At least four Brown students scheduled to take the Medical College Admission Test Saturday morning received an e-mail on Friday erroneously telling them the exam had been cancelled.
"Please be aware that due to unforeseen circumstances we have been required to reschedule your pending Prometric exam," the e-mail read in part. The message was sent just before noon Friday from the address "DoNotReply@prometric.root" with the subject line "Pending Prometric Exam" - Prometric is the testing service provider that administered Saturday's test in Warwick.
"Prometric will schedule your exam to the next available date. An e-mail confirmation will be sent with the new exam details within the next 48 hours," the e-mail continued.
When Andrea Jones '10 saw the e-mail, she called the Association of American Medical Colleges, which she said had no record of a cancellation at Prometric's Warwick location. Jones, a chemical engineering concentrator, was told "the e-mail must have been sent in error," she said.
"I think it affected everybody who was going to this site for a couple of days," said Michael Li '10, who took the MCAT on Saturday after also receiving the e-mail.
Li said that after the examination he talked to a site director who told him that "three or four people ended up not showing up" for the MCAT. Li knew of three other Brown students, including Jones, who had received the e-mail. All three showed up for the exam, he said.
Jones said she was told that the e-mail "was sent to people taking every test" and was not restricted to the MCAT.
Prometric representatives could not be reached for comment by press time. The company offers academic, governmental and corporate testing and will next offer the MCAT on Mar. 28.
