MCAT score range: highest, lowest and how scoring works

From right answers to a scaled score

For each section, the AAMC counts the questions you got right and converts that number to a score from 118 to 132. Wrong answers count the same as blank ones, and field-test questions don’t count at all.

Every MCAT form is slightly different in difficulty, so the conversion changes from one exam to the next. The AAMC calls this equating. In its own example, 35 to 37 right in a section might convert to a 123. That’s why no single raw-score chart works for every exam.

An example

Percentile ranks

Your score report also shows a percentile rank for your total and each section: the share of scores at or below yours. The AAMC updates percentile ranks every May 1, using the last three testing years. As of October 2026, a 500 is at the 48th percentile and a 510 at the 79th.

The old MCAT scale (before 2015)

Scores from the exam given from 1991 through January 2015 use a different scale. Each of the three multiple-choice sections was scored from 1 to 15. From 2013, the total was simply those three added up, so it ran from 3 to 45. Before 2013, the total also carried a Writing Sample letter from J to T, as in 32Q.

The AAMC still reports old scores, but it doesn’t publish a way to convert them to the 472-528 scale. Whether a school accepts an old score is up to that school.

Getting your score

Scores come out 30 to 35 days after your test, by 5 p.m. ET on the release date, and go into your AMCAS application on their own. If you think there’s a scoring mistake, you can ask for a rescore within 30 days of the release date.