Early Kaplans?

[medicnick]

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While soaking in the wonders of life, moments after our OB invited me to deliver our daughter... he started talking med school. Actually he was the on-call for our OB so we had not met before but this all makes him even better in our eyes.

He was a non-trad allopathic student with low-mid GPA and a good MCAT. He sat on the Georgetown adcom... and offered to help me with anything to get in, including a LOR. That's no doubt a great opportunity to explore further especially since obstetrics is of great interest to me at this point.

The point of my post is actually a question which is coming... He suggested taking the Kaplan course early in undergrad, as in before the Freshman year if possible. His opinion was that by taking it early, you know what to study and why you are studying it for the next few years. That was his approach and it earned him the highest MCAT score in his state.

Anyone else try that approach? Have any thoughts on it?

Thanks
medicnick

 

[Law2Doc]

While soaking in the wonders of life, moments after our OB invited me to deliver our daughter... he started talking med school. Actually he was the on-call for our OB so we had not met before but this all makes him even better in our eyes.

He was a non-trad allopathic student with low-mid GPA and a good MCAT. He sat on the Georgetown adcom... and offered to help me with anything to get in, including a LOR. That's no doubt a great opportunity to explore further especially since obstetrics is of great interest to me at this point.

The point of my post is actually a question which is coming... He suggested taking the Kaplan course early in undergrad, as in before the Freshman year if possible. His opinion was that by taking it early, you know what to study and why you are studying it for the next few years. That was his approach and it earned him the highest MCAT score in his state.

Anyone else try that approach? Have any thoughts on it?

Thanks
medicnick

Seems like pretty foolish advice. The Kaplan course is good for review but not a great way to learn material from scratch. And it costs a ton of money for what will essentially be just useful to you as a syllabus. You can get that from any MCAT book at your average bookstore. Take an MCAT course after you have had the subject material in school. That's what most of the higher scorers tend to do. The fact that the person you are describing had a low GPA suggests that he took too narrow a focus in his classes anyhow. Both GPA and MCAT play a role in this process, BTW.

 

[Quix]

I agree with L2D; what your doc proposed sounds like an easy recipe for a mid-low BCPM QPA, since you are relegating additional course material to the back-burner, which tends to bite you when it comes to the exams. For instance, Bio I and II taught me a deep and abiding hatred of botany and ecology, as they aren't clinically relevant, but that didn't stop them from being on the exams.

 

[DrMidlife]

Kaplan uses a methodology that's specific to the MCAT exam and it's appropriate to some students. They have a ton of programs, though, and I know they help a huge number of ESL students, who have money, to keep up with US-born peers. So I wouldn't rule out the option of walking into a Kaplan office and saying "hey, what do you have for freshmen who want to be good students?" Taking MCAT prep to learn how to study isn't something even Kaplan would recommend. Plus you still need to do MCAT prep after you've learned the content in science classes.

Doing a "how to study" boot camp at the start of college, however, is a GREAT idea. One professor I had in 1989 had a "how to be a student" 2 page handout and taught a lecture on it in the Intro to the Engineering Major course. Everything I needed to know was on it. And I ignored it completely until maybe 2 years ago.

Best of luck to you.