MCAT Score Calculator - Section Scores, Total and Percentile
Estimate your MCAT score
Estimate. Each MCAT form has its own conversion; the curves here are typical of AAMC practice exams and may differ by a point per section. Percentiles follow recent AAMC tables. Official scores come only from the AAMC.
Total score to percentile (approximate)
| Total | Percentile |
|---|---|
| 528 | 100 |
| 524 | 99 |
| 521 | 98 |
| 518 | 95 |
| 515 | 91 |
| 512 | 85 |
| 510 | 80 |
| 508 | 74 |
| 505 | 65 |
| 502 | 56 |
| 500 | 49 |
| 498 | 43 |
| 495 | 34 |
| 492 | 26 |
| 490 | 21 |
| 486 | 14 |
| 482 | 8 |
| 478 | 4 |
How the MCAT is scored
The MCAT has four sections: Chemical and Physical Foundations, Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills, Biological and Biochemical Foundations, and Psychological, Social and Biological Foundations. The three science sections have 59 questions each and CARS has 53. Each section is scaled from 118 to 132, with 125 near the middle, and the total runs from 472 to 528. There is no penalty for wrong answers. This tool applies typical raw-to-scale conversions and places the total on the AAMC percentile distribution.
Steps
- 1 Enter your correct answers in each section from a practice exam, or switch modes and enter the four scaled scores from a score report.
- 2 Read the estimated section scores, the total and the percentile.
- 3 Compare the total with the median of the schools you are applying to and see which section has the most room to improve.
The scale and what the middle looks like
Each section runs from 118 to 132, so a total of 500 means an average of 125 per section, close to the median of all test takers. A 128 in every section gives 512, around the 85th percentile; 130 in each gives 520, the 98th. The scale is deliberately coarse so that small differences in raw score do not look meaningful.
Percentiles and admissions
The AAMC publishes percentile ranks each year from the last three testing years. A 500 is around the 49th percentile, 505 the 65th, 510 the 80th, 515 the 91st and 520 the 98th. Matriculants to US MD programmes average about 512; individual schools publish their own medians, from the low 500s to 520 and above.
Why raw-to-scale conversions differ
Forms differ in difficulty, so the AAMC equates each one: a harder form needs fewer correct answers for the same scaled score. The curves here are typical of the official practice exams. Around 47 of 59 correct in a science section is usually a 126 and around 41 of 53 in CARS likewise, but a given form can be a point higher or lower.
Limits of this estimate
Use the raw-answer mode to interpret practice tests and set section targets; the scaled-score mode is exact for totals and percentiles once you have a score report. Neither replaces the official report, and percentiles are revised yearly by the AAMC.