First off, I would suggest a couple of things about the first thing that you said about applying to DO schools. On SDN I would for sure avoid statements like "I wouldnt actively seek to attend DO schols etc." I totally get you completely, you have no offense coming from me. But I just want to save you from having trolls and flamers blow up your threads haha. The whole DO vs MD thing is super sensitive for some people. I have watched interesting threads go down in flames heh.
As for the meat of your message: From my personal opinion, yes that is the route that you should go for with the MCAT. Mind you n=1, I am only one person, but that is what worked for me. A lot of it depends on your strengths though. So for instance, I obviously have an extremely strong bio background. So with that in mind, I think kaplan or EK bio is better since I would need less review. For real, princeton can go way too deep sometimes. So if you are kinda weak in bio, then princeton would be best. If you are strong in it, I would suggest going kaplan or EK since they skim the material more. As for the physical sciences and organic chem, absolutely go princeton. I think they did VERY well. You could go Berkeley review for physics if you were really wanting to go deep, but princeton again is a nice middle ground between hard and approachable. I think that princeton did a very good job with things in organic and physics in particular. As for verbal, go exam krackers 100%. I think its like the 1001 question book, or 101 verbal or something like that, the point being its a big book filled with tons of questions.
I am going to give you some advice. Many prep companies have all of these nice little gimmicks and tips and stuff so that they can sell their product. Verbal is notorious for this. Companies (including EK) will have you rank problems, reorder which to do, speed read etc. When in reality you need to just answer the problems. You waste too much time ranking and choosing what problems to solve first etc, its so stupid. My princeton review course was horrible for this, I ended up stopping going to the lecture because it was just such a horrible strategy. The reality is that if you want to get over a 30, you physically must answer every single question, you cant skip passages, whether the answers are right or wrong, you have to answer everything. So just read the passage and go with your gut instinct. Verbal is usually the hardest section to get higher in, so it takes tons and tons of practice and acceptance of your instincts. Thats why EK is so good. EK also has a book thats like math and verbal strategy. This book is a must. Since you cant use a calculator you have to learn how to do exponents and logarithms and stuff in your head, this book helps a lot.
So to summarize, if I was to do it all over again I would focus all of my time in these books:
Bio- kaplan or EK
Chem- princeton
organic- princeton
physics- princeton
verbal- EK
So if the money is right, you may be best off getting the princeton hyperlearning full set, and then maybe the full examkrackers set. Again the main point is to get the books of practice problems. And obviously DO the practice problems heh...
When you are getting within a month or so from taking the MCAT, buy the AAMC practice tests and burn through those. They are old MCATs I am pretty sure so they are very representative of the real deal. Though expect the problems on the real thing to be harder. My first physics passage on the real MCAT left me dumbfounded. Just realize that everyone is graded together on the same curve. So if you think a problem is ridiculously hard, chances are that everyone thinks its very hard and/or its a poor question and AAMC will toss it out.
I would absolutely make sure you have all of the pre-reqs done before you take the MCAT. Some people take it before, I think those people are nuts... like you said you might take it before you are done physics. I would only suggest that if you had taken a high level physics or something in high school. Otherwise I wouldnt chance it. The thing is most med schools average your MCAT scores. So lets say you bomb the physics portion because you get unlucky and have a ton of problems from that last quarter of your physics. So lets say you get a 26. Well thats not super hot. Lets say you then study more, finish physics and retake and bust out an amazing 34. Well then you are still only at a 30 overall which is average. So I dont know, thats my little speech on that. I think its better to be patient and do everything right the first time rather than trying to clean it up later. If it means taking an extra year before you apply, so be it. Spend that time getting more ECs and stuff. I would apply early if you can, it is better to apply early. Most schools are rolling so you could be accepted before people have even gotten interviews if you apply in June and have decent stats.
