Extremely tons of money

[eunicel166]

Well, everyone is aware that we are prepared. Why do prep programs charge so much for preparation courses when we hardly have that much money? I'm expressing my own views. I'm a college student trying to better myself, but it's scarcely possible for me to get the thousands of dollars these firms want from me.

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[SpoiledMilk]

If you go to an American college, the science courses you take in undergraduate will be a sufficient foundation for you to self study for the MCAT. You don't need to spend thousands on those courses that are advertised to lure in desperate ad naïve college students. Don't do it. Self-study and there are free resources on the web that you can get.

PS If that is your real name, change it to something else to maintain your anonymity.

 

[KnightDoc]

Well, everyone is aware that we are prepared. Why do prep programs charge so much for preparation courses when we hardly have that much money? I'm expressing my own views. I'm a college student trying to better myself, but it's scarcely possible for me to get the thousands of dollars these firms want from me.

Then you are not their target market. Nobody "needs" these programs, because plenty of people do well without them. You can too.

The people running them want to be paid, and the people who use them have the money and want whatever extra help, confidence, structure, etc. comes from them. You don't "need" outside help to better yourself, so, if you don't have the money, don't stress about it. Just do it!

 

[singkwon]

Well, everyone is aware that we are prepared. Why do prep programs charge so much for preparation courses when we hardly have that much money? I'm expressing my own views. I'm a college student trying to better myself, but it's scarcely possible for me to get the thousands of dollars these firms want from me.

I graduated from medical school nearly 20 years ago. Prior to medical school, I taught for the Princeton Review MCAT (and SAT). These companies exist cause there is a need. Pre medical students are willing to pay for these prep courses for a shot of becoming a doctor. Back then, these courses were the only option - there was no YouTube with successful admitted students vlogging, review books were mediocre and the two prep companies who offered courses were Princeton Review and Kaplan (they were taught live / in person). (The MCAT back then was pencil and paper and given only twice a year (April and August)).

Nowadays you aren’t limited to these courses. There are numerous resources available - many are free of charge like Khan Academy, Jack Westin, YouTube vloggers of accepted premed students who provide their detailed study template. In many ways, it is great that there are so many resources available now. But that does up the ante for getting accepted to medical school as students are more prepared. The same thing has happened to USMLE Step 1: when I took it, there were limited resources: just our First Aid book, other review books and Kaplan Qbank. Nowadays there is Uworld, sketchy, pathoma - you name it. So students nowadays are more prepared for these standardized tests - hence the rising mean of Step 1 which is the likely reason the NBME decided to convert the exam from graded to Pass Fail. Now to get a residency position: more emphasis will be placed on USMLE Step 2 (which is still graded), clinical grades and name of the medical school. As you can see, exams and resources can change over time. In the end, if you are determined you will figure out a way - whether it be a costly prep course or not - to achieve your goals.

 

[eunicel166]

Then you are not their target market. Nobody "needs" these programs, because plenty of people do well without them. You can too.

The people running them want to be paid, and the people who use them have the money and want whatever extra help, confidence, structure, etc. comes from them. You don't "need" outside help to better yourself, so, if you don't have the money, don't stress about it. Just do it!

Right, I'm either not their "target market" or I might be. Was just a tad concerned about the promises they've given to individuals and whether they'll be successful for everyone.

 

[KnightDoc]

Right, I'm either not their "target market" or I might be. Was just a tad concerned about the promises they've given to individuals and whether they'll be successful for everyone.

Trust me, if money is an issue for you, you are not their target market. Please do not give in to fear and lack of confidence, and feel compelled to spend money you don't have out of concern that you will be at a disadvantage if you do not.

If you are motivated and take the time to do the research, you can gather prep material for a small fraction of what they charge. After that, it's all about having the discipline to follow through. If you are not self-motivated, the structure of a class might be what you need to be successful, but "promises" alone will not guarantee success.

At the end of the day, it is YOU who has to do the work. And, if it is YOU doing the work, you do not need a class, unless you cannot trust yourself to do the work without the structure of the class. An infinite number of schedules are available online. You can buy prep books, practice exams and question banks from multiple companies, and can even get decent material online for free.

All a so-called "promise" will do is force you to do a ton of unnecessary work, in an effort to force you to over prepare, which very few people have the time or stamina to do. This is mostly designed to make you ineligible to invoke the "promise" if you fail to achieve the promised result. If you persevere and actually get through it, and document it, they will give you a free retake of the class if you don't achieve the promised improvement.

In practice, this is worthless, because the base will be set artificially low, by having you take an unreasonably difficult diagnostic exam before you have done any meaningful preparation. So, let's say you get a 498 on their diagnostic, and they promise you a 510. First of all, 510 isn't that great. It's 2 points below the average of successful applicants.

