How the score is calculated. The exact formula, the data behind it, and where it falls short.

Your CAA Readiness Index (CRI) score is a number from 0 to 100. It answers one question: out of everyone who got into a CAA program and shared their stats with us, how many did you score above?

A score of 75 means your grades and test score, taken together, are higher than 75% of those accepted students. It does not mean you have a 75% chance of getting in. Those are two very different things, and this page explains why.

1. The formula

Your score is built in three steps.

• Step 1. We take each of your numbers and work out how far above or below average it is, compared to accepted students. A number that is right at the average scores 0. Above average is positive, below average is negative.
• Step 2. We average your GPAs together into one grade number. Then we average that against your test number. Grades and test end up counting the same amount.
• Step 3. We line that combined number up against every accepted student in our data and see what percent you beat. That percent is your score.

The rest of this section is the same three steps written as math. The measure of “how far above or below average” is called a z-score, and it is what the formulas below use.

1.1 Three-component formula (no Post-Bacc GPA)

gpa_z       = (cgpa_z + sgpa_z) / 2
composite_z = (gpa_z + test_z) / 2
CRI score         = empirical percentile of composite_z against the accepted pool

1.2 Four-component formula (with Post-Bacc GPA)

If you give us a Post-Bacc GPA, we average all three of your GPAs together instead of two. Test still counts for the other half:

gpa_z       = (cgpa_z + sgpa_z + postbacc_z) / 3
composite_z = (gpa_z + test_z) / 2

Either way: GPA contributes 50%, test contributes 50%.

Every number is compared only against its own group. Your cumulative GPA is measured against accepted students’ cumulative GPAs. Your MCAT is measured against accepted students who took the MCAT, and your GRE against those who took the GRE. We never compare an MCAT score directly to a GRE score, because the two tests are scored on different scales.

In statistical terms: each input is converted to a z-score (standard deviations from the mean) against its matching reference pool, and the composite is ranked empirically against every other applicant in our dataset who submitted comparable data.

2. Why grades and test count the same

We had to decide how much your grades should count versus your test score. We looked at two sets of data, and both pointed the same way: count them equally.

2.1 Public medical school data

There is no public dataset that shows CAA acceptance rates by GPA and test score. The closest thing is AAMC Table A-23, which shows those rates for U.S. medical schools. It covers the 2023–2024 through 2025–2026 school years and comes from AAMC’s 2025 FACTS report.

That table shows both numbers matter a lot. Sorted by MCAT score, acceptance rates run from 0.6% up to 79.9%. Sorted by GPA, they run from 2.3% up to 63.7%. The MCAT spread is wider, but neither number acts as the main gate. Nothing in that data, or in our own, said grades should outweigh the test. So we count them 50/50.

2.2 Our own accepted-student data

We then checked our own 375 accepted CAA students three different ways. Only students who reported both a GPA and a test score could be used for the first check.

• Do good grades come with good test scores? Barely. Students with higher GPAs had only slightly higher test scores (r ≈ +0.07 to +0.17). Programs clearly accept people who are stronger in one area than the other.
• Which is the safer thing to be strong in? Neither. Students who got in with great grades and a weaker test were about as common as students who got in with a great test and weaker grades.
• How much does one make up for the other? About the same in both directions. If your science GPA is low, the test score you need to make up for it is roughly the same as the GPA you would need to make up for a low test. For cumulative GPA, grades matter slightly more, but only slightly.

Both the public data and our own say the same thing: programs seem to weigh grades and test scores about equally. Neither one is twice as important as the other.

3. What your score is not

• It is not your chance of getting in. A score of 80 does not mean an 80% chance. It means you scored above 80% of the accepted students in our data. We do not hear about everyone who applied and was turned down, so we cannot calculate real odds.
• It is not a score for any one school. Programs differ a lot in how hard they are to get into. A high score does not guarantee you a spot anywhere, and a low score does not rule you out.
• It is not your whole application. Programs also read your experience hours, your letters of recommendation, your personal statement, and your interview. Your score sees none of that.

4. When your score can mislead you

One good number can hide a weak one. Say your test score is excellent but your science GPA is low. Averaging them together can leave you with a solid-looking score that hides the problem, because your score reports the average and not the gap.

So we call it out. When any single number of yours lands near the bottom of what accepted students had, your results page shows a warning next to that number telling you the rest of your profile is propping up your score. Take those warnings seriously. A program reading your application will see the low number on its own, not the average.

5. Limits of our data

• People chose to be in it. Our data comes from accepted students who decided to share their stats. Students who share may not be a perfect stand-in for everyone who got in
• Some numbers have more data behind them than others. The counts below show how many accepted students reported each one
• Not many students report a Post-Bacc GPA. If fewer than 30 comparable students are available, we quietly switch back to the three-number formula
• Everything we say about how programs weigh things is worked backward from students who got in, plus public data about medical schools rather than CAA programs

6. The short version

Your score is not a prediction. It is a way to see where you stand among students who got in, and to work out which number, your GPA or your test, is worth putting your time into before you apply.

Do not read too much into the exact number. Whether your profile is balanced or lopsided matters more, and everything this score cannot see, your experience, your letters, your interview, matters most of all.

Questions or feedback

If something here does not make sense, or you want to dig into why we made a particular choice, email us at team@criscore.org.