MCAT preparation course question on secondaries

[gogata23]

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I've noticed on several secondaries that they ask if you took a MCAT preparation course. I'm obviously going to be honest and say I took a Kaplan course, but why does this matter? Does it look bad or good that I took a course? Honestly, Kaplan didn't even help me out as much as self studying examkrackers did, total waste of money haha.

 

[Mr Magpie]

Unless someone scores poorly despite a prep course, I doubt it will make or break a given application (a low score speaks for itself in most cases)

It's likely just for data purposes with no real weight on candidacy.

 

[Doug Underhill]

It does not affect your application: med schools are just collecting data.

 

[efle]

To extend the above, when looking at MCAT scores across the applicant pool, how they prepared, how it may affect performance, how this may relate to USMLE, etc, can help gather data and draw conclusion above the value of the exam, affects on pool, etc. For example, past data indicated that prep courses helped improved MCAT scores. Obvious perhaps but does that mean the impact upon the applicant pool skews acceptance to those who can afford such a course? And how then does this affect the composition of the workforce of physicians? It is one of the reasons AAMC has made an effort to partner with Khan Academy to produce free resource for the new "M5" MCAT.

I'm curious how good that kind of data woukd be. You'd need a study with pretest, course vs self study, real test. Just comparing scores of people with course vs without would have way too many confounding variables about the populations that do and don't take courses.