As for the schedule of your MCAT. Some people take a month, some 6. Personally I took 14 weeks and it was too much. I studied roughly 40 hours a week consistently for those 14 months. You eventually hit a point of diminished returns. If I could do it over again, I would have done 10 weeks, maybe 12. It was like I got on this rush when I saw my practice test scores skyrocketing and I had a ton of confidence. Then in the last couple of weeks everything levels off (you can only get so good at taking the tests) and then you feel average about it. Not to mention as you alluded to, life continues to go on without you. Absolutely make time for friends still, but as much as you can try and treat studying like a 9-5 job. Be consistent but give yourself necessary breaks. I studied the first month or so every single day with no breaks. That was a horrible mistake and I started to burn out. So from then on I made sure to take one day 100% off. No school work, no MCAT, I would just hang with my girlfriend or go fishing or whatever. That day off will rejuvenate you in ways you cant imagine. And every once in a while I would realize I am just so out of it so I would take a random day off. Thats fine too, accept your humanity. Just make sure to give yourself like an extra week total when you are setting up your MCAT schedule. As far as I know thats most of the advice I can give... I am sure more will come, and maybe with some more messaging you will be able to get some more out of me, but thats all I can think of for now heh.
As for all of the stuff about life and my interest in medicine. I actually was pretty late in the game. I almost didnt graduate high school... I had aspirations of being a professional drummer. I was going to go down that route but then my band broke up and the members went to college, so I sort of figured I would follow suite. I basically randomly picked my major in college (bio) and found I actually really enjoyed it once I started. After my grades started picking up and my class rank opened some doors for research I realized I was being called to something bigger. I planned on going for a PHD since I really enjoyed learning and my professors really pushed me to apply. I continued down that route for a couple of years; grades got even better, got more research experience, but in my last semester of college I basically just had a realization that I didnt want a desk job (what PHDs actually do) so I shadowed in the ER and fell in love with medicine. It is a beautiful blend of science, using your hands, staying on your toes and moving. It was just very enjoyable. So I postponed my graduation to take some more courses required for med school and to give myself some time to study for the MCAT. I was going to apply this cycle, I had my application about halfway finished but then basically realized that I needed to take another year. I had graduated, got married, moved to another state, started a new job, and taken the MCAT within 2 months. I just realized I did not have the time nor the money to finish my application. I was really disappointed at first, but it all has worked out so much better not rushing my application. I got a sick research job at a medical school, and I am now boosting my application and I will be applying next year. I am spending my days doing medical research, shadowing, working in a clinic, and hopefully my nursing assistant license will transfer soon so I can get a hospital job on the weekends.
As for specialty, I am trying to remain as open of a book as I can. Sounds cheesy but I am letting God guide me as much as I can. I figured I have been taken this far, why not let him keep steering me in the right direction. Heck if you would have told me 5 years ago when I was failing high school that I would be applying to med school, I wouldve called you crazy. So I am trying to be willing to be any specialty I feel called towards. As of right now I do really like ortho however. It is very competitive for both DO and MD, but of my time shadowing it seems like the one I could go into. The thing is they practice both medicine and surgery. They appreciate the basic sciences while enjoying anatomy and using their hands. I am a bit of a handy man and the tools and evolving equipment in their field is incredible. I am also incredibly pleased to see how happy the older ortho docs are. It has a very low rate of burn out. When I spent time in the ER half the docs told me to run from medicine all together. It has a nice balance of office work and hospital work. At first I would like you and said HECK NO to family medicine, but you would be surprised as some of the bonuses of family medicine, especially rural medicine. It sounds crazy but once you start reading from some of the rural docs out there, they are doing some really cool stuff. Who knows though... But again, we shall see where I end up. I figure I will just keep staying the course, working hard, and hopefully opportunities will happen for me.
So hey just shoot me an email on here any time. Hopefully I can continue to help, or just chat, or whatever. My job can be kind of boring some days and I feel like I have exhausted like the entire internet hahaha, so its nice to chat.
