How was your princeton review course?

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Give me vicodin said:
did your princeton review course help you out alot? how much did your score improve after taking it?

thankyou
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I thought is was good, very much in detail. I improved 11 points, but I also studied hard on my own (following the Princeton review books though), I'd say an average of 3hrs a day for 5 months.
 
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plauto said:
I thought is was good, very much in detail. I improved 11 points, but I also studied hard on my own (following the Princeton review books though), I'd say an average of 3hrs a day for 5 months.
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wow man thats pretty impressive!! what were your scores before and after the test because im stuck at a 24 right now and cant seem to break it, it seems like self studying just isnt helping at all! so u think if i put in a ot of work sucess should be guarenteed?
 
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Give me vicodin said:
wow man thats pretty impressive!! what were your scores before and after the test because im stuck at a 24 right now and cant seem to break it, it seems like self studying just isnt helping at all! so u think if i put in a ot of work sucess should be guarenteed?
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Success is never guaranteed; merely increased in probability. Some people study like crazy and end up with lower scores, and some study like crazy and increase by over 10 points. Keep taking practice tests once in a while to monitor your progress.
 
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Meatwad said:
Success is never guaranteed; merely increased in probability. Some people study like crazy and end up with lower scores, and some study like crazy and increase by over 10 points. Keep taking practice tests once in a while to monitor your progress.
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do u think it would be wise to start studying again in december for the april 5th test? and how did u study for the exam? i see u are at princeton, thats impressive man!
 
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Give me vicodin said:
do u think it would be wise to start studying again in december for the april 5th test? and how did u study for the exam? i see u are at princeton, thats impressive man!
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Every one is different, so what works for one doesn't work for another. Plenty of people study for 4+ months and do great, so I don't think studying as early as December would hurt you. Will you have Physics, Organic Chem, Gen Chem, and some Bio classes done by then? If so, yeah I'd start studying, if even just a little a couple of times a week until a month or so before.
 
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Give me vicodin said:
wow man thats pretty impressive!! what were your scores before and after the test because im stuck at a 24 right now and cant seem to break it, it seems like self studying just isnt helping at all! so u think if i put in a ot of work sucess should be guarenteed?
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I went from 4PS 9VR 6BS to 10,10,10. Verbal, I never really practiced for it since it was always my strong side. I practice real hard for BS because I took the MCAT before taking organic chem and never took genetics or micro or such. Even though the class was good, I thought the books were great and I did a whole lot of self-studying. In my case I kept going over the material and did at least 10 practice passages a day each on PS and BS and tried to squeeze in a complete CBT a week (which really didn't happen).
even though my score is not stellar, I am proud of it since I started taking science classes a year ago as a post bac student. It also got me 3 interviews so far, among which an Ivy league school (I have very different ECs).
If you have the material fresh in your mind I would not take a course. Just try to get your hands on the Princeton Review books and do those and save yourself $1700(many people also use Examcrackers). If you need to review the material and you need to have a schedule then go for the course. It's a good investment.
 
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TPR varies from different locations. At the Austin testing center I heard they had excellent and godly teachers. Where I took it in Dallas they had premeds and first year med students so it wasn't that great. Ultimately it all depends on you and how much effort you put into it.

I went from a 20 -> 42 (max practice) -> 35 (real thing)

But I also supplemented it with the EK books. I encourage people to use more than one company as it prepares you better overall.
 
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I took TPR and I'm really glad I did because it kept me focused and on a good study schedule. I did love all the books they gave us too. I didn't have to refer to any of my old class notes or textbooks, I just studied from TPR materials, and it worked really well. If you have the willpower and organization to study by yourself, than you probably don't need the class.
 
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i went up 15 points from my initial diag..... but the TPR diag is meant to give you a low score...
 
