<p>I intend on taking the MCATs during the summer after my sophomore year. Can anyone tell me:
1) how many months in advance most students start studying
2) what review course they would recommend (from personal experience or those of friends)
3) how difficult it is to get a 28
4) what courses besides typical pre-med requirements (physics, biology, general chem, organic chem, writing) would be helpful in doing well</p>
<p>Much thanks in advance :-)</p>
<ol>
<li>2-3 months</li>
<li>TPR/Kaplan</li>
<li>A 28 is roughly 65th percentile. So 1/3 of all test takers score a 28 or above.</li>
<li>You really don't need anything else. The next helpful course would be physiology. Even that's unnecessary.</li>
</ol>
<p>Affirm everything NCG said. Why the interest in 28?</p>
<p>i'm interested in 28 b/c i'm doing a med program and that the minimum MCAT requirement. the possibility that i may not get it makes me nervous. </p>
<p>do you suggest any particular extra-curricular activities/ volunteer work? i've done research in the past, but is any specific field of research or type of volunteer work looked upon more highly when applying for residencies?</p>
<p>Undergrad work is very unlikely to matter in residency applications unless you publish a research paper.</p>
<p>I am totally gobsmacked by the price of some of these mcat prep courses. So i am curious - those of you that are now medical students - did you do these classes that cost thousands of dollars or buy the books and review on your own. (this may be a naive question - we are not far past the ACT/SAT prep stage where self studying using the books like PR were good enough).</p>
<p>I used Kaplan. Unfortunately, (fortunately?) I thought it was well worth the price of the course -- can't imagine trying to get through it without it.</p>
<p>I just bought the kaplan book (for their course) off Amazon and studied on my own- ~35$ if I remember correctly. The risk is that you won't force yourself to get through it the same way a class would.</p>
<p>I mean, it's very similar to trying to learn an academic class on your own -- sure, you probably could get it eventually, but learning it from somebody with more experience can prevent you from running in circles. Having Kaplan to categorize and break down your question strengths and weaknesses not only saves you time that's better spent studying, it's probably broken down along a pattern that you might not otherwise even notice.</p>
<p>Basically, sitting there by yourself is an extremely limited tactic -- the MCAT is partly a game of strategy, not just content, and trying to break out of your own habits just doesn't work very well without an actual guide.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, they are very expensive.</p>
<p>I have a few questions regarding the reading/writing portion of the exam. Is comparable to say, the reading/writing portion of the SATs or AP exams? Do they provide a prompt and require you to write an essay about that?</p>
<p>Self studying is certainly an acceptable method, and it can yield good scores.</p>
<p>TPR or Kaplan are probably necessary though for the overwhelming majority of students to truly optimize their preparation and reach the highest score they're capable of getting. I'm absolutely certain that this is the case for 95% of the test takers out there.</p>
<p>But obviously taking a course is not sufficient for a good score, or even a score that's better than what you could obtain on studying on your own. There are a lot of students who flat out refuse to use the Kaplan strategies, who only do the bare minimum requirements, and who simply make poor decisions about the way in which they approach the MCAT or test day.</p>
<p>The writing section is always the same, just with different topics. They'll give you some single sentence statement and then ask you to complete the following tasks:</p>
<p>Write a unified, coherent essay in which you:
1) Explain what the statement means
2) Give an example in which the statement is not true
3) Define the criteria for resolving the apparent contradiction</p>
<p>One example of a prompt (from the AAMC website): "Term limits for politicians are unfair to committed public servants"</p>
<p>
[quote]
One example of a prompt (from the AAMC website): "Term limits for politicians are unfair to committed public servants"
[/quote]
OMG I don't understand what the sentence means. What are term limits and public servants? OMG OMG I'm doomed if MCAT verbal gives me a prompt related to politics. I know absolutely nothing about things like politics and business.</p>
<p>Are you being serious?</p>
<p>I mean, even if you didn't know what they were, couldn't you piece something together based on what the words are? If you're incapable of doing this, then I sure as hell wouldn't want you as my doctor (you could always go into pathology). Lucky for you, most schools dont' really look much at the writing sample score.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If you're incapable of doing this, then I sure as hell wouldn't want you as my doctor (you could always go into pathology).
