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Seven month of studying is too long even if you have a full-time job. There's no reason you can't work and study for the MCAT over a few months.
 
That's what I did. I worked as a scribe during the week and studied for the MCAT on weekends for about 7-8 months. I thought it was a good approach. I had to study all the psych and sociology material since I had not taken those classes as well as do content review for the other sections.
 
My MCAT isn't until January, which is in 7 months. My plan was to start scribe work after MCAT is done and apply that June. But I was worried that this 7 months of studying without doing anything will hurt me by the time I apply. What do you all think?

Any thoughts would be appreciated, especially from @gonnif @Goro @gyngyn @LizzyM.

Thank you in advance!

OP, there are generally two best practices to maximize your MCAT score:

1. Take off of work and study full time for about 3 months. 40h+/wk.
2. Study for 6 months, 10-20 h/wk, while you work FT or PT. The less work hours you have, the more you can study.

While there's no magic number, I would guess that, on average, doing well on the MCAT exam requires 300 h+ of studying. Split that time up as you see fit.

There's no harm in spending a longer time studying for the test. Arguably, that's the best way to study. You and your Anki deck will become best friends if you just have to look at her once a day for 20 minutes. You have to find advice on what a long-term study schedule looks like. You can't just read a chapter a week. You have to create a schedule which allows you to study section by section and, simultaneously, work in content review (and re-review) of what you've already covered.
 
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