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DrMT said:
i went up 15 points from my initial diag..... but the TPR diag is meant to give you a low score...
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i went up 3 points overall from my initial diag (27-30). bio section stayed exact same (did better on later diags than real thing), phys went up pretty big and verbal went to **** - i somehow got worse.

my advice to anyone at this point is to focus on verbal. it was always my weakest section and i did not give it the time it deserved over the summer.

if you're already good at verbal go online to nature (magazine) or whatever and start reading articles. practice until you can read a fairly hardcore article and understand it well - this WAS the bio section on aug 20 (really no application of all the **** i memorized for princeton review). i pretty much have no problem applying knowledge once i know it, but reading stuff for the first time on the test took its toll on me because english is hard, haha.

good luck to everyone. focus on your weaknesses and improve them. focus on the strategies that you use to absorb articles be they science, humanities, or otherwise. your strengths only require a little effort on your part to take care of themselves. dont be scared of reading like me! :scared:
 
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I thought TPR was ok. The practice exams are very hard, and are discouraging as most people in my class never scored above 25. It seemed like they are very focused on the details, and not the strategies. I think they should update the class to represent the new style of the mcat. I went from a 17N to 27Q, studying about 10 hours a week for 2 months.
 
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do they do what Kaplan does?

Do they have the SAME material in their classroom course books like they do in the comprehensive review book they also sell?
 
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I took TPR and I still get upset when I think of the money I threw away on it. I can honestly say it is in the top 3 for my entire life for *money worst spent*. People in the class would often correct the TPR people on material, and yes the people paying the money were right in correcting the TPR people. It was sad, just sad. My score went down on my first MCAT, so had I wanted I probably could have retaken the course using their guarantee (I don't remember what it is/was). But the course was such a monumental waste of time I didn't even bother trying it again. For my retake I used EK books and AO and scored in the high 30's, which was more than double what I scored using TPR. As others have said though, perhaps it just varies by location. FYI, I lived in CO when I took it.

Good luck! 🙂
 
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TPR course is not worth the money.

The classes are completely useless unless you have never taken science before. Theri verbal strategies are garbage.

I would recommend buying the books off someone. It is def not worth the ~$1500 I spent on it.

When you ask how many points someone's score went up, you have to think to yourself - is it really the course that helped me, or really, was it self-study?

For me it was self-study.
 
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Give me vicodin said:
do u think it would be wise to start studying again in december for the april 5th test? and how did u study for the exam? i see u are at princeton, thats impressive man!
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should be good to get started that early. the pace, however, should build up as you get closer to the test date.
 
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PR's quality can be pretty regional. I can say for the course in Northern NJ the teaching wasn't so hot (2/5 lecturers were worth attending) and as a result classes were sparsely attended.

My scores improved of course, but I think this was due to the work I did at home. I also set myself about 2 months ahead of the pace PR gave us which was recommended to me by one of the more "with-it" lecturers who was in med school. I think if I hadn't done this, I wouldn't have made it to all of the material with time to review parts where I struggled.

I would like to add - don't chicken out with practice tests. Do em even when you think you aren't ready yet because if anything they will show you EXACTLY what you should study.
 
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Just wanted to emphasize how garbage the Verbal strategies are. PR is total voodoo - use Exam Krakers for Verbal.

durrrr said:
TPR course is not worth the money.

The classes are completely useless unless you have never taken science before. Theri verbal strategies are garbage.

I would recommend buying the books off someone. It is def not worth the ~$1500 I spent on it.

When you ask how many points someone's score went up, you have to think to yourself - is it really the course that helped me, or really, was it self-study?

For me it was self-study.
Click to expand...
 
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loved the TPR course

learned tons of gchem tricks and a new approach to ochem. improved my sciences by quite a bit.

ok so i got the same verbal score as last time (8) but i can't honestly say that i put as much time into verbal as the others. i definitely worked more on writing and their format works (i got a Q for writing)

the practice is redundant but that's the point. the details have to be reflex so when you see it you know what it is immediately and you can spend the rest of your time focusing on other stuff. plus, if you know the details down really well, it means you know the overall concept, or at least you should.
 
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completely disappointing .. our coordinator somehow managed to cut out 6 or the 8 lectures for gen chem, so we got only two. The course wasn't even complete .. had to get a partial refund for that. The time they spend on writing samples is excessive as well, given that ws is basically not a factor in getting into medical school. Seriously, just teach yourself the material. The MCAT is significantly more of a thinking exam than a content exam, although basic facts are required. In contrast, TPR is more of a content-driven course than it is a boost-your-thinking strategy course. They teach you techniques that ultimately fail simply because the question-designers are too crafty.
 
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