The odds are pretty high you would be able to get there on your own after a few months of studying on your own if you started out with a 498 with no studying on a tough diagnostic. Second of all, retaking a class that didn't help you the first time isn't much of a prize. Getting your money back would be, and some courses offer that. But, again, if you do everything they make you do, which is difficult in practice, you will see the improvement over the baseline that they promise, so you won't be getting a refund and also won't be doing any better than you would have on your own.

These classes are really only good for people who have the money and need their hand held. Otherwise, you really don't need to sacrifice, or to feel like you are missing out on something. Most people do not take the classes, and many do fine. It really is 100% up to you.

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

Why do prep programs charge so much for preparation courses when we hardly have that much money?

This question has been asked since SDN started. Back then, it was why do these companies charge nearly $1000 for a class. Those in-person classes had twelve to twenty students and offered as little as twelve 3-hour classes to as many as sixty two-hour classes for the price. They were all live and in person. Pretty much everyone studying for the MCAT took a class for fear that they were missing out on something. As pointed out above, there were no free videos as an alternative at that time. I would say that easily a third of the students in our class didn't need a course and would have done just as well without one. Attendance with a good teacher is around ninety percent and around fifty for a bad teacher. So there were people not attending and throwing money away. I've learned from friends teaching for other companies that it's pretty much the same everywhere.

So to answer your question, companies saw this and the corporate ones starting raising the prices and then offering discounts, a clever marketing strategy. To look like we weren't a scam, small companies raised our prices to match the corporate prices. This went back and forth until about $2000. There were a lot of $1995 classes for a few years. That's when corporate got really clever and started offering tiered classes, so their classes around $2500 didn't look so bad next to a $7000 class. Prices kept inching up and paranoid premeds kept paying it, thinking they were getting something. There was literally no difference between the $695 class from ten years earlier and the $2295 class. Online options were always priced lower, because they could stick so many people in them. We had never done an online class before COVID (refused to do them because they were not as effective and that went against our moral compass). But when COVID hit, we introduced an online class for $1500 that was a deal compared to the in-person class for $2095.

Then, craziest of all, when COVID refused to go away and everyone had to go completely online, people were paying in-person prices for online classes. Our $1500 class disappeared and morphed into a $2095 class. I must confess to being embarrassed that the company I love joined the rat race. If you go to the website you see six aerial views of cities where there is no classroom course any longer, given that all classes were all online, but it gives the illusion of specialized service. You could click on a link for the city you wanted, even though it was literally the same online class for everyone. It would have been one thing to at least have an online exclusively for one school, like a class for UCLA students, so that the topics could be catered to their needs (like compensating for the MCAT topics not covered in the Chem 14 series). But everyone from every school was placed into one big class. This is what EVERY MCAT company did, and consumers never complained.

It's insane what they cost nowadays, and how many students are smashed into one zoom class. I am befuddled that people pay it. Far fewer people take courses these days (compared to 2015), which was inevitable. It's a shame that Khan lectures are not aimed at the MCAT even though AAMC promotes it as such. It would be great to have a free service that was truly for MCAT prep. There are some MCAT-specific free videos out there, but you have to dig.

I'm a college student trying to better myself, but it's scarcely possible for me to get the thousands of dollars these firms want from me.

So here is the suggestion. DO NOT PAY FOR A CLASS! There is a very good chance you don't need it. There are several great youtube videos for the different topics. AK videos and Chad videos get lots of love here. Over the years, different people have posted links for various subjects, but no one single thread exists with all of the best links. The closest thing to it is pinned here. I'd recommend you start hunting for videos and be extremely organized about what works and what doesn't. As a promotion a few years back, the founder of BR posted a great four part lecture on electrochemistry that everyone should watch. Find things like that. Unfortunately, because BR folded their course for good in December, there will be no more videos coming from BR. But there are people like John Wetzel who put good free content out.

SDN is the perfect site for a thread that lists the different videos. Here are links to the videos I mentioned, which I hope is acceptable, given that they don't sell a course any longer. If this is in violation of the ToS agreement, please take it down and I am very sorry.

Part 1

Part 2

Part O

Part P

 

[KnightDoc]

This question has been asked since SDN started. Back then, it was why do these companies charge nearly $1000 for a class. Those in-person classes had twelve to twenty students and offered as little as twelve 3-hour classes to as many as sixty two-hour classes for the price. They were all live and in person. Pretty much everyone studying for the MCAT took a class for fear that they were missing out on something. As pointed out above, there were no free videos as an alternative at that time. I would say that easily a third of the students in our class didn't need a course and would have done just as well without one. Attendance with a good teacher is around ninety percent and around fifty for a bad teacher. So there were people not attending and throwing money away. I've learned from friends teaching for other companies that it's pretty much the same everywhere.

