Disclaimer: The MCAT is probably useful for identifying qualified medical school matriculants. In the grand scheme of things, the 2015 MCAT change was probably for the better. Now for my rant…

In a happier past, Amigos and Cannons were Morningside Heights fixtures. The US government was paying its employees. And the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test) was only about 3 hours. That’s right, my pre-med fam, THREE hours.

Doesn’t that sound like a picnic compared to what we have now? Somewhere along the line, the AAMC (American Association of Medical Colleges) decided that pre-meds weren’t suffering enough. Starting in March 2015, the AAMC began administering the brand spanking new 7.5-hour MCAT that we all now know and love [heavy sarcasm]. The science and critical reading sections were all extended, and a new behavioral sciences/sociology component was added. Time will tell if this change gives us more culturally competent physicians, but for now, that means memorizing a couple hundred more terms and distinguishing between the oral, anal, and phallic stages of Freud’s psychoanalytical theory. And no offense to whomever, but the organization of personality disorders into Clusters A, B, and C make no sense. [This might also be a good place to insert the mandatory pre-med complaint about how we don’t need to know physics to practice medicine.]

Here’s the real kicker: it costs $315 to take the MCAT. Sure, some fee waivers are provided, but for the most part, most people pay the full price. Considering the fact that tens of thousands of students take the exam each year, and thousands more have to retake it, the AAMC is probably making tens of millions of dollars each year from this test. I don’t have all the details on the AAMC budget, but my intuition tells me that this test could be offered for a LOT cheaper.

If you’re like me and so many other students, you’ll probably run out of time while preparing, and have to RE-schedule the MCAT. Admittedly, with the time I spent complaining about the MCAT over winter break, I could have fit in more time actually preparing. Still, I believe that there’s no excuse for the $95 rescheduling fee ($155 within a month of the exam). Even United Airlines has treated me better in the past than AAMC has.

Another headache comes from the MCAT scheduling system itself. Populated areas with lots of students (eg NYC) have limited MCAT seating for any particular test date, and signing up for the date you want is like playing a game of nightmarish musical chairs, except the music is chronic suffering and the chair is a 7.5 hour spike in norepinephrine (sympathetic nervous system, anybody? See, I am preparing!) I’ve heard of people flying to different states to get to the testing center that had an available seat for the date they wanted.

All in all, I appreciate the important role that the MCAT plays in med school admissions. I just wish it weren’t so #extra.