Final Analysis of Kaplan Course

[ADeadLois]

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Classroom Instruction: B+ My teacher was very good. She had taught it before and new what she was talking about. However, we had this guy teach the Physics classes who really sucked. He would show up 15 minutes, and he didn't know his stuff (he tried to convince us that the little p in the buoyant force equation was pressure). Although I didn't really get much out of the classroom instruction, I fell that it was well designed and useful for someone who likes to be taught the material.

Books: C-. I ended up purchasing the Examkrackers books for Biology and Physics, and I only brushed up on the Chem using their books. The EK books are far superior. All the content is in the Kaplan books, it's just presented in an extremely dry format, and they don't distinguish between material you have to know and extraneous stuff (EK does, which is the books' best feature). Also, the end of chapter problems are useless;they're not in MCAT format (again, EK has MCAT style passages at the end of each chapter). The High Yield Problem Solving guide is the only book I found to be useful.

Online Material: A- The real strength of the course, in my opinion. The topicals and section tests are very helpful, and in real MCAT format. The design of the website was kind of annoying (i.e. there's no search feature, so it's difficult to find a particular test), but overall, I was very impressed with the plethora of material available.

Full-Lengths: B The verbal sections are not representative, the PS is way harder than AAMC, and the BS asks very specific questions. The overall experience of taking proctored full-lengths is very valuable, though. And taking the beastly PS sections raises your score, even though they are very intimidating.

Overall: B/B+. It's no value, but I think at the end of the day I'm happy I took the classroom course. The proctor full-lengths are key for people like me who probably don't have the discipline to take them on my own. If you are that type of person, I would recommend the Online-only version (but still take their full-lenghts!).

 

[DF38]

Good idea, here's my assessment:

Classroom Instruction: B-
It was ok, I suppose, but none of our teachers were especially great. Some of the stuff was a helpful review, but I felt like we spent a lot of time reviewing basic stuff that I knew cold and not enough going over trickier things (but that just could be me).

Books: C-
You pretty much summed it up. Really dry, hard to read without falling asleep, and contained way too much extraneous information. I only read about half the chapters (gave up about halfway through the course) and didn't get that much out of the stuff I did bother to read. I also bought the EK books and thought that they were great, far superior to the Kaplan stuff in pretty much every way. Though, I suppose if you have to obsess over details, you'd like the Kaplan stuff.

Online Material: B
I didn't actually use the online stuff that much. I went through some of the online tutorials, and found them pretty worthless. I did like being able to come straight back from the practice tests and grade my stuff online, read through all the explanations, etc. If I had used some of the more general tests, or the AAMC stuff they had, I probably would have gotten more out of it. My one complaint is that they didn't have the newest AAMC test (9), so I had to purchase it myself.

Full-Lengths: A++++
For me, this was far and away the most important part of the course. I've gotten used to the timing, the length of the day, figured out what I'm going to eat, what I'll do during lunch break, etc. My routine is set, and so far it's working for me. The Kaplan full-lengths are, IMO, much harder than the AAMC stuff, but what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. I've only taken AAMC 9, but I breezed through both the PS and BS sections (especially PS), so if that's any indication of what the real thing will be like on Saturday I will be thrilled.

Overall: B
The full-length, proctored tests really made it worthwhile for me. That, and having class each week, which kept me motivated to study. I am a huge procrastinator, and while I can get away with that during the semester, for a test this big there's no way I would be able to do that. Also, my score improved greatly (from a 22 on the diagnostic to a 35 on the last practice test), so I really can't complain.

 

[Mr. Tee]

I really disliked the Kaplan books because they haven't been updated. AAMC revised its syllabus, but you still have Kaplan teaching fetal circulation and such 🙄

 

[oxeye]

I really disliked the Kaplan books because they haven't been updated. AAMC revised its syllabus, but you still have Kaplan teaching fetal circulation and such 🙄

Wait ... you mean I don't have to remember the difference between the ductus arteriosus and the ductus venosus??? Woohoo!!! 👍

Maybe I should go check out the AAMC list. I'm definitely disappointed with Kaplan. For the amount of money students pay for the course, they should be able to keep it updated!

