Doing well on the MCAT is easier now!

[BerkReviewTeach]

I'm sure the title evoked a few emotions, but before that emotion consumes you, please read completely and then let your emotions percolate.

I recently did a debriefing with a student who I have had in class twice, separated by eight years. The first time was Summer 2011 following his junior year. He finished college with around a 3.5 sGPA and despite getting a 29 on his MCAT (equivalent to a 507 on the current exam) didn't have any luck getting accepted to medical school. Fast forward to this past summer when he joined our class again. He had been working as a research assistant since graduation and went six years without touching any books. He started taking one extension class per quarter for the past year and went all in studying this past summer. To his credit, he always got to class an hour early to ask questions and always stayed after class to study. But he was just as committed the first time he studied.

In his own assessment, he felt okay going into the exam but the many years of not seeing the material worried him. I honestly was hoping he could pull off a 509. He was expecting around a 505 to 510. He ended up with a 516 which in both of our opinions was beyond what we figured he'd get. We went back and forth on different theories as to how he did well. Maturity and better focus certainly played a role. Working in a lab helped him on the scientific reasoning questions. But all that still doesn't account for how much he improved.

It got me thinking about the trends I've noticed lately with our students. Our course has kept the same number of lecture hours, skills session hours, office hours, and study halls for the past ten years. Although we modify our lectures a little but every session, they have not undergone wholesale changes. We still teach nearly all the same test tricks and strategies as we always have. We still demand a great deal of our students. The scores for our students in theory should have remained essentially the same during that time. But what we've seen is that they stayed relatively constant until 2015 and then they have inched up every year since. I don't think our students are any more or less prepared than any other year. If anything, we have had a higher percentage of students with lower GPAs recently. In recent years, many students with high GPAs opt to self-study. So if anything, we should have seen our scores inch down.

It's hard to admit and in many ways a little deflating, but I think the upward trend has more to do with the curve getting more generous starting in 2015 than what we do for students. I'm talking about a shift in the culture of students who study for the MCAT. People today center their review around videos. Videos have gone from an obscure option for a random topic here and there (five years ago this was the norm) to being the foundation of many people's study plans. Significantly fewer students take live classes than even as recently as four years ago. Most students who use review books try to watch videos in conjunction with them. Admittedly, we are making videos to accompany our review books, because the marketplace demands it.

Khan has become the most popular preparation tool, most likely because AAMC promotes them. I'm always entertained by seeing students I've had in class who first studied on their own for a previous MCAT before joining us. They all seem rather surprised by how important it is to think the way the question wants you to think and that learning the content is better done through application than memorization. Active learning beats passive learning.

So after all of my cerebral meandering, the point I'm hoping to make is that you can get a great MCAT score by focusing on how to think your way through questions, because the majority of your peers are busy memorizing someone else's flashcards, looking at someone else's review notes, watching videos that may or may not be specific to the MCAT, and not doing enough practice. Before you say "okay boomer" or something like that, look at how many people post about feeling ready for the exam and then getting surprised that they weren't as prepared as they thought they were. I will bet that 90% of the time it's people who centered their studies around completing review and watching videos before starting into practice questions. You need to start with questions right away and learn from your mistakes. Doing this will put you ahead of the curve.

Doing well on the MCAT requires hard work no matter what you do. But you can do better if you do 'smart' work. Good luck in your studies and I'd love to hear feedback about this, even if it starts with "okay boomer"!

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[damon30]

Okay boomer!

Haha just joking. But seriously, I appreciate this message. I think that regardless of the difficulty of the MCAT, there are more and more free sources online like the ones you mentioned that enable you to truly prepare for the exam. If anything, opportunities to attend medical school are becoming significantly more accessible for people of all socioeconomic statuses, which I think is one of the greatest things that could happen to any field.

 

[Cornfed101]

I think the AAMC has shifted, and will continue to shift, towards analysis rather than rote memorization. There is an entire section (CARS) devoted to analyzing novel information! I think non-trads are at an advantage because we have more experience and we are often better read than traditional students. I didn't start doing well on practice MCAT passages until I started reading a bunch of journal articles.