[/quote]
I wouldn't want you as my patient either. lol jk</p>
<p>I definitely know what the words mean:
term limit: I know what "term" and "limit" mean, but I don't know what "term limit" means as a whole in professional context like politics.
public servant: public slave? what the hell is this??</p>
<p>"term limit" is like "speed limit"... it's analogous to driving too fast except in terms of politicians, a phenomenon known as "terming".
*
"Yeah, I was driving around with Franklin D Roosevelt when we were pulled over and given a terming ticket".*</p>
<p>How do you think preparing for the MCAT compares to studying for the SAT as far as self-study vs. taking a class like Kaplan? If a student had enough discipline to self-study for the SAT using the the CB tests and prep books to get a very good score, could they do similarly for the MCAT using Kaplan books, or is there something missing that they would only get in the class?</p>
<p>The main difference is threefold.</p>
<p>First, the SAT is much easier (not to mention less important) than the MCAT is.</p>
<p>Second, the MCAT is a much longer test, and that makes planning and pacing much more important -- in other words, the test itself matters.</p>
<p>Third, the MCAT actually has some material on it -- and it's just as important to know what not to waste your time on as it is to learn the things you need to learn.</p>
<p>I took a Kaplan class and honestly can't imagine managing the MCAT without it.</p>
<p>I think the biggest difference is simply the level of competition and the importance of the exam...</p>
<p>A great majority of students do not study for the ACT or SAT, and you can definitely score well without doing so (I got in the 99th%ile on the ACT without a minute of prep). And even if you don't do so well on the ACT or SAT, it only effects the caliber of school you attend (which may not matter to you anyways - I likely would have gone to the same school whether I had a 24 or a 34).</p>
<p>But with the MCAT, the self-selection combined with the attrition of pre-med course work creates a very small population of test takers, who on average are much, much, much more talented than the average SAT or ACT test taker. That combined with the weight of the test, and the fact that greater than 50% of applicants get rejected by every school they apply to, makes getting a high score all that more important. </p>
<p>To top it off, there are a number of different factors you have to consider when comparing MCAT vs college entrance tests - was the student really self-motivated to study, or was Mom or Dad hanging over them, pushing them to put the time in? What the student capable of getting good grades in HS without much effort and thus had a lot more free time and how does that compare to taking three upper level science courses with labs the same semester they're doing MCAT prep? </p>
<p>The fact remains that taking a kaplan or TPR course is neither necessary nor sufficient to get a good score on the MCAT. I personally believe that if you want to truly reach your full potential on the MCAT you do need some sort of review course. For some students, that course might mean a difference between a 34 on their own and a 36 with the course; for others, it might mean the difference between a 25 and a 31, and for others still it might mean a difference of an 18 to a 28. Certainly the cost of the course factors into how much value you see from those gains for each student. For the first student, if they're banking on getting into their state school, the course might not be worth it, but if they're hoping for a highly ranked school, then it might be worth it... For the second, to go from marginal to very competitive at some schools, it definitely is worth the money and for the third to go from no chance to competitive they probably could have paid twice what the course cost and still got the best bargain out of the three.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Third, the MCAT actually has some material on it -- and it's just as important to know what not to waste your time on as it is to learn the things you need to learn.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>BDM brings up an important point here. </p>
<p>The MCAT is, in fact, the last test physicians face which has a manageable or quasi-finite volume of material to study. That is to say, if you had sufficient time and motivation, you actually could learn and master all the material on the MCAT.</p>
<p>By contrast, every major exam taken after the MCAT has an infinite volume of material to study: USMLE, written boards, oral boards and recert exams. Fortunately, raw and percentage scores required for a "pass" fall dramatically after USMLE, part I.</p>
<p>BDM & BRM,
As usual, thank you so much for your insightful and helpful replies! I'm actually asking because my D used the Xiggi method for the SATs and is down on prep courses in general since the ones that her friends took were pretty worthless. I understand your arguments and when she makes it to that point, they will help me to convince her that a MCAT course is well worth the investment. </p>
<p>p.s. I'm lucky that she's self-motivated and doesn't need me hanging over her to study ;).</p>