The MCAT is on track to see some big changes in 2015, but UF premed undergraduates aren't likely to see a modification in required courses.
The exam's changes were initially announced in March. The Association of American Medical Colleges board of directors must give final approval to the changes in February before they can be implemented in exams in 2015.
The biggest change will be the addition of a behavioral and social sciences principles section. This section will test psychology and sociology concepts.
Dr. Jeff Koetje, the national director for Kaplan's pre-health programs, said this change is an effort to place more emphasis on the need for doctors to be able to effectively communicate with patients.
The revised exam will also focus more heavily on content from advanced science courses, including biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology, and research methodology and statistics. The MCAT's writing sample will be eliminated, and the verbal reasoning section will be expanded to include questions about ethics, philosophy and cross-cultural studies.
All in all, these changes will amount to about 115 minutes of added test time, lengthening the exam from five-and-a-half to seven hours.
Koetje said this is the fifth time the MCAT's content has been reviewed, but these changes are the largest the test has ever seen.
"Medicine has changed significantly in the last 20 to 30 years, but the MCAT has not," he said.
In a study released last week, Kaplan Test Prep found that 73 percent of medical school admissions officers say these are positive changes. However, 67 percent said it would be necessary for colleges to revise their undergraduate premed curriculum by 2015 to reflect the entrance exam's changes.
Roberta Knickerbocker, a UF pre-health adviser, wrote in an email that she doesn't expect to see a change in prerequisite courses for UF premed students.
The advising office recommends that students planning to take the exam after the proposed changes go into effect should consider taking introductory level psychology, sociology and statistics courses.
At UF, about 40 percent of a premed student's admission is based on metrics, or a student's MCAT score and GPA, said Leila Amiri, director of admissions for the College of Medicine. Other factors include a student's experience, interview and overall application.
Premed senior Jodi Wallace, a 21-year-old psychology student, took the MCAT in May.
She said no matter what courses premed students take, they will still have to do a "substantial amount" of studying on their own to review concepts for the MCAT.
"If anything, the [prerequisite] courses prepare you best for all the independent studying," she said.
