High School Student with questions about the MCAt.

[Freakyp]

Hi, I'm a highschool student whose aiming for a top med school. I will hopefully attend a top undergraduate. My worry is how and when to prepare for the mcat. Should i start after freshman year, or wait until I've taken all the required classes? From your experiences with your friends which of the companies would you suggest; aka Kaplan, TPR, examkrackers etc. Did you also refer to old textbooks or take a course, and if so which one. I feel confident in the other subjects: grades, ec's, volunteering, research, etc. The MCAt is the only enigma that I have no idea how to tackle. I look forward to hearing some insight from you!!!! Also, when I will begin to study, is it best to stick with just one company, or to refer to different ones. I will start college next year, and I'm still clueless. When is the ideal time to start preparing, is 6 months sufficent. One more thing, are the courses worth it. Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[14931]

*sigh*

but why do u do this to urself?

okay i will try to answer ur questions

first of all it is not advisable to take the mcats until u have taken most if not all of ur science prerequisites.
whether u should use kaplan, tpr, or examkrackers is up to u, u could use all of them the more practice tests, the better. whether u should take an mcat course is also up to u , some do well without it, some do well with it, why dont u wait until u are ready and then u could find out which one u are more adaptable to.

just keep in mind that the macts might change anytime, heck u might not even need it anymore dont stress about it until u have to. people usaully study for it for about 3 to 6 months.

good luck

 

[Bevo]

get out of high school.

worry about college and if and when the time comes, worry about medical school.

Dont look too far ahead, if not you might trip.

 

[AegisZero]

Originally posted by Freakyp
Hi, I'm a highschool student whose aiming for a top med school. I will hopefully attend a top undergraduate. My worry is how and when to prepare for the mcat. Should i start after freshman year, or wait until I've taken all the required classes? From your experiences with your friends which of the companies would you suggest; aka Kaplan, TPR, examkrackers etc. Did you also refer to old textbooks or take a course, and if so which one. I feel confident in the other subjects: grades, ec's, volunteering, research, etc. The MCAt is the only enigma that I have no idea how to tackle. I look forward to hearing some insight from you!!!! Also, when I will begin to study, is it best to stick with just one company, or to refer to different ones. I will start college next year, and I'm still clueless. When is the ideal time to start preparing, is 6 months sufficent. One more thing, are the courses worth it. Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!

Two things.

1. Worry about the MCAT sophomore year at earliest

2. Slow down, you will spend the rest of your life in medicine. Might as well do something different now.

3. Dont assume you are set for anything, its the most dangerous assumption you can make.

Ok, 3 things =)

 

[brownman24]

If you are going to attend a top undergrad, you probably have really good SATs, and doing well on the MCAT should not be a problem.

Just from my experience with myself and my college friends, those of us who got >1500 on SATs took the MCAT and did well without breaking a sweat, compared to other friends who got in the 1300s who worked pretty damn hard to get around a 30. This is just my personal experience, but either way, don't worry about it yet.

 

[Dr Chooch]

Originally posted by brownman24
If you are going to attend a top undergrad, you probably have really good SATs, and doing well on the MCAT should not be a problem.

Just from my experience with myself and my college friends, those of us who got >1500 on SATs took the MCAT and did well without breaking a sweat, compared to other friends who got in the 1300s who worked pretty damn hard to get around a 30. This is just my personal experience, but either way, don't worry about it yet.

For some people that is the case, that their MCAT correlates somewhat to their SAT. But I know for many, there was no correlation at all (several threads on this topic). I know for me, my MCAT score didn't correlate all that well with my SATs. So, like AegisZero said, don't assume anything. It doesn't matter what your SAT score was, the MCAT is a completely different test. But yeah, don't worry about that now. College is a big world of unknowns for you right now. Get to college first and find your niche. Enjoy life for now, don't burn out!

 

[Lactic Folly]

Master the relevant material when you take it in your university courses. You may want to take a look at the MCAT Student Manual (available free online) to get an idea of what it's all about, but if you know the stuff, prepping several months before and doing lots of practice exams should suffice.

 

[DoubleDoctor]

The best preparation you can do at this point is to learn the material taught in your college courses very well so you will retain it when it comes time to take the MCAT. I know this isn't what you want to hear, because I was just like you when I entered college, but it is ridiculous to try to study for the MCAT at this point for a whole host of reasons:

1) you have no idea how you will progress in your college classes and you may have problems that you don't anticipate.

2) you may not be interested in medicine in 2-3 years (I know this is hard to believe because I too was like you and knew it was what I wanted to do even in high school) but I have several friends that had similar desires and no longer are interested.

3) you need to get your basic science foundation done so that you can prepare properly for the MCAT. How can you study organic , biochem, genetics, physics etc. when you haven't completed the basic classes. You will spend a ton of time learning stuff that they will teach you in your classes.

4) You should be concentrating on doing great in your classes not on a test that you have to take in 2 or 3 years.

5) Enjoy college because if you stress yourself out about this test now, you may face some burnout later.

As far as prep classes, I majored in Biochem/Micro/Molecular and I bought that stupid Kaplan class for $1300.00 and then didn't go because I was stretched too thin with my class load and research so I ended up studying very little and I did great. The key was that I had done very well in all my undergrad classes and retained that info. The online practice tests were very helpful though as they pointed out a couple of areas where I was a bit weak so I did read up on that material from my class notes.

Good luck and enjoy college!!!!!!

 

[Lebesgue]

Originally posted by lmbebo
get out of high school.

worry about college and if and when the time comes, worry about medical school.

Dont look too far ahead, if not you might trip.

and relax...

 

[tedstriker]

Three months is sometimes more than enough preparation, assuming you've been keeping apace with the prereqs.

I wouldn't worry about the MCAT until you absolutely have to. For all you know, by the time you'd be considering taking the MCAT the medical profession will have become dominated by superintelligent cyborgs, and admission for medical school will depend on your circuitry and motherboard, which most humans lack.

 

[pillowhead]

Relax for goodness sake! I hate to sound completely mean, but you're the kind of premed that gen chem/bio/physics professors can't stand. You haven't taken the classes yet, you'll have no idea how you'll do or if you even like it. I'd say for every one person I know who actually gets to the point of applying to med school, at least five started as premeds and didn't stick with it for a variety of reasons. Don't worry about scores...worry about learning. Take classes that sound interesting because you (hopefully) have a desire just to learn about the world around you. Go and travel! Get a job, play a sport, play an instrument (assume you don't do any of these already). Read voraciously. Keep up on current events, not because it "looks good" but because you hopefully care about what's going on in the world. More important than the MCAT at this point in your life is just having life experiences and growing up (which doesn't necessarily correlate to getting older).

 

[RT]

Originally posted by Freakyp
Hi, I'm a highschool student whose aiming for a top med school. I will hopefully attend a top undergraduate. My worry is how and when to prepare for the mcat....

Heheh.... ambition is a good thing great attitude.

Originally posted by immediatespring
*sigh*
but why do u do this to urself?

Heheh, yeah, this is also true.

We all prefer our personal balance.

Rt