Which one did people have good experience in ? which had least noise from outside?
There is also one in Brooklyn
There is also one in Brooklyn
Best testing center in NYC?
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The Prometric center at One Penn Plaza had very quiet testing rooms. The staff there on the other hand are another story. Be prepared to be screened from head to toe every time you want to enter the testing room.
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Buy 3M 32 decibel earplugs... practice some AAMCs with them... You won't even know what noise means anymore
I had people holding full conversations next to me during my practice exams at times and had no idea until I took them out during my break
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yes they make you go in the hallway to eat. you will be told to put your stuff away as soon as you walk in, so if you're early DON'T go in yet.
yes you are in cubicles. you don't hear street noise with their headphones (I was on the 17th floor). staff is pretty strict and will yell at their employees but not at you lol so don't be intimidated. and yes they give you paper and pencil--all mcat exams are like this. DAT gives laminated sheets and markers.
yes you are in cubicles. you don't hear street noise with their headphones (I was on the 17th floor). staff is pretty strict and will yell at their employees but not at you lol so don't be intimidated. and yes they give you paper and pencil--all mcat exams are like this. DAT gives laminated sheets and markers.
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Yep we had cubicles. I tested there twice but the one time where I had a testing room next to a window I heard no street noise (It was on the 17th floor). You get paper and pencil. And yeah you can go to your locker to eat during breaks.
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Thanks so much guys... I definitely feel more comfortable knowing all that. One last question, Was it a pain to find the right way in? I read somewhere that there is a set of doors that is locked and they don't tell you they aren't going to be opened
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Thanks so much guys... I definitely feel more comfortable knowing all that. One last question, Was it a pain to find the right way in? I read somewhere that there is a set of doors that is locked and they don't tell you they aren't going to be opened
I had no trouble getting in. Just use the front entrance on 7th avenue and you'll be fine. Once inside someone will check your ticket and allow you to use the elevators.
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Ticket huh... I now need to win tickets to this show?!
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I just wanted to follow up with all those that are taking an exam at 1 Penn Plaza in the future.
My experience:
The entrance you want to use is on 34th street between 7th and 8th ave.
At the bottom of this post is a link to the exact street view of the entrance to use, although if you walk around the building you'll probably notice people waiting at this entrance nervously (if you get there early enough)
I got there at around 7:22 AM for an 8 AM exam. There were about 15 people sitting outside waiting for the security desk to let testers up. I assume this building security desk doesn't let anyone up until prometric officially opens at 7:30. Just as a note, this security is not prometric or MCAT affiliated, they are building security. I also would like to note the woman there the day before my exam was really nice!
Once 7:30 rolled around there were about 35 people that formed a line inside where they just checked your ID (any state or federal ID) to essentially give you a building pass to enter the elevator. You do not need anything but your ID. You walk over to the elevators 15 feet away and give your building pass to the elevator guy who checks it and gives it back.
Up to the 15 or 17th floor you go. Once up there you walk down a long hallway with a bunch of doors to other businesses and offices. All the way at the end is the mens/womens bathrooms and the door into the prometric site.
Inside that door is the prometric waiting room and front desk. Here will be another small line to get your locker key and they once again check your building pass from the building security downstairs. This time they take the building pass from you (meaning if you for some crazy reason go down the elevator and outside the building, you will need another one). The front desk staff was "New York friendly". You know, that attitude where you don't know if they are sarcastically trying to lighten the mood or genuinely don't care about you. I liked them, they seemed nice to me, but my family is very much like this so I am used to it.
This site is a small waiting room with chairs and a water tank, then of course there are three doors to 3 smaller rooms with computers and such. It is just like a normal doctor's or dentist's office but with three computer labs. This waiting room has one heck of a nice view by the way. It's pretty inspiring to look out over the construction of a nearly finished freedom tower in the downtown skyline before such an important exam. Really made me think about the pursuit of my dreams and the opportunity I have had getting here. Really loved having that reminder beforehand.
Once the desk staff gives you your locker key you are free to walk over to them and put everything you have in them. If you have food, medicine, etc. that you definitely want later they suggest you leave that on top of the locker. You can keep it in the locker but they are trying to avoid anyone being tempted to look at notes (prohibited) or access anything in the locker that they aren't supposed to like a phone. You have access to these lockers during any of your breaks. You also have access to the bathrooms in the hallway. There is a code for the bathroom (123 for mens, 234 for womens). If you want to eat or drink anything (except the water in the waiting room tank) you have to step into the hallway. This entails at most 15 feet of walking just like the bathrooms. They do this to keep the place clean and for allergy purposes I believe.
Back to check in:
If you want to go to the bathroom during this time you can do that... You can stretch, do whatever you want or you can go to the security check in and get assigned to your computer. They do try to keep people moving into the testing rooms so they might call your name and ask you if you are ready to get checked in.
I suggest you wear little to no pockets for they will have you turn all of them out every time you enter the testing room. I saw many people turning out 8+ pockets on their shirt, pants, socks, you name it
If you have ear plugs, they will have you open the package, take two out, leave them with your ID, put the rest in the locker and come back real quick. This takes 10 seconds. They then use a metal detector wand and check for watches by asking you to roll up your sleeves.
You then get finger printed 3 times on each hand which is sorta cool. They walk you to your desk and you do as you do on AAMC practice exams. Seeing that start screen just like in the practice exam is actually calming. It makes it feel like it's just another practice exam. You are free to start when you get to your desk however I took a minute to shake the jitters and put in my ear plugs.
They give you a booklet with 4 pages front and back for scratch. You can raise your hand to get another one mid exam if need be. They also give you 3 new wooden pencils nicely sharpened.
