Washington, D.C., August 2, 2004 - The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) issued the following statement on the recent lawsuit filed by students seeking extra testing time on the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT®) based upon diagnoses of learning disabilities or attention deficit disorders:

"The MCAT is the first step on the path to becoming a doctor. It is a rigorous, reliable, and fair test that assesses whether an individual has the specific skills and knowledge necessary to undertake the study of medicine.

When individuals with disabilities request special accommodations and demonstrate their need, the AAMC grants their requests. In evaluating accommodation requests, AAMC is guided by provisions in the Americans with Disabilities Act, which specifically apply to the administration of tests such as the MCAT. AAMC uses the same standard across the country, and does not believe it has discriminated against the plaintiffs or violated their rights in any way.

A single, fair national process for evaluating requests for extra testing time or other accommodations is important to medical schools because they view the MCAT as a valued indicator of an applicant's potential performance. If a different standard were applied to California MCAT examinees, as the plaintiffs seek, that would be unfair to those who take the exam under the normal time constraints, to those who seek accommodations in other states, and to the medical schools that rely on the MCAT as a standardized predictor of performance."

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The Association of American Medical Colleges is a not-for-profit association representing all 129 accredited U.S. and 17 accredited Canadian medical schools; nearly 400 major teaching hospitals and health systems, including 68 Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers; and 94 academic and scientific societies. Through these institutions and organizations, the AAMC represents 109,000 faculty members, 67,000 medical students, and 104,000 resident physicians. Additional information about the AAMC and U.S. medical schools and teaching hospitals is available at www.aamc.org/newsroom.

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