 

[maestro1625]

Ann Arbor, MI

Clasroom instruction: B. we had a number of people teaching the class. one was really good but then he took another job. later he was replaced by a decent intructor who'd been doing it for a while and what quite good and responsive. Whenever those two were around the instructors were awful and ineperienced.

Books: B+. books were only used for quick reference... they did thier jobs

Online Material: A. what really made studying for this class worth it.

Full Lengths: F. Kaplan tests and scales dont match the real thing, especially in PS. Class was an hour away from the actual Kaplan center, so the only way to get scores back quickly was for the tests to be posted online, and many times that took almost a week. In one instance it was because the proctor didnt feel like driving the tests back to ann arbor, so he simply mailed the scores in the next monday.

The kicker was getting my writing sample back yesterday from the previous week. Only one has actually been scored prior to this one, and I get mine back saying it wasnt scored because it was "illegible". I showed my essays to 3 people around me and they all said it was no problem to read. I ask the proctor how the hell I can get my essays actually read and scored, and she couldn't give me an answer that didnt involved driving to ann arbor and back, an hour each way. That was not what I paid 1500 bucks for!

Overall: C. Was the class worth it? yes. as I said, two of my instructors were excellent, but one is leaving at the end of this summer, and another is already gone. I didnt have a choice given the fact I go to a small school in the middle of nowhere, but to those in ann arbor, I would reccommend Princeton Review first.

 

[EMH]

Clasroom instruction: C+. Only one of my instructors was any good, but he was outstanding. This is the kind of guy if you ran into him at a party would start talking about physics. He also taught the Chemistry sections and taught them from a Physics point of view which I think is helpful for understanding. The biology/OChem/VR teachers were all people I'd had classes with who were basicly following a script and had a hard time answering questions. ******Before you sign up for Kaplan ask who the instructors are and what their qualifications are********

Books: B. Not bad if you didn't understand something, but I found http://www.wikipedia.org better.

Online Material: B. At first I thought the topicals and subjects were wonderful, but I gradually changed my mind when I realized that they are not really representative of MCAT questions. But they are good for testing content.

Full Lengths: B. The kaplan full lengths aren't bad, but what I did is sign up for every make up date the center had scheduled, and took the old AAMC exams instead in a simulated environment.

Overall: D. This would be much higher except I feel the value is extremely low. If the cost was closer to $500 I would recomend everyone take Kaplan.

 

[Caboose]

Online: I am a schmuck for taking it.

Books: C. EK is much better because they utilize my brain's visual tools and are to the point. The online book skips around and has as many errors as their lecture slides do. The books were too detailed for me as I needed more focus on the big picture. It took me much too long to read through them and I didn't see any drop in my score after simpy not reading them and practicing. Not being able to sell them is about as wrong as a horse in white contacts.

Online Material: B. Fan of the QBank where you can modify the area of focus. I hate topicals and they serve only to destroy my self esteem for no good reason. Subjects are o.k. for broad practice.

Full Lengths: B. They're o.k., I've seen a lot worse. I feel like AAMC would have been sufficient practice, give or take a few extras, so Kaplan's 11 are a little overboard.

Overall: D-. Again, this is not because I think their material is crap, but it's way too over-priced. There are errors up the wazoo in their materials, I'm not impressed by scanned in pdfs that you can't see the numbers and diagrams well on. If they are going to charge as much as a used car, they can edit... and take the tape off the scanned document. I spent hours messing around with one problem, asking people on email, yahoo answers, forums... turns out it was just their error. I emailed them and they responded quickly telling me that I would have to be specific to which diagrams and documents I found errors in. I have 5 pages so far, including all web lectures and such. (please tell me if you find any)

I also think that, although detailed and thorough, the answer explanations were sometimes stated in ways that doesn't float my boat. When I would double check if I was getting the answers correct for the right reasons, I was met by some foreign, undecipherable, intricate mechanism for attaining an answer that I could explain much better... and that's sayin' somethin'. It was as if I asked for someone to bring me a Snickers from kitchen only to find them an hour later strolling through the park, but getting around to the Snickers eventually. Get the GD Snickers already!

I think my score would have improved in a shorter amount of time and effort with EK, which has a forum for errors and doesn't charge so much. Many a happy tree could have been painted instead of trudging through Kaplan Online. I loathe Kaplan, but I just don't give 'F's.

