Interviewers and MCAT prep??

[streetdoc]

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At all of my interviews i have been asked, "how did you prepare for the MCAT?"
why is this important??? my scores are average...not horrible, not great...so why do they care?
is there an ANTI-KAPLAN thing out there? do adcoms want to see if you have the money to afford prep help? will preparing on my own make my score look better?
Has anyone had this type of questioning? and if so, why do you think they want to know this info?
just wondering...
streetdoc

 

[pillowhead]

I was kind of worried when I heard this question too, but I think it would be so much worse to lie and say you didn't take it when you did. You don't ever want to be caught in that mess. Just tell them the truth. Say you took the course but found that the most helpful thing about it was it motivated you to work hard and you got good test prep material. I always say that while the class was great, it still took me hours and hours outside of class to prepare and that simply paying for the course and giving a half ass effort isn't going to get you a high score.

It's worked so far for me.

 

[sflynn]

I wasn't expecting this questions at my interview and when I was asked, I stammered a bit. I started teaching for Kaplan while I was a graduate student at Duke. Four years later I took the real thing.

He phrased the question "Did you take any prep class?" My response was "No, but I taught a few". As a matter of fact I had taught more than half the students that I was interviewing with......talk about weird.

Stephanie

 

[lola]

my interviewer asked me if i didn't prepare for the mcat

 

[Moskeeto]

I'm in the middle of this. I payed for a Kaplan course and threw away a ton of money because I hardly went to lecture and really didnt' start studying until a week and a half before the MCAT. So, I've been wondering what I would say if I was asked that question. I don't think I can really say the truth, but, well, its the truth.

 

[streetdoc]

The adcom people will never know if you took a class (unless they were there)...i paid the 1300 and never went so all i say is that i got the books to help prep myself. I was really just wondering if this is going to be a standard question. and if so, is this going to start being weighed in admission decisions?
any ideas??
and lola...lol 🙂
streetdoc

 

[UNMC2006]

I wouldn't worry too much about this question... if fact, many interviewers, depending on the school of course, are interested in a wide variety of characteristics that make you a genuine prospect for medical school. How you prepare for the MCAT is sometimes used as a measure of how you will prepare for USMLE board exams, sometimes they just want to know how you study (i.e in a group or in solitude), and sometimes they just don't really have a question on the tip of their tongue so they ask the first thing that comes to mind. Either way, just be honest, med schools have no problem with Kaplan, most encourage it to get ready for Step I and II boards, the better we do the better they appear🙂 However you prepare: do your best, tell the truth, and let them extrapolate what they want from it. Good luck!

 

[siempre595]

My first MCAT was not so good. my second was much better. My first interviewer asked if I'd taken a course, I said yes. He said, I guess after the first round, eh? I turned red. Nope, I took it before the bad MCAT.......before the second one i just kinda read stuff on my own.....
he laughed.
i got in.
heehee

 

[CaNEM]

Originally posted by streetdoc
At all of my interviews i have been asked, "how did you prepare for the MCAT?"
why is this important???

They probably want to get a feel of your study habits, to see how you cope with the pressure of a big test (which as a med student doctor you will have to experience constantly) and to gauge how you might go about studying in med school.

As far as blatantly lying about things like whether you took a course or not, don't waste time calculating if adcoms can find out or not. Just play it safe and tell the truth. Getting caught in one little lie could ruin this whole process for you. Also, some schools (e.g. Yale) have an uncanny way of researching you beyond what you've put on your application and it would surprise you to see how much they know.

 

[zingyraindrop]

If the question is asked of you you could say...

"I relied on my own preparation..."showing strength, determination, confidence, focus on achieving your goal!

or

"Well, it is available as an additional resource so I wanted to prepare as well as I can by getting additional practice material..."showing still strength, determination, focus, AND smartness in using an available resource (whether bought, borrowed...etc)

If I were interviewing a candidate I would ask that question and look for body language and smartness of response and not necessarily bother whether or not the prep course was taken.

Just my two cents on this thought.

 

[odelay]

If the question is asked of you you could say...

ahh, no need to calculate answers. just be honest.

i was asked this and it surprised me, too. my scores were pretty mediocre, so i assumed it was aimed at the integrity of my studying. i didn't hesitate to answer, though.

(personally, i didn't take any prep courses. i didn't verbalize this opinion because i thought it was irrelevant, but the prices of such classes are ridiculous. and preparing for a test like the MCAT shouldn't be done in the summer before or the weeks before the test . . . but throughout high school and undergraduate studies! that's the whole point! of course, i am a first time applicant and my future is still uncertain.)

in that sense, college itself is the real prep course. focus on that!