Is it common to prep for both MCAT and GRE

[grindtime1]

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I probably won't get into medical school but I want to see if my MCAT is competitive enough to give me a decent shot. Medicine is my preferred career.

More realistically I could get into graduate school for the biological sciences which would require the subject test GREs I assume.

Is it common to consider both of these fields, having one of them as a "backup" option, and prep for both at the same time?

 

[liveoak]

i tried to do this. gave up on the gre, went full time on mcat.

 

[whatbout2morrow]

Some MD/PhD programs require both MCAT and GRE, so no, it would not be strange to prepare for both.

 

[BurntFlower]

One of my friends is highly interested in research so he's studying both the MCAT and the GRE.

 

[Whatyousay]

If medicine is truly something that you want to do, just focus on the MCAT. If you want to do graduate school, just focus on the GRE.

I would take the MCAT before the GRE, simply because the med school application process starts earlier than the grad school application process. If you you take the MCAT in the spring and don't do well, you should still have time to prep for the GRE and take the test in time for grad school apps.

Splitting your focus between two tests at the same time will probably just affect your performance in both.

 

[IMSingular]

I probably won't get into medical school but I want to see if my MCAT is competitive enough to give me a decent shot. Medicine is my preferred career.

More realistically I could get into graduate school for the biological sciences which would require the subject test GREs I assume.

Is it common to consider both of these fields, having one of them as a "backup" option, and prep for both at the same time?

For admission to the 2013, Class of 2017, you may have to finish MCAT by say August 2012. Graduate schools in most universities wouldn't look at your application until February 2013. You can take GRE as late as December 2012. So you will have plenty of time to prepare for GRE. I think GRE is less stressful and needs less prep, that is if you are reasonable good at math and your major.

 

[Ebola4Breakfast]

I probably won't get into medical school but I want to see if my MCAT is competitive enough to give me a decent shot. Medicine is my preferred career.

More realistically I could get into graduate school for the biological sciences which would require the subject test GREs I assume.

Is it common to consider both of these fields, having one of them as a "backup" option, and prep for both at the same time?

Grad schools differ about what they require for admissions. Back when I applied to grad school(2004), most schools did not require the subjects test. They were considered optional. I'd figure this is still the case because most schools have moved to a more integrated, umbrella approach to graduate biomedical education. All the schools I applied to required the GRE general test. That test, though it is computer adaptive, is an absolute cakewalk compared to the MCAT. Check the requirements of the schools to which you're interested in applying for graduate school. You could be wasting your time (and possibly hurting your application if you did poorly) otherwise.

 

[tiedyeddog]

Most people I know who did this did it because they knew they had a slim chance of getting into medical school and used grad school as a backup.

 

[NickNaylor]

You're probably not going to be successful with this approach IMO. If you're serious about medicine (i.e., it's your "preferred career"), you should make it your first priority and work to achieve that goal. I would only do GRE prep after going through an application cycle and you fail to get in.

 

[BurghStudent]

I'm doing both right now. That's because I want to go to a 1 year Master's program before medical school.