So to answer your question, companies saw this and the corporate ones starting raising the prices and then offering discounts, a clever marketing strategy. To look like we weren't a scam, small companies raised our prices to match the corporate prices. This went back and forth until about $2000. There were a lot of $1995 classes for a few years. That's when corporate got really clever and started offering tiered classes, so their classes around $2500 didn't look so bad next to a $7000 class. Prices kept inching up and paranoid premeds kept paying it, thinking they were getting something. There was literally no difference between the $695 class from ten years earlier and the $2295 class. Online options were always priced lower, because they could stick so many people in them. We had never done an online class before COVID (refused to do them because they were not as effective and that went against our moral compass). But when COVID hit, we introduced an online class for $1500 that was a deal compared to the in-person class for $2095.

Then, craziest of all, when COVID refused to go away and everyone had to go completely online, people were paying in-person prices for online classes. Our $1500 class disappeared and morphed into a $2095 class. I must confess to being embarrassed that the company I love joined the rat race. If you go to the website you see six aerial views of cities where there is no classroom course any longer, given that all classes were all online, but it gives the illusion of specialized service. You could click on a link for the city you wanted, even though it was literally the same online class for everyone. It would have been one thing to at least have an online exclusively for one school, like a class for UCLA students, so that the topics could be catered to their needs (like compensating for the MCAT topics not covered in the Chem 14 series). But everyone from every school was placed into one big class. This is what EVERY MCAT company did, and consumers never complained.

It's insane what they cost nowadays, and how many students are smashed into one zoom class. I am befuddled that people pay it. Far fewer people take courses these days (compared to 2015), which was inevitable. It's a shame that Khan lectures are not aimed at the MCAT even though AAMC promotes it as such. It would be great to have a free service that was truly for MCAT prep. There are some MCAT-specific free videos out there, but you have to dig.


So here is the suggestion. DO NOT PAY FOR A CLASS! There is a very good chance you don't need it. There are several great youtube videos for the different topics. AK videos and Chad videos get lots of love here. Over the years, different people have posted links for various subjects, but no one single thread exists with all of the best links. The closest thing to it is pinned here. I'd recommend you start hunting for videos and be extremely organized about what works and what doesn't. As a promotion a few years back, the founder of BR posted a great four part lecture on electrochemistry that everyone should watch. Find things like that. Unfortunately, because BR folded their course for good in December, there will be no more videos coming from BR. But there are people like John Wentzel who put good free content out.

SDN is the perfect site for a thread that lists the different videos. Here are links to the general chemistry videos I mentioned, which I hope is acceptable, given that they don't sell a course any longer. If this is in violation of the ToS agreement, please take it down and I am very sorry.

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4

By the way, a big shout out to @BerkReviewTeach for being so real and honest. The Berkeley written materials were considered the gold standard a few years ago. Since the test hasn't changed, there is no reason that would not still be the case, even though they are no longer offering live courses.

I noticed that there is a link on SDN for a discount on them, so I'm volunteering a plug. I bought most, but not all, of their books, supplementing them with all the AMCAS material and UWorld. I also grabbed a prior year Princeton Review set of books at a deep discount, which I worked through when I had time as my test kept getting canceled at the onset of COVID.

I ended up doing fine, and credit it to the insane foundation I received from working through the Berkeley books before moving on to the other material. I have no idea whether or not they plan to keep updating or even offering the books going forward, but I'd seriously consider grabbing them at a discount while they are still available if I was preparing for the test now.

 

[Goro]

Well, everyone is aware that we are prepared. Why do prep programs charge so much for preparation courses when we hardly have that much money? I'm expressing my own views. I'm a college student trying to better myself, but it's scarcely possible for me to get the thousands of dollars these firms want from me.

You're not the demographic they're targeting.

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

Thanks for the comment KnightDoc. It's appreciated. I'm so glad some of the books were helpful. When you say you got most, but not all of the books, I assume you heard the following opinions at SDN and shopped accordingly.

BR was the standard for chemistry, orgo, and physics. It was respected for biology, but there were also some outspoken detractors saying it was too dense and detailed beyond what you need for the exam. BR CARS never made it to anyone's "this is what you need to study" list..

The psychology book came out in 2016, but it basically had no passages (about ten total) and there was no sociology at all. In the six years since it was released, it increased to 34 passages but still has no sociology portion. This has been a very big complaint and the most likely reason why it gets unfavorable reviews. There are those at SDN who have said "it's a neuro book more than a psych book."

