MAT update

All of the admissions requirements for Mars Hill have now been completed except for one final essay!

As for the MAT on Wednesday...
The test format was computer-based, which made it slightly more difficult than the paper/pencil practice tests I'd taken, but that wasn't the biggest problem. Unfamiliarity with asian dictators, obscure elements of the periodic table, and 17th century french literature proved to be most difficult. How many times did I guess on the 120 question test? Hmm...potentially 100...seriously. Some were educated guesses after narrowing the field to 2 options. Others were completely blind stabs with no indication of which of the four could be correct.

So, how'd I do? Well, the official results with my percentile rank among other test-takers will not arrive for a few weeks; however, upon completing the test, the computer immediately tallied the answers. I was given an unofficial scaled score of 430. What does this mean? I don't know other than the scale is from 200-600 with 400 being average. So, I scored a little better than average. Not bad. It wasn't as good as I hoped, but it would get me into Mars Hill...

However, as I left the exam room, the proctor printed out a form with my unofficial score. "Wow," she said. "That's the highest score I've ever seen."
"What? I thought 400 was average???" I responded. "What raw score does that translate into?"
I was completed confused at that point, but my heart began to race.
"I don't know, " she replied, "but I've been doing this for 3 years, and I've never seen a 430. I'll occasionally see a 402 or 407, but 430 is the highest I've seen."

What???!!!

Two days later, I'm still completely confused, and I'm probably even more anxious now to get the official scoring report with the percentile rank. A friend of mine in town scored a 419 at the same location, so something is screwy about the proctor's comments. Whether I did really well or just a bit better than average doesn't matter. Either way, I did well enough to qualify for Mars Hill.