The screens are like this:
Not huge, not small, not LCD but honestly they were just fine.
You get a cubicle, a set of earphones and a nicely sized desk with comfortable chair. The site itself was exactly what I was hoping for with respect to testing conditions. Dead silent, no visual distractions, comfy seat, lots of space, not cold (actually was too warm to wear my sweatshirt), VERY easy to get to bathrooms and food/area to eat during only 10 minute long breaks and the employees were organized.
I would 100% recommend this site to others.
Here's the entrance on google street view. I hope this is helpful to those taking the MCAT, GRE, USLME's, etc. This place was great...
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=1+penn+plaza&hl=en&ll=40.751635,-73.99215&spn=0.008193,0.01781&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=35.082817,72.949219&hnear=1+Penn+Plaza,+Manhattan,+New+York+10001&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=40.751635,-73.99215&panoid=196PIAYeygotGCdLnZxw8A&cbp=12,217.08,,0,-0.87
My experience:
The entrance you want to use is on 34th street between 7th and 8th ave.
At the bottom of this post is a link to the exact street view of the entrance to use, although if you walk around the building you'll probably notice people waiting at this entrance nervously (if you get there early enough)
I got there at around 7:22 AM for an 8 AM exam. There were about 15 people sitting outside waiting for the security desk to let testers up. I assume this building security desk doesn't let anyone up until prometric officially opens at 7:30. Just as a note, this security is not prometric or MCAT affiliated, they are building security. I also would like to note the woman there the day before my exam was really nice!
Once 7:30 rolled around there were about 35 people that formed a line inside where they just checked your ID (any state or federal ID) to essentially give you a building pass to enter the elevator. You do not need anything but your ID. You walk over to the elevators 15 feet away and give your building pass to the elevator guy who checks it and gives it back.
Up to the 15 or 17th floor you go. Once up there you walk down a long hallway with a bunch of doors to other businesses and offices. All the way at the end is the mens/womens bathrooms and the door into the prometric site.
Inside that door is the prometric waiting room and front desk. Here will be another small line to get your locker key and they once again check your building pass from the building security downstairs. This time they take the building pass from you (meaning if you for some crazy reason go down the elevator and outside the building, you will need another one). The front desk staff was "New York friendly". You know, that attitude where you don't know if they are sarcastically trying to lighten the mood or genuinely don't care about you. I liked them, they seemed nice to me, but my family is very much like this so I am used to it.
This site is a small waiting room with chairs and a water tank, then of course there are three doors to 3 smaller rooms with computers and such. It is just like a normal doctor's or dentist's office but with three computer labs. This waiting room has one heck of a nice view by the way. It's pretty inspiring to look out over the construction of a nearly finished freedom tower in the downtown skyline before such an important exam. Really made me think about the pursuit of my dreams and the opportunity I have had getting here. Really loved having that reminder beforehand.
Once the desk staff gives you your locker key you are free to walk over to them and put everything you have in them. If you have food, medicine, etc. that you definitely want later they suggest you leave that on top of the locker. You can keep it in the locker but they are trying to avoid anyone being tempted to look at notes (prohibited) or access anything in the locker that they aren't supposed to like a phone. You have access to these lockers during any of your breaks. You also have access to the bathrooms in the hallway. There is a code for the bathroom (123 for mens, 234 for womens). If you want to eat or drink anything (except the water in the waiting room tank) you have to step into the hallway. This entails at most 15 feet of walking just like the bathrooms. They do this to keep the place clean and for allergy purposes I believe.
Back to check in:
If you want to go to the bathroom during this time you can do that... You can stretch, do whatever you want or you can go to the security check in and get assigned to your computer. They do try to keep people moving into the testing rooms so they might call your name and ask you if you are ready to get checked in.
I suggest you wear little to no pockets for they will have you turn all of them out every time you enter the testing room. I saw many people turning out 8+ pockets on their shirt, pants, socks, you name it
If you have ear plugs, they will have you open the package, take two out, leave them with your ID, put the rest in the locker and come back real quick. This takes 10 seconds. They then use a metal detector wand and check for watches by asking you to roll up your sleeves.
You then get finger printed 3 times on each hand which is sorta cool. They walk you to your desk and you do as you do on AAMC practice exams. Seeing that start screen just like in the practice exam is actually calming. It makes it feel like it's just another practice exam. You are free to start when you get to your desk however I took a minute to shake the jitters and put in my ear plugs.
They give you a booklet with 4 pages front and back for scratch. You can raise your hand to get another one mid exam if need be. They also give you 3 new wooden pencils nicely sharpened.
The screens are like this:
Not huge, not small, not LCD but honestly they were just fine.
You get a cubicle, a set of earphones and a nicely sized desk with comfortable chair. The site itself was exactly what I was hoping for with respect to testing conditions. Dead silent, no visual distractions, comfy seat, lots of space, not cold (actually was too warm to wear my sweatshirt), VERY easy to get to bathrooms and food/area to eat during only 10 minute long breaks and the employees were organized.
I would 100% recommend this site to others.
Here's the entrance on google street view. I hope this is helpful to those taking the MCAT, GRE, USLME's, etc. This place was great...
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=1+penn+plaza&hl=en&ll=40.751635,-73.99215&spn=0.008193,0.01781&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=35.082817,72.949219&hnear=1+Penn+Plaza,+Manhattan,+New+York+10001&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=40.751635,-73.99215&panoid=196PIAYeygotGCdLnZxw8A&cbp=12,217.08,,0,-0.87
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Can you use the keyboard there?