As for updating the books, the company is a book distributor with no plans to run live classes again. Several longtime teachers stopped teaching in August 2021 for a myriad reasons, from medical school getting intense to dissatisfaction with the direction of the company. Without the classroom portion to help develop materials, it is highly unlikely those books will get any update.

The Fall 2021 class had many new teachers and there's a thread here at SDN from a few people who took that class. It was not the best experience. Suffice to say it explains why BR abruptly stopped offering a course.

 

[KnightDoc]

Thanks for the comment KnightDoc. It's appreciated. I'm so glad some of the books were helpful. When you say you got most, but not all of the books, I assume you heard the following opinions at SDN and shopped accordingly.

BR was the standard for chemistry, orgo, and physics. It was respected for biology, but there were also some outspoken detractors saying it was too dense and detailed beyond what you need for the exam. BR CARS never made it to anyone's "this is what you need to study" list..

The psychology book came out in 2016, but it basically had no passages (about ten total) and there was no sociology at all. In the six years since it was released, it increased to 34 passages but still has no sociology portion. This has been a very big complaint and the most likely reason why it gets unfavorable reviews. There are those at SDN who have said "it's a neuro book more than a psych book."

As for updating the books, the company is a book distributor with no plans to run live classes again. Several longtime teachers stopped teaching in August 2021 for a myriad reasons, from medical school getting intense to dissatisfaction with the direction of the company. Without the classroom portion to help develop materials, it is highly unlikely those books will get any update.

The Fall 2021 class had many new teachers and there's a thread here at SDN from a few people who took that class. It was not the best experience. Suffice to say it explains why BR abruptly stopped offering a course.

Exactly! I had no problem with "dense" because I wanted the "best," so I picked up the bio, gen chem, orgo and physics books.

As I said, I supplemented them with other material, but I did not do anything before I worked through the text and questions in the Berkeley books. I'm glad they are continuing to sell them, and have no reason to think they won't continue to be the best review material available (other than AMCAS material and UWorld QBanks), at least until the test is revised.

 

[Neuroscifan]

What Knightdoc said about the guarantees is spot on. Most companies offer a guarantee, but if you read what the guarantee entails and how to qualify, then you’ll see why they’re confident offering the guarantee. I’ve worked for a few different tutoring companies, and the attrition rate is pretty high for the programs with guarantees. The students who qualify for the guarantees don’t need it because they stuck with the rigorous program and sacrificed time, dropped classes, quit jobs, and put their relationships on the back burner to have time to invest in the program. Those who needed the guarantee nearly never qualify because they don’t stick to the rigorous plans. It’s brilliant marketing honestly.

You absolutely don’t need to drop thousands on a prep course. If you want the structure and accountability that these programs will demand of you, and are willing to put in the work and make sacrifices, as well as have a few spare thousand bucks burning a hole in your pocket, then by all means go for it. But if you have the motivation and the willpower to qualify for the guarantees, then you may very well be able to perform just as well without the course as you would with it. The programs do all the work in finding the material, sifting through it for yield, compiling it into a logical order of operations for consuming it, and then build a schedule with some external motivator and accountability agent. That’s what you’re paying for. Some think it’s worth it, others don’t. Some perform fantastically with the programs, but most who pay don’t. Some perform fantastically with self study, and others don’t. I personally know as many people who scored above the 90th percentile with a prep program as without. I also know just as many people who scored below the 50th percentile with a program as Who scored the same without.

Don’t get sucked into the premed propaganda mindset that insists a multi thousand dollar mcat prep program is prerequisite to gaining acceptance into medical school.

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

Don’t get sucked into the premed propaganda mindset that insists a multi thousand dollar mcat prep program is prerequisite to gaining acceptance into medical school.

THIS!!!!

That sums it up. If you honestly and truly know exactly what you'll be getting and that you need the service, that's one thing. But there is a very high probability that most people "get sucked into the premed propaganda mindset."

 

[Neuroscifan]

THIS!!!!

That sums it up. If you honestly and truly know exactly what you'll be getting and that you need the service, that's one thing. But there is a very high probability that most people "get sucked into the premed propaganda mindset."

Precisely. I personally used a prep program because I thought the price was worth the structure, motivation, and accountability. It worked for me, and I’m glad I chose it, but could see myself getting virtually the same results if I had self studied. It would have just been more effort and time.

 

[BerkReviewTeach]

Icould see myself getting virtually the same results if I had self studied.