All that being said, I think an instructor can make or break a course and if I was in the states, my review may have reflected the asset of human interaction. I'd much rather invest in the stock market with my $$ and study on my own. Or buy a pony.

Caboose.

 

[ND2005]

My (slightly older) review:

Instructors: B- My instructors for the first half of the course were great...but then they both left to start med school! New instructors were not so good (one was a friend, who I had to help teach the final Orgo review b/c I knew it so much better than him...the other was a drunk who got rejected from all his schools and who I had actually gotten in a fight with a year before at a football game after he jumped onto our row from above and landed on my girlfriend). My grade of B- for this section comes from the first 2 instructors getting an A+ and the second two getting a D-.

Review books: A I'm sorry, but biochemistry and orgo are going to be a bit dry, no matter who is writing them. That doesn't bother me. I am probably one of the only people who read and learned each of the books cover to cover, but I thought they were excellent, and had just about the right amount of info for the topics.

Online materials: B Pretty good for the most part, but kind of hard to navigate the website sometimes. Also, some of the stuff you had to do to qualify for HSG was really not helfpul

Full-lengths: A Just the experience of having 5 full-lengths was awesome. The PS and BS were harder than the real thing -- the one time I looked at an AAMC exam, it made me feel so confident about how I'd perform on test-day. The VR was fine, but it was never a concern for me so I didn't pay too much attention to it. My scores were reasonable, and I ended up doing better on the real-thing b/c I felt so confident and at ease on test day

Extra materials: A I lived at the Kaplan center for about the last month before the MCAT. I took nearly every subject and topical test available (and even used the extra full-lengths as subject tests by just taking parts of them at a time)

Overall Value: A- It costs a lot, but I thought it gave me the structure I needed to buckle down with my studying. I don't think I would have done nearly as well without the organized study system that Kaplan provided.

 

[priyanka]

bump

 

[priyanka]

I really liked this thread.

Bump

 

[CardiacIntensivist]

Classroom Instruction: (C-) most of the Kaplan tutors were undergraduate students themselves who had taken the MCATs. I would say 80% knew their material well enough but only 50% of them were qualified to be an instructor of the topics. Some instructors read right out of the book which was really very annoying. The class format was decent, I liked how they did parts of each section before moving on to harder material (i.e. bio 1, verbal 1, physics 1, chem 1 before 2s)

Books: (B) I like the material that Kaplan covered and felt they condensed it to a good amount. However, I really wish they would update the books. I was looking at an MCAT physics book from 1999 and compared it to my 2006 one and it was almost the same thing.

Online Material: (A-) Online material was fantastic. The material is alot harder than what would be found on the real MCAT but I think it just helps you think more. Kaplan is notorious for having more math on their PS. This was great because after doing all the math for Kaplan material, the easy math on the AAMC exams and the real MCAT were a breeze!

Full-Lengths: (A-) See Online Material comment.

Overall: (B+) Not everything Kaplan offered was great but in retrospect I felt like I could not have studied as hard as I did with out the condensed material Kaplan gave me and the timeline for what to study. Being able to take the fulllengths were great but if I had to do it again I would go into the Kaplan center more and take full advantage of the AAMC exams.

 

[ruitao]

Classroom instruction (B-): The majority of the instructors were MS's at my university. The lectures were fairly bland and were a rehash of the printed materials.

Books (A): Extremely in-depth and the crown jewel of the Kaplan program. While the EK books were more towards the point and had some cool illustrations, Kaplan really hammered it in.

Online material (B): Topicals were of some benefit, although they are more like condensed FL's (see below). Online lectures had some issues and would sporadically freeze up.

Full-lengths (C): For the most part unrepresentative of the actual MCAT's. After realizing that Kaplan had effectively recycled its MCAT 45 q's on FL4, I stopped taking them and instead took all of the AAMC PT's.

Overall (B): Kaplan does provide a structured timeline for the MCAT, but are usually lax in their duties. My MCAT section was amalgated and became part of a different section, after which several names disappeared from the roster. As a result, many of my sessions were marked as unattended. Also, Kaplan really needs to revise their materials to better reflect the changing nature of the MCAT. Good motivational tool overall.