MCAT prep

[katiemaude]

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So I went to a Kaplan center today to take a practice MCAT - not a real practice MCAT; their 3-hr mini version. I was hoping it would enlighten me as to whether a Kaplan course would help me prepare for the exam. I was trying to decide whether the online version or the in-person version would be better for me. Someone said to decide based on the quality of the instructor. But when I asked the staff today about sitting in on a lecture (ANY lecture), I was given the runaround. The guy who runs the MCAT classes in my region is new to the area and completely uninformed about anyone's teaching abilities or lack thereof - he doesn't even seem to have a grasp for where the classes are actually taught!

Ok, so I still have no idea what would be best for me. TPR classes are not available in my area and I don't live near a Berkley Review site so I'm either doing Kaplan online, Kaplan live or studying on my own. Also it turns out that the site nearest to me is completely full so I'm nearly SOL on that one. I'll have to drive 45 minutes to get to the nearest on-site lecture.

Any advice that could help me decide?

I am taking two classes this semester (ochem II and physics II), I want to take the June 15 MCAT, and I'd be applying this summer. I'll have about six weeks of uninterrupted study time after finals. No work, no nothing. However, this spring I'll also be volunteering 4 hrs/week plus working 10 hrs/week in addition to taking those two classes. Attending lecture keeps me on track (does this indicate an "on demand" online course won't work for me?) but I tend to study and do my homework when it's assigned to me. I haven't gotten back my practice MCAT score yet but I can tell I bombed the biological sciences part. Hopefully I'll pick up some of that in ochem II but there was a lot of physiology I didn't remember from the classes I took this summer.

 

[DrMidlife]

I'm in favor of Kaplan, generally, and/but my experience was:
1. The practice test offered by Kaplan is designed to be a marketing tool. Kaplan needs a low baseline by which it can guarantee that your score will improve after you fork over some cash. If you read the fine print in the agreement, the higher score guarantee describes this.

I suggest that you should also take a free practice test on e-mcat.com. I think both this AAMC site, and the Kaplan marketing pretest, are weak substitutes for the real thing, but you should have 2 data points instead of one, as you consider how much work you need to do. My opinion is that your verbal score is the most painful and time-consuming to improve, and that a cold practice score of 10 is a good predictor that you are 3-6 months from test-ready, but people have disagreed with me on this.

2. The teachers for Kaplan are qualified by getting an 11 or better in the section they teach. In my experience, that meant that I had the equivalent of a 14 year old mall rat teaching ochem, which completely wasted my time, but I had a physics PhD teaching physics. (I needed this expertise level to be the opposite, but you don't get to pick.)

By contrast, the online course has what seems to be a non-science-background actor reading the lectures, as you look at diagrams. You can read along. You can turn off the actor. You can go forward and back and listen multiple times. I don't know if you get access to this resource by buying the classroom course.

3. The online course (and presumably the classroom course) is unbelievably content heavy. If you have 6 months to study fulltime, you can fill that time with the Kaplan online course. You can discard entire volumes of material that doesn't work for you, and still have multiple other options for study and practice. You get graphed and measured half to death. You get told "you're going to be a GREAT doctor" 4 million times. There's no doubt at all what you're supposed to do next and why. Plus they ship you a huge box of books to work from - the same books as the classroom course.

So if you have the discipline to set and follow a schedule, the online course is really solid. And it's what I'd recommend based on your situation.

I also recommend adding in extra problems in parallel, such as the Examkrackers books. If you are doing a road trip, or you have a long commute, think about getting Audio Osmosis or similar. But if you start feeling limited on time or you don't make progress, then cut down the number of tools you're using. Kaplan is all about strategy and method, and other materials are about drill baby drill.

The most important thing, by far, is taking every single practice test. Kaplan arguably offers all of the AAMC tests, but I'm inclined to believe that the AAMC practice tests on e-mcat.com are a more authoritative source, yet neither is any kind of reliable predictor. If you take a practice test every 2-3 weeks between now and your test date, and you're trending up, then you are doing things right. If you don't trend up, then stop and regroup and do something else.

Best of luck to you.

 

[n3xa]

The most important thing, by far, is taking every single practice test. Kaplan arguably offers all of the AAMC tests, but I'm inclined to believe that the AAMC practice tests on e-mcat.com are a more authoritative source, yet neither is any kind of reliable predictor.

😕

When I click "AAMC practice tests" from my Kaplan online syllabus, it takes me to the e-mcat website in a separate window.

 

[DrMidlife]

😕

When I click "AAMC practice tests" from my Kaplan online syllabus, it takes me to the e-mcat website in a separate window.

Find the practice tests that don't say "AAMC". Aren't there about a thousand of them, and Kaplan does crazy data analysis and trend graphs on which of the 50 question categories you have yet to master (so you can be a GREAT doctor)?

Or maybe Kaplan stopped repackaging them.

 

[n3xa]

Find the practice tests that don't say "AAMC". Aren't there about a thousand of them, and Kaplan does crazy data analysis and trend graphs on which of the 50 question categories you have yet to master (so you can be a GREAT doctor)?

Or maybe Kaplan stopped repackaging them.

There are 11 Kaplan FLs and I think my tired eyes misread your post. Whoops.

Looks like Kaplan does the crazy data analysis with the AAMC tests as well.

YAY GRATE FUTURE DOCTORS YAYZ 😛