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My contribution to this thread will be noting that the AAMC worked with Khan Academy to create a free MCAT prep course with 1,100 videos and 3,000 practice questions. It did this to lower the barrier to entry. The AAMC guide to creating a MCAT study plan can be found here.
Applicant spend a lot of money on MCAT prep courses, but they have no demonstrated value beyond forcing people to stick to a schedule. If you are capable of creating and adhering to a study schedule then a prep course gains you nothing.
KA isn’t a very good standalone MCAT prep resource. I disagree that prep courses only give you structure and nothing else.
One thing people gain from prep courses is a lot of info about test taking strategy. Now, someone with sufficiently good intrinsic test taking ability can develop the strategy on their own, but in a prep course it’s just spoon fed to you. On the McAT, there are certain tidbits of wisdom (like the highly specific way the CARS section uses very specific words) which alone might net you 1-2 points.
We also shouldn’t discount the value structure provides as it could potentially give an advantage to a student who would not have been able to score as well without that structure in place for a variety of reasons.
I agree that courses are not necessary, but I disagree that they won’t help you get a better score and can be beneficial for certain kinds of students. We live in a world where about 50% of test takers took a commercial course. Unfortunately, AAMC does not publish whether they score better than those who didn’t take it to my knowledge.