in your score through my blog post How to Review MCAT Practice Tests.
As an example, here is my MCAT score progression over a period of 5 months from first diagnostic to final practice exam. On the real MCAT test, I ended up with my personal target score of 516 which was one of the factors that helped me get accepted to 10 med schools (despite my lower 3.3 GPA).
DATE | my SCORE Progression |
December 7 | 498 (diagnostic before any studying) |
February 2 | 502 (half way through content review) |
March 12 | 502 (end of content review) |
March 19 | 510 (half length) |
March 24 | 505 |
April 1 | 510 |
April 9 | 512 |
April 21 | 510 |
April 23 | (sample test, no number score) |
May 13 | 516 |
May 27 | 516 |
June 5 | 517 |
June 15 | 519 |
If you don’t want to leave anything to chance and crush your MCAT from start to finish, I share all the strategies I used in my online course MCAT Roadmap. This also includes an in-depth Study Schedule Tool that helps you build a realistic study schedule that’s the perfect fit for your routines and timeline – without missing a thing!
Where can you get diagnostic exams?
If you choose to enroll in a MCAT prep course like Kaplan or Blueprint, they usually already include some practice exams. Otherwise, you can buy separate practice exams online, which is what I did throughout my own MCAT prep.
There are also some companies that offer free practice exams. They tend to come with less elaborate reports or limited answer explanations but can still be a great resource on the budget! Make sure to check out my blog post 8 Best Free MCAT Practice Tests for a full review.
Final thoughts about what is a Good Diagnostic MCAT Score
I hope through this blog post you realized how valuable an early diagnostic exam can be to start strong into your MCAT game. On the other hand, you might have realized that your diagnostic score does NOT define your MCAT journey. Moreover, as momentous as this first result can feel, this is just your baseline score. Much more important are the insights you gain from your diagnostic and how you best use it to adjust your strategy, tackle your weaknesses and create continuous improvements in your score over time.
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