Studying for MCAT

Have the exam in late March, haven’t been studying all that hard at all since the beginning of this month. Are the next 3 months enough study time to do well on the MCAT or is it best I postpone my MCAT date to late April or so? Thanks!

Some prep on own/small group, others find structure of a formal review course (eg Princeton Review) more effective. No matter which works for you, 3 months should be enough time, but only you can answer if you are prepared as test approaches. As it’s best to only take test one time and earn a strong score, if you don’t feel you’re ready as test approaches, reschedule or cancel test.

if you purchase full length practice exams from AMCAS, you’ll be able to gauge your readiness to take the MCAT since the practice exams are retired actual tests.

If you are planning to apply for the next cycle, you will need to schedule your rest no later than early June since it takes 4-5 weeks to get your test score back. AMCAS will not forward your application to schools without a test score.

@Jugulator20 @WayOutWestMom thank you both! I’m using the Kaplan series of books to study, plan on finishing studying the content by early February and doing about a month of pure testing until mid march, is there anything wrong with this plan?

Whatever works for you…

Take a practice test as a baseline and see how you score. I think Next Step online offers a free test. At least you will get an idea of how much more you need to study. It really depends on the student but I would recommend more prep time and only take the test when you are reaching your target score on practice tests.

Keep track of registration deadlines with the MCAT. If you decide to not take the test on the scheduled date you may lose the testing fee if you don’t cancel it on time.