I will disagree a little about it being "easier" to get a good score just because the MCAT is still scaled. The score itself is arbitrary. Getting a 516 means that you did better than 93% of those that took the exam. The number of actual answers right/wrong is irrelevant.

 

[Kardio]

I will disagree a little about it being "easier" to get a good score just because the MCAT is still scaled. The score itself is arbitrary. Getting a 516 means that you did better than 93% of those that took the exam. The number of actual answers right/wrong is irrelevant.

I actually think this is incorrect. The scores aren’t tethered to percentiles (in fact, their relationship varies a little year-by-year).

 

[PlsLetMeIn21]

At first I wanted to give you a big FU Boomer. I worked my butt of to get my score and there was nothing easy about it for me.

I think part of the reason I was so mad is that deep inside I think you're right. Even my advisor hinted at something similar. A girl in my lab was also studying for the MCAT at the same time did KA for most of her review and worked through Milesdown. I don't know what else she used but those were the two things she kept telling me to do. She didn't break 500. I'm sure she put the hours in and I know she gets good grades in school. I don't get such hot grades and my advisor's formula predicted I'd get a 504. I got a 516 including 132 on C/P and B/B, which is crazy compared to what I figured I'd get. There might be something to what you're saying. I know my big sib and her friends definitely worked harder than people my year.

 

[Cornfed101]

I actually think this is incorrect. The scores aren’t tethered to percentiles (in fact, their relationship varies a little year-by-year).

I think all 3 vary (raw score, scaled score, percentile), but I think (?) the AAMC's goal is to keep the scaled score and the percentiles close because med schools need to be able to compare people and don't need it changing dramatically every year.

 

[notretired]

He had been working as a research assistant since graduation and went six years without touching any books.

The new mcat favors those with a research background far more than the old test did. As much as this frustrated me as a career changer, I recognize the value in it. Whether the new mcat is "easier" or not depends heavily on one's background. In my anecdotal experience, it was much, much easier to walk into the old test with pre-req level science knowledge and absolutely crush it. I say this because I took two of the old practice tests early in my prep and scored equivalent to what ended up being my actual score (on a percentile basis) 3 months later. It took another full 3 months of practice tests to reach this level of proficiency on the new exam.

Your advice is mostly sound and I can vouch for TBR at least for the CP section. As for your flashcard/video perspective - I'll throw out the "ok boomer." I used premede anki decks, this is in no way mutually exclusive to being able to critically reason your way through the exam or "conceptual" thinking. A whole lot of topics for the mcat need to be wrote memorized. Without that base of knowledge you will never even get to the point to where you can use your critical thinking skills. If your entire prep is composed of either anki or practice questions - you will have a bad time. You need both; but most importantly, you can do both without ever shelling out $$ to prep companies for in person courses.

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

The new mcat favors those with a research background far more than the old test did. As much as this frustrated me as a career changer, I recognize the value in it. Whether the new mcat is "easier" or not depends heavily on one's background. In my anecdotal experience, it was much, much easier to walk into the old test with pre-req level science knowledge and absolutely crush it. I say this because I took two of the old practice tests early in my prep and scored equivalent to what ended up being my actual score (on a percentile basis) 3 months later. It took another full 3 months of practice tests to reach this level of proficiency on the new exam.

Your advice is mostly sound and I can vouch for TBR at least for the CP section. As for your flashcard/video perspective - I'll throw out the "ok boomer." I used premede anki decks, this is in no way mutually exclusive to being able to critically reason your way through the exam or "conceptual" thinking. A whole lot of topics for the mcat need to be wrote memorized. Without that base of knowledge you will never even get to the point to where you can use your critical thinking skills. If your entire prep is composed of either anki or practice questions - you will have a bad time. You need both; but most importantly, you can do both without ever shelling out $$ to prep companies for in person courses.

Excellent post!

The new MCAT definitely has experiments and experimental reasoning on it. But so did the old one, just not as challenging. Having seen the evolution of the exam over ten years, I think they changed the nature of the experiments from familiar to unfamiliar. You can no longer memorize labs to do well, you have to think in context. Where as they might have put a typical general chemistry titration lab on the older version of the MCAT, now they might talk about an industrial process for analyzing aspirin purity through automated titration coupled with laser spectroscopy and give you a data chart you have never seen before. I love this aspect of the exam, because it rewards the person who can think beyond the typical examples from school.

