is this enough time to study for mcat?

[Dr.Squalene]

I am really on the fence about this and desperately need advice: I have the opportunity to do a 3 week mission trip in India from Mid-september to second week of october; however, I am planning on taking the Jan 2020 MCAT and am wondering if I will have enough time to study for it after I return. If I begin studying in mid October after returning, will I be prepared to take the MCAT in mid/late January? (13.5 - 14 weeks to study). (I will have no other commitments in the fall other than MCAT, so I could theoretically spend full time on it).

Or is it better to hold off on going on the mission trip until after I take the MCAT so I have more dedicated time to study? Is it better to spend 4 months or 3 months of full-time MCAT prep or is there no difference?

Not sure exactly what testing dates are available for January yet. Any advice is appreciated!

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[Dr.Squalene]

When I took a Kaplan diagnostic, I got 499. My goal score is 515 or above, (520 is a dream).
So if I studied for those 3 months only would I have to do 8 hrs a day to reach that?

 

[Detective SnowBucket]

I studied ~350 hrs (not ass-in-chair-time but actually study time) over exactly 4 months. Did this in addition to taking 17 credits junior spring. My kap diagnostic was like 501-503 (not significantly different than yours) and I was able to raise it a significant qty over the 350 hrs for the read deal.

To accomplish 350 hrs in 13.5 wks, that's ~5 hrs/day which is a significant commitment, even with nothing else to do. Personally I could only do 3-5 per day, but 5 hr days consecutively would be ridiculous, that means 6-7+ hrs sitting down to get 5 hrs/day of study time; if you can do that there's no reason you can't get an amazing score as well.

 

[Dr.Squalene]

I studied ~350 hrs (not ass-in-chair-time but actually study time) over exactly 4 months. Did this in addition to taking 17 credits junior spring. My kap diagnostic was like 501-503 (not significantly different than yours) and I was able to raise it a significant qty over the 350 hrs for the read deal.

To accomplish 350 hrs in 13.5 wks, that's ~5 hrs/day which is a significant commitment, even with nothing else to do. Personally I could only do 3-5 per day, but 5 hr days consecutively would be ridiculous, that means 6-7+ hrs sitting down to get 5 hrs/day of study time; if you can do that there's no reason you can't get an amazing score as well.

Did this 350 hrs include both content review and practice problems?

 

[Dr.Squalene]

That's 672 hours. Yes that would be sufficient to raise your score 16 points easily. Depending on who you, and how you study, are 300-500 hours (actual study hours, not sitting down) should suffice in raising your score to 515. This is based on my experience working with several students who closely track their hours in their studying. The 520+ barrier is one not everyone can hit and there is a sharp decline in hours studied/score improvement after 515 for most students - but could be possible in the same amount of time as well. A 515 will open doors to almost every med school FYI barring a few who have median MCATs higher than that.

How do you distinguish between sitting down time vs study hours? I probably wouldn't be able to do 8 hrs 7 days a week, but maybe 5 days a week?

I studied ~350 hrs (not ass-in-chair-time but actually study time) over exactly 4 months. Did this in addition to taking 17 credits junior spring. My kap diagnostic was like 501-503 (not significantly different than yours) and I was able to raise it a significant qty over the 350 hrs for the read deal.

To accomplish 350 hrs in 13.5 wks, that's ~5 hrs/day which is a significant commitment, even with nothing else to do. Personally I could only do 3-5 per day, but 5 hr days consecutively would be ridiculous, that means 6-7+ hrs sitting down to get 5 hrs/day of study time; if you can do that there's no reason you can't get an amazing score as well.

yes, that's a good point. Maybe if I did 2 hrs. a day starting in September would that be better? But is it ok if the study is non-continuous, meaning I miss some days because I'll be abroad? As long as the total hours adds up to 500? Also, is there a possibility of burning out by studying 4 months instead of 3?

 

[MedDoc305]

How do you distinguish between sitting down time vs study hours? I probably wouldn't be able to do 8 hrs 7 days a week, but maybe 5 days a week?

yes, that's a good point. Maybe if I did 2 hrs. a day starting in September would that be better? But is it ok if the study is non-continuous, meaning I miss some days because I'll be abroad? As long as the total hours adds up to 500? Also, is there a possibility of burning out by studying 4 months instead of 3?

I agree with MCATKINGS, at a certain point, you will hit a wall and for the most part you won't improve much after that. When I first took the MCAT I studied 11 days for it and got a 499. For my retake, I studied for a month dedicated time after quitting my job (some days were half-assed, other days grinding for hours) and jumped from a 499 - 513. This question can really only be answered by yourself depending on how dedicated you are and how quickly you learn information, but almost 3 months of dedicated time should be enough.

 

[Detective SnowBucket]

The way you track your hours is not counting the hours you are totally zoned out, on your phone, on social media. Get a stopwatch and count the hours you actually study. You will be surprised that even though you say "you are studying 10 hours" you may be only studying 5-8.

I did this on my phone. I can't get over 75% efficiency for more than 1.5 hrs so you'd really be surprised at how little of our seated time is actually study time.

 

[deleted936470]

The way you track your hours is not counting the hours you are totally zoned out, on your phone, on social media. Get a stopwatch and count the hours you actually study. You will be surprised that even though you say "you are studying 10 hours" you may be only studying 5-8.

Probably closer to 3 hours haha