When do I start studying for the MCAT? What score should I try to aim to get? What year of undergraduate college or after should I take the MCAT? What are the best ways to study for the MCAT? Which companies/resources/study tools are the most reliable? How much do medical schools care about the undergraduate college a student comes from? Can I only get into an Ivy League graduate school if I went to a really prestigious undergraduate school? Or can excellent GPA and MCAT scores from any undergraduate college be enough? I FEEL REALLY UNINFORMED PLEASE HELP ME
SAME HERE bump
When do I start studying for the MCAT? Summer break of Sophomore
What score should I try to aim to get? 28 for minor, 30 for non-minor, 32 for Asian
What year of undergraduate college or after should I take the MCAT? Summer break of Junior
What are the best ways to study for the MCAT? Self study , but use everything if you can afford
Which companies/resources/study tools are the most reliable? AAMC.org , Princeton Review
How much do medical schools care about the undergraduate college a student comes from? Not much
Can I only get into an Ivy League graduate school if I went to a really prestigious undergraduate school? Or can excellent GPA and MCAT scores from any undergraduate college be enough? Excellent GPA and MCAT scores from any undergraduate college is enough
That is only my opinion
There are no simple answers and the score is no longer a two digit number. It now goes from 472 to 528 with an extra section in MCAT 2015.
Google LizzyM spreadsheet and look for a link from UC Berkeley honor society to see what different schools are looking for in terms of GPA and MCAT score. You need to know a conversion between old score percentile and the new score percentile in order to determine what you might need for each school. In most cases the students end up in their own state schools since many states have medical schools holding a majority of their seats for their residents, especially in Texas.
When to start studying? You are preparing for the MCAT whenever you are enrolled in a science or a class that requires advanced reading/writing skills. The trick is that you must take these classes and their content seriously and actually learn them, permanently. Every person I know who scored high on the MCAT had life habits that predisposed them to success. For example, you must be an avid reader. You will need to read quickly and with high comprehension to give yourself the best chance for a high score. If you don’t already have these skills when the time to take the test nears, no amount of cramming will help that much.
What score should you aim at? Your aim is to get a perfect score. Why would anyone aim for anything else? If you have done your very best and the result is a score below the 60th percentile, you may want/need to reaccess your plans.
When? You take the MCAT when you are ready to take it, never before. Also, since most medical schools put expiration thresholds on when you took the test, you don’t want to take it too early. I personally found the winter break (Jan.) of junior year to be ideal.
Best ways to study: This varies by student. Do what works for you. There are plenty of online (free) and commercial resources available. I used TPR and Examkrackers, but this was just a personal choice and I know others who did very well with other sources.
How much do medical schools care about student’s UG? Not really an MCAT question but the answer would be not much, but not zero. It’s not at all rare for a graduate from “state” to attend a top twenty medical school.