The times, they are a-changing.
First, the revamped SATs struck fear in the hearts of high-school juniors everywhere. Now, pre-med students must prepare to kiss their pencils and papers goodbye.
Beginning in 2007, the Medical College Admission Test will only be available in a computer-based format, a change the Association of American Medical Colleges -- which administers the test -- hopes will make the notoriously grueling exam more convenient.
Under the new system, prospective doctors will be tested at commercial testing centers and in small, climate-controlled rooms -- not via the Internet. The test will also be shortened to nearly half its present length. However, no content changes have been proposed. Students will be permitted to take notes on paper but cannot annotate on-screen passages.
Additionally, going digital will shorten the score turn-around time from two months to one, and the AAMC is hoping to eventually reduce the reporting lag to a mere 14 days.
A final perk of the new system, officials say, is the expansion of testing dates, from the current schedule of two weekends per year to four flexible periods of five days -- effectively increasing the options ten fold.
While transitioning from pencil and paper, the AAMC is also instituting new biometrically based security measures for the MCAT. The customary photos and ink thumbprints of the past will be replaced with digital photos and a high-tech touchpad that uses sensors to record the user's fingerprint.
Penn officials are working to make people aware of the upcoming changes.
"We're trying to get the word out to freshmen and sophomores," said Christiana Fitzpatrick, a pre-health adviser in Penn's Career Services office. The "streamlining of the exam [is] a tremendous boon to our students," she added.
Although Fitzpatrick noted some outreach to Bioengineering underclassmen, few students seem to be aware of the impending change.
College sophomore Sam Cohn, who is planning on taking the test eventually, had not previously heard about the changes and was "not so crazy" about the computers, saying that paper exams make the test "more real, more comprehensible."
"It's just layering in another hurdle of stress to the process," he said. However, for Cohn, who expects to take the exam sometime in 2007, the shorter and more flexible test is "definitely a plus," and the changes overall are "a good thing."
At the School of Medicine, response to the changes was also positive. Director of Academic Programs for the Medical School Anna Delaney said the school was "thrilled" with the changes and is anticipating little difficulty in accepting scores from the new system.
However, as an MCAT veteran, fourth-year MD/Ph.D. student Neel Singhal hoped that the transition from the old system is fair, adding that difficulties with eye strain can plague on-screen testing. Nevertheless, he thought the plan seems reasonable because the USMLE -- the licensing examination medical students must take in order to practice -- is already computer-based.
College senior and medical-school applicant Victoria Lin said that the flexible testing dates would "make the application process easier." Medical-school applicants begin the arduous process, which includes several interviews, in the spring of their junior year, and many current students find themselves locked into a single available test date, which is usually around Spring Fling weekend in April.
Adding more tests will require the production of several additional versions of the exam -- generating additional costs -- but the AAMC hopes dropping the cost of printing and shipping test booklets will keep the test's price at current levels.
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