<p>Students who score exactly a thirty have roughly a two-thirds chance of being admitted to at least one medical school.</p>
<p>you know I haven't taken the MCAT yet and don't know 2 much about the kaplan and princeton review courses...but PR says it garauntees a 10 pt improvement on one of its brochures and i was thinking...is this for real??</p>
<p>you sayin if some1 got a 25 and then after PR supposedly could get a 35??? it just doesn't seem right</p>
<p>What?! (Goes to look it up.)</p>
<p>Yeah, that's PR bragging about a ten point average increase.</p>
<p>Not the same as them guaranteeing, "Ten point increase or your money back!" Kaplan has the same average. I had nine points from Kaplan, for whatever that's worth.</p>
<p>Both review course will give you an increase, hell any studying will (ie just memorizing the physics formulas is probably worth a point or two on PS).</p>
<p>One difference in terms of Kaplan vs PR on money back guarantees is that Kaplan will let you take the course again (assuming you've done all the homework and gone to all the classes) if you:
1) don't score higher than your diagnostic on the actual exam (you can also get your money refunded)
2) You don't feel ready for the real exam
3) you simply aren't satisfied with your score no matter how large of increase you see (a student in one of my classes had scored a 32 after the first round of Kaplan, got accepted to only one school - private school on one of the coasts that he couldn't see himself moving to, and retook Kaplan to raise his score again so that he could get accepted to a school that was a better fit...not necessarily what I would have done, but it worked out for him).</p>
<p>PR last time I heard only had #1 from that list.</p>
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<p>does anyone know PR's policies on retaking the course?</p>
<p>Hey, in general, how many questions would one have to miss in order to go down by 1 point on the MCAT, say from a 36 to 35?<br>
and,
Does this number become smaller and smaller as the percentile goes higher and higher,...Say, to drop from 42 to 41 you would need 3 ques. wrong, (about) and to drop from 33 to 32 you would need 6 ques. wrong?</p>
<p>Thanx.</p>
<p>Sometimes its as few as one question for particular section that can drop you from 15 to 14 and 14 to 13. After that its a few more per point. So you see its pretty darn hard to do well on the MCAT.</p>
<p>It's going to depend on the section. In VR, missing 1 question will take you from a 15 to a 14. That will probably hold true down to about 12, then missing 2 questions will get you a 1 point drop. </p>
<p>In physical sci you can usually miss 15-18 questions (maybe even more) and still get a double digit score.</p>
<p>Biological Sciences curve is in between PS and VR, but definitely harder than PS, just not quite as cutthroat as VR.</p>
<p>I've heard its hard for almost everyone to do well on the VR, why then is it so cutthroat, like miss one Q and lose one point,..Why isn't it curved like Bio,..I am just curious,...
Thanks!</p>
<p>It is curved like bio, when you look at the percentiles and the correlating scores.</p>
<p>They are curved the way they are because they have so many people clustered around the same scores. That's what MCAT "curving" really is. Think about it this way, if most people are at about a 75%, then the standard deviations are going to relatively small, which follows that small differences in the % correct have a large impact on your standing compared to everyone else. The greater the spread of %ages the larger the standard deviation, the less relative impact 1 or 2 questions has on your overall standing relative to everyone else.</p>
<p>What I'm trying to say is that if 92 of 100 people have scores between a 72% - 78%, you getting 80% is a big deal.</p>
<p>But if the same 92 people have scores between 65% and 85%, then your relative position at 80% does not carry the same impact.</p>
<p>Hey new-mcat takers, when are you taking your mcat? I think generally we need to get the score in by spring (April-may) of the year that we are applying no?</p>
<p>i'm thinking about taking mine end of the summer in 07. since i'll have the summer to study and have everything relatively fresh on my mind. but i'm not sure if i should wait a semester to take biochem and vert phys ii or molecular biology. </p>
<p>if i do wait, i'm sure i'll forget some of the physics/ochem/cell bio stuff i learned during the year. so how much biochem/molecular/physiology stuff is on the mcat? can they be easily self-studied?</p>
<p>sorry i'm so confused about the whole process. if these questions were answered before, sorry for the repetition...</p>
<p>thanks all!</p>
<p>1.) You "need" the score in by October of the year in which you are applying, but that's a very bad standard to use. You want the score in by early July if you don't want to harm your application. I believe that you want the score in, as you said, by late May. This helps you target more accurately what kind of schools to apply to. (If you are applying without taking time off, this would meant that you would want the score in by late May of your junior year.)</p>
<p>2.) Animal physiology is not officially on the MCAT, as you're expected to draw the inferences based on other coursework, but it's incredibly helpful, perhaps the most important subject on the MCAT. Molecular biology appears some, and my impression is that biochemistry is very light.</p>
<p>3.) I would argue strongly in favor of not worrying about "forgetting" the stuff, because I would argue strongly in favor of using a prep class to force yourself to brush up on it. Physics on the MCAT is very easy and OChem on the MCAT is very sparse; I wouldn't worry too much about forgetting those, as they'll prove reasonably easy to brush up on. It's the GenChem that's harder to keep strong on.</p>
<p>Thanks bluedevilmike.</p>
<p>yea. i'll definitely try to get vert phys ii done before i take the mcat then. i'm also planning on taking a prep class next summer, unless i absolutely have to do it during the school year (since they sound to be pretty time-consuming). personally i'd much rather learn as much as i can in classes now, and just apply what i know instead of cramming in everything in a few months just purely for a high score on the mcat (which i'm sure i'll have to do to some extent unfortunately).</p>
<p>i was also wondering how much of the lab stuff do we need to know (eg orgo lab), because it's really time-consuming, and i really want to put it off to take some bio classes instead</p>
<p>Lab stuff does appear some on the MCAT, but it's probably not a dominant concept. Do you not have to take it along with your orgo class??</p>
<p>While many schools have separate lab classes (ie different course numbers than lecture - my Ochem I courses were CHEM 251 and CHEM 253, while OChem II was CHEM 252/254), medical schools require the labs. You MUST take them.</p>
<p>Right - I believe his/her dilemma is when to take them. First, I'm surprised there's even a choice - I figured most places would force you to associate them. But second, I have to confess that I'd just go for it together; the material is more intuitive that way.</p>
<p>Some schools are weird about labs for ochem, mine is one of them. Basically there is only a one semester lab you can take for Orgo, no lab to go with each semester of Orgo I and OrgoII.</p>
<p>exactly. my school's just like that.
i'd rather take the year-long course if i have the time. but i think there are other things i should be doing. but thanks all!</p>