My Crazy Thoughts
my thoughts on various topics.

The nail biting continues
So my PCAT scores have gotten me thinking. First I wonder how many people took the test. Because if a million people took it and I scored better than 91 percent of them there are still 90,000 people who scored better than I am, and I don't think there are that many open spots in the country. Of course I can't find anywhere that says how many people took the test, but I did find that in 2002 (I think) just under 10,000 people took the exam, and the number has been increasing a lot over the last couple years. Also, from what I'm reading the scores are standardized across test forms and dates. So I didn't actually do better than 91%, I just did better than the statistics say 91% of the people should have done. At least that is what that little explanation seems to lead me to believe. So if, for some reason, the forms we took on that date were really hard (or really easy I can't decide which it would be--hard I think) then everyone's percentile is high and it could be misleading to me. Also I'm really disappointed in psychological corporation for their lack of information. I was a psych major. One of the first things you learn about reporting statistics is reporting n (the sample size). It is also really important to include how you measured things, otherwise you statistics are meaningless. So I want to know exactly what it is that they do to standardize across dates and forms. And I want to know how many people I was up against. Their web-site tells me nothing.
Of course, I also know that I am over analyzing this. But I really am nervous about this. I really want to get in. And I'm really worried that I won't. I can think of a bunch of reasons why my application wouldn't be good enough to get in and then I can think of a bunch of others that should make a good candidate. This is important to me and the waiting and wondering and worrying is getting to me. Since I don't have any influence over the admissions committees the only thing left for me to do is worry. And I guess I'll be worrying for the next couple months. And waiting.

posted by Malissa at 9:56 PM