Pre-MCAT Questionnaire (PMQ)

The Pre-MCAT Questionnaire (PMQ) is administered annually by the AAMC to those registered to take the MCAT exam. As part of ongoing education research, the PMQ seeks to better understand the experiences and future plans of those considering medicine and other health and science careers.

Those who newly register for a 2009 MCAT exam are eligible to participate in the 2009 PMQ. Eligible participants will receive an e-mail from pmq@aamc.org containing a link to a Web-based survey. The survey will have "surveys.aamc.org" in the root URL address. Information about eligibility for the PMQ is also presented in the e-mail sent from MCAT confirming registration.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How can I make sure that I'm invited to take the Pre-MCAT Questionnaire after I register for the MCAT exam?

Be sure to add "aamc.org" to your "approved sender" list in your e-mail account. Also, check your "Junk" folder for an e-mail from aamc.org that might have been misidentified as spam. If you find our e-mail there, mark it as "not spam" or remove it from the list of blocked senders. This ensures that your e-mail provider will not block e-mails sent you from the AAMC, including the PMQ survey link, which is unique to each MCAT exam registrant.

I already took the PMQ last year. Can I take the PMQ again this year?

Yes. MCAT exam registrants are eligible to participate in one PMQ survey per MCAT year. For example, if you register for a 2009 MCAT exam and subsequently register for a 2010 MCAT exam, you may take both the 2009 PMQ and the 2010 PMQ.

Is taking the PMQ a requirement for the MCAT exam or for application to medical school?

No, the survey is not required; it is voluntary. However, the AAMC strongly encourages you to take the PMQ in order to maintain the quality of the research. Moreover, the research is important: it helps inform local and national policies that could impact the future of, e.g., student loans and debt reduction programs, medical school expansion, and the diversity of the healthcare workforce.

After I registered for the MCAT exam, I received an e-mail asking me to click an embedded link to the PMQ. Is this link legit, or is it someone phishing for my information?

If the e-mail came from pmq@aamc.org, it is most likely legitimate. After you registered for the MCAT exam, you received an e-mail that confirmed your registration; it also contained information about the PMQ, the e-mail from pmq@aamc.org, and the link to the survey. Currently, the PMQ is engineered to send out an e-mail invitation from pmq@aamc.org to the e-mail address you submitted to MCAT.

Does the PMQ ask for any personal information that could put me at risk?

The PMQ survey does not ask for any personally identifiable information. Because you already gave personal information during the secure MCAT exam registration process, the PMQ doesn't require it. Instead, the survey asks for information about your undergraduate experiences, your plans for graduate study and future career, and your estimated costs of, and plans to pay for, your current and future education. Just to be safe, however, the PMQ Web survey is also secure.

Why did my friends see different questions on their PMQ than I did?

Your time is valuable, so to keep the PMQ as brief as possible, we sample different questions to different participants. If you understand statistics, you will also understand why this makes it even more important that as many people as possible complete the PMQ. Also, some questions are dependent upon previous answers, which helps to keep the survey shorter.

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