You also now have psychology and sociology on the exam (although these topics used to be in the VR section, just not many of them.) So the increased content and the increase in the sophistication of the questions on the current MCAT do in fact make the current exam harder than the old exam. I completely agree with your perspective that the test itself is harder now. But my point is not that the exam is easier; it's that it's easier to do well on this exam because the curve has become more generous. And I'm intrigued why it has become more generous, given that as cornfed points out: the pool is still a bell-curve of the same range of intelligence and knowledge.

I want to start with your last sentence. Your word choice of "shelling out" makes it clear that we differ in our perspective on prep classes. While it will be easy for you to say that I have a vested interest and am biased, please hear me out and know that for over ten years on SDN I have prided myself on integrity and honesty, whether it was beneficial or detrimental to my career. About ten years ago I posted a message that stated "too many people are taking prep courses when they don't actually need them." Back then, literally everyone took a class. There were plenty of materials available for home study, but the culture was to take classes. Classes were cheaper back then, so it was the most common path. I posted that message because about a third of my students should have been pounding through passages rather than sitting in class. Another third benefited from the structure and it gave them discipline (and guilt) to keep studying, so they got some benefit. Some of them could have studied on their own just as well. The last third truly needed what we offered and got better scores because of what we taught. Without us, they would have bombed.

The tables have gradually turned over the past five years. Nowadays I would say "too many people are studying on their own when they need a prep course." I think a lot of it comes back to people following the herd mentality that you and others promote. YOU didn't need a prep course, and you share this opinion. You are in that first third. So people reading your words think no one needs a prep course. But the reality is that some people do. Just like with exercise or losing weight, some people can do it on their own and others need a personal trainer.

Never before have I had so many statistically unfeasible score jumps as in the past three years. If a second time test-taker jumped from 29 to 35 before, that was considered astounding. In just the last year, I have seen students who first studied on their own jump from 502 to 517, 492 to 510, and 496 to 511. These are insane climbs that just didn't happen in the past. My personal opinion is that in each of those cases, she/he was approaching the exam incorrectly before and once they started looking at things from a better perspective, they improved. A course isn't right for about half of the people studying for the MCAT, but it is clear that these three were in the half that needed one. They made a mistake and wasted time and money studying on their own the first time.

I said it back then and I believe it to be true now, about half the people taking the MCAT should take an in-person review course and half should study on their own. Too many people took courses back then and too few take them now. A course gives the student who would otherwise rely on hours of video the opportunity to save time by asking an expert in person. A person who is looking for guidance can find it there. I'm not saying courses are magic, and unfortunately there are some classes with poor teaching that charge way too much giving all of us a bad name. Those specific classes are not worth the money. But I feel confident that what I and my fellow teachers do works, and the scores of late say it works better than it did before.

I attribute this increase in our averages to the large number of self-studiers doing the wrong thing, and thereby lowering the curve. You are right that you must balance memorization with application through passages. I say in class, "knowledge is half the battle... so what is the other half?" It's practice and application. Where I think you and I may differ is that while you say someone else's Anki deck is a useful tool, I say making your own as you review your homework questions is better. I think active learning that is personalized to your needs (based on what you got wrong and what you felt unsure of) beats going through someone else's pre-made cards. I say practicing passages and going over them with a teacher during office hours is more effective than watching video after video.

My point in all of this is that the pendulum was out of balance before and now it's swung too far the other way.

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I really appreciate your comments and congratulate you on doing so well. You worked hard for it and did it the right way, systematically over five months. I'm happy that you found our C/P to be helpful. I'll pass that along to the author of those books, who happens to be the person who teaches our chemistry and physics classes. A great teacher makes all the difference and their fuel is kind words like yours.

 

[notretired]

But my point is not that the exam is easier; it's that it's easier to do well on this exam because the curve has become more generous.