You hit another salient point. For some of classes, with a superior and experienced teacher, class streamlines the process and very much benefits the student. But, when the teacher isn't very good, students would be better off watching online videos and self-studying. I'd say that if eighty percent of the lectures are beneficial, then you've done well. But that number is rare from what I've come to learn reading at these boards. In the Berkeley Review's last session (the one that resulted in them folding), the students might say that maybe twenty percent of the lectures were beneficial. If you are getting a high quality lecture from a high caliber teacher less than fifty percent of the time, then study on your own.

The other thing is that in class, you are at the mercy of the alpha students and their knowledge base limitations. When class was in person, this wasn't as much an issue. BUT!!!!!, online there is SOOOOOO much time wasted as one person monopolizes the question box with questions that 95% of the students in attendance already know. Classes that were two hours in-person become almost three hours online, and so much of the beneficial body language communication in-person is lost.

For well over half of online classes, at least one hour is wasted for every three hours in class. Some people probably waste two out of every three hours in class.

 

[Neuroscifan]

You hit another salient point. For some of classes, with a superior and experienced teacher, class streamline the process and very much benefit the student. But, when the teacher isn't very good, students be better off watching online videos and self-studying. I'd say if eighty percent of the lectures are beneficial, then you're done well. But that number is rare from what I've come to learn reading at these boards. In the Berkeley Review's last session (the one that resulted in them folding), the students might say that maybe twenty percent of the lectures were beneficial. If you are getting a high quality lecture from a high caliber teacher less than fifty percent of the time, then study on your own.

The other thing is that in class, you are at the mercy of the alpha students and their knowledge base limitations. When class was in person, this wasn't as much an issue. BUT!!!!!, online there is SOOOOOO much time wasted as one person monopolizes the question box with questions that 95% of the students in attendance already know. Classes that were two hours in-person become almost three hours online, and so much of the beneficial body language communication in-person is lost.

For well over half of online classes, at least one hour is wasted for every three hours in class. Some people probably waste two out of every three hours in class.

I completely agree with the online vs in person. I wouldn’t recommend anyone take online classroom sessions unless they have a learning style that benefits from online classroom sessions. I have been in online sessions where I just ended up muting the audio and studying on my own because a very few students were monopolizing the time going over basic science concepts that I already had covered.


For any students here wondering about online mcat prep, I would strongly recommend trying for in person classroom sessions, unless you discovered during remote Covid instruction that your learning niche is exactly that format.

 

[gooberdude]

What Knightdoc said about the guarantees is spot on. Most companies offer a guarantee, but if you read what the guarantee entails and how to qualify, then you’ll see why they’re confident offering the guarantee. I’ve worked for a few different tutoring companies, and the attrition rate is pretty high for the programs with guarantees. The students who qualify for the guarantees don’t need it because they stuck with the rigorous program and sacrificed time, dropped classes, quit jobs, and put their relationships on the back burner to have time to invest in the program. Those who needed the guarantee nearly never qualify because they don’t stick to the rigorous plans. It’s brilliant marketing honestly.

You absolutely don’t need to drop thousands on a prep course. If you want the structure and accountability that these programs will demand of you, and are willing to put in the work and make sacrifices, as well as have a few spare thousand bucks burning a hole in your pocket, then by all means go for it. But if you have the motivation and the willpower to qualify for the guarantees, then you may very well be able to perform just as well without the course as you would with it. The programs do all the work in finding the material, sifting through it for yield, compiling it into a logical order of operations for consuming it, and then build a schedule with some external motivator and accountability agent. That’s what you’re paying for. Some think it’s worth it, others don’t. Some perform fantastically with the programs, but most who pay don’t. Some perform fantastically with self study, and others don’t. I personally know as many people who scored above the 90th percentile with a prep program as without. I also know just as many people who scored below the 50th percentile with a program as Who scored the same without.

Don’t get sucked into the premed propaganda mindset that insists a multi thousand dollar mcat prep program is prerequisite to gaining acceptance into medical school.

This is a great summary of my thoughts as well. It is largely dependent on your learning style and/or your financial status.

 

[Proudfather94]

Well, everyone is aware that we are prepared. Why do prep programs charge so much for preparation courses when we hardly have that much money? I'm expressing my own views. I'm a college student trying to better myself, but it's scarcely possible for me to get the thousands of dollars these firms want from me.

I did 10 points higher just using uworld than I did when I dropped 3k which was the rest of my loans on a kaplan course. Uworld was like 300$ a few years ago which is still not terribly cheap but it is cheaper

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Two words: Varsity Blues.

Also economics: enough people are willing to pay that price in what they perceive to be an edge in a competitive contest. No Olympic athlete or anyone with highly competitive aspirations got there by themselves with innate talent.