Is a formal Psychology course needed for the mcat

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

kreyain

New Member
7+ Year Member
Joined
Jun 27, 2015
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
Im wanting to take the mcat next spring but I have yet to take a psychology course in school, I've had sociology but it was years ago. Should I take a formal psych course at my college, I really dont want to and my schooled would then be pretty full or does anyone have any recommendations for supplemental psych info like the Princeton review psych/socio review?

Members don't see this ad.
 
You don't need to take a formal course, no. Kaplan or TPR's books for the subject will be sufficient.
 
A friend of mine who took the exam a month ago did not take any psychology classes, he used some 101 psychology book and told me it was enough. I never used TPR so I can't tell you if it is good. I've heard good things about Khan academy (free), varsity tutors (free), and NextStep.
 
There were two items on the Psychology section of my May 22 MCAT that I knew only because they were from my intro psych class. I.e. they were not in my Kaplan books.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
Was there any psychology questions that you saw, that weren't covered in the intro class and the kaplan books?
My answer to that would be: probably not. Again, if it wasn't explicitly covered by the Kaplan stuff or my course in psych I probably could have done some level of deductive reasoning to figure it out. In all honesty, though, between Kaplan and an intro course you should be more than set. And even then I thought that the Kaplan books were good.
 
I've been told again and again that you don't need to take one but lets just say I took the June 20th MCAT and wow some topics were absolutely not covered in the review books I used (kaplan and EK) and if you go read the thread a lot of people struggled with the section and only those were took psych courses/were psych majors understood more of it. It's completely possible that it was just that one test though. But just thought you should know :)
 
bringing up an old thread but, i just had my first day of psych and it was ridiculously easy... not to down play or offend anyone who is a psych major but i could easily read a book and grasp the material as it is basically just common sense with names you have to memorize to describe those ideas. That said, do medical schools(DO/MD) require you to a psych class nowadays???? i was looking at MSAR and got conflicted results from friends.
 
Top