Not sure I agree with the bolded; at face value the curve is likely more generous in that you can probably get 4-5 wrong and still get a 132 on the new exam. At the end of the day though, it's still scaled to the same group of test takers, so not sure how this makes it harder or easier?

Agree with your points about prep courses. There is no one size fits all approach. "Take what you need and leave the rest" and "don't check boxes" would be my two key phrases of mcat advice to anyone.

 

[deleted859689]

Glad I never have to think about this test again.

 

[FutureInternist]

One of the student told me that A&P were no longer required in order to take the MCAT and that blew my mind...

 

[notretired]

One of the student told me that A&P were no longer required in order to take the MCAT and that blew my mind...

As in anatomy/physiology? I don't think any course is explicitly required to do well assuming you can self study. You definitely need to know anatomy/physiology for the new mcat tho.

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

Thank you for the excellent discussion @BerkReviewTeach. I do agree that courses get a really really bad name on forums and I think the reason is that forums are typically visited by people who have not succeeded with a company in the past (they are now self-studying) or those who are self studying. The ones who stick around are the ones who did exceptionally well self studying. The students who did well with a course typically do not view forums as actively as the students who did poorly with a course/self-studied for their journey (so you don't see lots of input about courses in the positive light). Forums probably also have a lower average SES than students who enroll in courses and many students are quick to look at the price tag and say they are not worth it just from that.

I can completely see that. Great points about MCAT forums having a cross section of visitors more inclined to self-study than take a class. Just as recently as five years ago, SDN was home to threads debating which course was best and in some cases what location was best for a given course. That has changed. The price tags alienate people for sure. In all honesty, I would not pay that kind of money for what the typical corporate class offers.

And so our program suffers from the negative view about overpricing associated with other courses. We make it a huge point to make sure students get their money's worth with us, having class sizes of twelve, running only a few sessions, offering hundreds of office hours, and having seminars of all kinds to help with anything from applying to math skills.

Part of the reason we keep our classroom program going is so our authors are in tune with what their students need. Every author for TBR is also one of the teachers you get when you take the class. So office hours are a great breeding ground for new ways to present information in our books. For instance, that is how our way of doing lenses and mirrors was developed. It's pretty genius and I can say that EVERY student who learns our approach walks away able to correctly answer any lens and mirror question they ever see.

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

Do you have a category of students you find that will benefit from classes? What is in your experience the "typical profile" of a student that should certainly enter a class (beyond a student who has failed on their own first?). What is the category of a student who should certainly NOT take a class?

What should a student be looking for in a class if they are to enroll? How can they identify a bad vs a good class?

Every student is different, but there are certainly commonalities between the people who get the most out of being in my class.

(1) A student who generates a large number of nagging little questions during their studying about terminology or concepts they may have forgotten. I'd say half of the questions I get in office hours early in our session are ones that are answered in less than five minutes; ones that their peers spend at least thirty minutes searching and watching videos to get.
(2) A student who didn't fully grasp a subject like physics, genetics, general chemistry, etc... The chance to hear a live lecture in a small setting where they can ask questions followed by office hours where they can slowly go over material is immensely helpful. Through dialogue, it's easier to teach concepts and present analogies than it is with a book or video. Feedback from a student about their difficulties is essential to correct any misconceptions. Live just works better.
(3) A student who needs better explanations than what the AAMC gives. In the office hours later in our session, the vast majority of questions are on AAMC questions, and this is where we can really help students not only get the concept, but the test logic that they will see on their actual exam. Students not taking the class fail to get that essential assistance. Going to Reddit and SDN Q&A can help, but live feedback from an instructor who understands the question inside and out is more helpful.
(4) A student looking for a better understanding of the material (maybe they are a 3.2 to 3.6 and need a good review). Students who have been out of college for a year or more benefit immensely from what they get with us. It's a safe an efficient way to get questions answered. Students who took a fast-paced summer school course in organic or physics or physiology and they didn't full grasp it get a great deal from a live class.
(5) A student who gets inspired by powerful teaching and positivity. Picture having the person you see in the best videos you have ever watched actually being in front of you live. It's a whole new level of helpful. We help our students hold themselves accountable for their progress in a friendly and supportive way.

