Leverage the MSAR for Your Benefit

The Medical School Admission Requirements (MSAR) database is an online resource that allows users to search, sort and compare information about U.S. and Canadian medical schools. (When I was applying in the 90s, the MSAR was a hard copy book.) The 2025 MSAR was just recently published; if you’re applying to medical school, I’d recommend purchasing the current version because it provides so much information about institutions and their admissions statistics. The MSAR allows you to compare schools by median MCAT scores, AMCAS GPAs, and other criteria. (Of course, how institutions utilize the MCAT score is variable, which contributes to the shameful opaqueness of the medical school admissions process.)

You should use the MSAR to help determine which schools are in your range and which are “reach” schools. While it’s okay to have a lot of “reach” schools (if you can afford it), it’s critical to ensure you are applying wisely to schools that match your numbers. The advantage of the MSAR is that you can make evidence-based decisions. I’ve found some applicants have eye-opening experiences when they thoroughly review schools’ statistics and either realize their numbers are on the lower side and that they should apply to schools accordingly or, happily, that they have numbers that match with top schools. Either way, reviewing the data is critical to good decision making.