Did I Get Screwed Buying Kaplan?

[CeLo]

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I just bought the Kaplan self-study books. It seems like most people on SDN think that's a bad idea, that it's better to buy individual books, and I'm starting to agree. I bought them on impulse without really thinking about it. Yes, I know that was stupid. Does any one have an opinion either way? And are those books returnable if I decide not to keep them? Thanks for your advice!

 

[gbono2]

They have some really good condensed info in the books. Their path sucks. I have them. I do find their books hard to read. The kaplan books are designed to be used in conjunction w/their lecture series. They are sort of incomplete because you have to annotate them from the lectures for clarity.

Hope this makes sense.

 

[VincentAdultman]

They have some really good condensed info in the books. Their path sucks. I have them. I do find their books hard to read. The kaplan books are designed to be used in conjunction w/their lecture series. They are sort of incomplete because you have to annotate them from the lectures for clarity.

Hope this makes sense.

Yep...path is useless without the lectures.

Immuno/micro is pretty good, though.

 

[zeloc]

They have some really good condensed info in the books. Their path sucks. I have them. I do find their books hard to read. The kaplan books are designed to be used in conjunction w/their lecture series. They are sort of incomplete because you have to annotate them from the lectures for clarity.

Hope this makes sense.

Kaplan has a series of books designed for self-study, the organ system books, in addition to the ones that come with the online lectures. Are you talking about the white books or the black ones being hard to read?

A lot of high scorers have primarily used the Kaplan books to study for the USMLE. Do most people here on SDN really think it's a bad idea?

 

[HamOnWholeWheat]

Biochem is EXCELLENT.
Immuno, Behavioral, and Micro are all GOOD.
Path, Gross, Pharm are all FAIR.

I used a buddy's books which were not annotated. Maybe that's why path and the rest sucked, but I honestly thought it was more because their path book was just a dense, poorly-worded form of BRS. Definitely keep the Biochem book if you can though. Biochem, immuno, and Behavioral/Biostats in hindsight would be enough for me to justify buying the whole set. If you get a good score from it, you won't care about the pricetag.

HamOn

 

[EasyRider]

I just bought the Kaplan self-study books. It seems like most people on SDN think that's a bad idea, that it's better to buy individual books, and I'm starting to agree. I bought them on impulse without really thinking about it. Yes, I know that was stupid. Does any one have an opinion either way? And are those books returnable if I decide not to keep them? Thanks for your advice!

Just Supplement HY Neuro and HY Gross for Kaplan