The people who should not take classes also have commonalities.
(1) They know their material at a high level and would be slowed down in a class. If a student knows the material at the level of a tutor, then they are better suited to study on their own. They don't generate nagging questions or have many misconceptions that need to be cleared up in a class or office hours.
(2) The person who knows they just won't attend. This used to be more common five years ago (like maybe one out of every twenty students). Nowadays students who take classes are more serious (they filter themselves), so every student in my classes the last few years have 95% attendance or higher and they frequent office hours. Don't pay for something you won't use.
(3) A student who is repeating a 512 or higher. They are in a great position already and their time is better spent targeting what specific topics they need, not in a class covering everything.
(4) A student who isn't sure they want to be a doctor. It's hard to get motivated to study as much as you need if your can't see the tomorrow such studying opens up.

Distinguishing a bad class from a good class is actually easy. SIT IN on it! See who is teaching. See the room, the chairs, the tables, if they have snacks, and if you have personal space. Talk to current students. If a class won't let you sit in, or if they limit when you can sit in, you know something is not right. Classes are different at every location, so trusting feedback from the internet will never give you the information you are seeking. Lastly, make sure EVERY teacher has been teaching at least a full year and that most have at least five years under their belt. The longer a teacher teaches, the better they get. And a company won't keep bad teachers around that long.

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

I agree - Its clear that Berkeley review is a very present force on the forums and places students are asking questions. Genius indeed. Go to the students, understand their troubles, solve their troubles —-> then improve the product.

Except of course for our %@$*^y website. But that's a whole new ball of wax. At least we take credit cards for classes and books now. We kind of suck at the business end of things.

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

I also think it's important to realize that the cost of proper self-study sometimes is at 1k-1.5k for some students who elect to use several materials and there certainly is some guidance (just not expert guidance). Some students get away with spending $200-$400 or so - but this is the minority, and I'd say the average of self-studying is truly $700 (for a non-fee assistance student) (not "Free" which it sometimes feels like when you get started on the self-study path).

Very interesting perspective that quite honestly I've never thought to add up. If a student gets a set of books, gets an online subscription of some sort, and gets all the AAMC materials then they will drop around $850. Add in additional FLs beyond the AAMC materials and it hits $1000. That is typically the bare minimum of what people get, so hitting $1500 seems like it might be the cost at the end for someone who keeps adding things along the way.

 

[PlsLetMeIn21]

I spent over $1500 on materials, including some things I never (or barely) used. I suffered from FOMO and ended up with a UWorld subscription that I stopped using about half way, because I wasn't getting anything new from it. My TBR books for C/P and B/B and the 300 page doc and TPR book for P/S were better and more helpful (IMO) than UWorld. So part of why I spent as much as I did was that I kept getting new shiny objects along the way.

I think I spent around $1700. It was better than what I would have gotten with an online class for $2000, so I could never justify taking one of those. But if I lived closed enough and didn't have to commute an hour each way, I know I would have gotten much more from your live class and it would have been worth the additional $300.

Knowing what I know now, I think $2K for a live class with teachers who can answer my questions (I got tired of looking at videos that never quite answered what I wanted) is worth the investment.

 

[skeptastic]

I spent over $1500 on materials, including some things I never (or barely) used. I suffered from FOMO and ended up with a UWorld subscription that I stopped using about half way, because I wasn't getting anything new from it. My TBR books for C/P and B/B and the 300 page doc and TPR book for P/S were better and more helpful (IMO) than UWorld. So part of why I spent as much as I did was that I kept getting new shiny objects along the way.

I think I spent around $1700. It was better than what I would have gotten with an online class for $2000, so I could never justify taking one of those. But if I lived closed enough and didn't have to commute an hour each way, I know I would have gotten much more from your live class and it would have been worth the additional $300.

Knowing what I know now, I think $2K for a live class with teachers who can answer my questions (I got tired of looking at videos that never quite answered what I wanted) is worth the investment.

I wish I lived in CA or that TBR had live classes in other states. I think the Berkley Review course is the only one I'd consider taking. I've added up costs and it's going to be $1001 on the nose. An additional $1200 or so for the live class could be worth it, but I'll never know.