<p>Hi all,
I'm a pre-med considering taking a prep class next summer for some classroom style MCAT study. After doing some reading online, it seems that the 2 big companies for MCAT test prep are Princeton Review and Kaplan. Both seem very qualified, but I am not sure exactly how they differ from each other. I was wondering if maybe their teaching styles are different. </p>
<p>If anyone on this forum knows about or has taken either company's MCAT class, I would love to hear your imput on the method of instruction they use (i.e. more book heavy or more practice heavy, more one-on-one or more group based, and such). </p>
<p>PS I read on these forums that a mcat class is needed for mcat prep. And I totally understand this point of view! But for me, I think I'm one of those people who respond better in a classroom-type environment when it comes to initial test prep. ^^ </p>
<p>i think TPR is probably the better of the two, by default. I took Kaplan, and some of there materials are super outdated. For one, orgo has drastically changed over the last 10 years, now only comprising ~20% of the biological section. Kaplan still has bloated orgo review books that list all these different types of reactions that you really don’t need to know, while failing to emphasize the important aspects of orgo tested, such as experimental techniques and carbonyl chemistry. Also, some of the practice tests for Kaplan are shocking, compared to AAMC. The verbal focuses too much on detail and not conceptual understanding, the physical sciences portion is 100x harder than the real thing, and the scaling is strange. On a Kaplan test, a 28/52 on the physics is a 10/15, while on the real thing you would need at least a 40/52 to get that score. This creates an uneasy transition to the actual mcat, and your score on kaplan tests sometimes come down to being a better guesser.</p>
<p>I think the best test-prep companies for the mcat are berkeley review and examkrackers. They are certainly not used by the masses (i learned about them from studentdoctor.net). I found these materials to be significantly better than those of my kaplan course, with more realistic practice questions and material that wasn’t just photocopied from a college textbook.</p>