San Francisco MCAT Prep Courses

[lola]

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Hey there, I'm going to be taking the August MCAT and am planning to enroll in an MCAT Prep Course. Right now I'm leaning toward Kaplan. Has anyone out there taken a prep course in San Francisco? Did you find it worthwile? Thanks! 🙂

 

[souljah1]

Hi lilindval,

I took the mcat over in Berkeley (close enough). I opted for Princeton Review and was pretty happy with it, but if I had to do it over I would have chosen Berkeley Review. You should check and see if that is offerred anywhere in SF. I don't know all that much about Kaplan, but I have a few friends who did just fine with it. It is really more about your work ethic. There won't be any secret methods to approaching the mcat. You just study diligently. Prep classes are good b/c they keep you on track, this is what I valued most about using one. I knew if I stuck to their schedule, I would be fine. I wound up scoring just fine on the mcat.

Good luck

 

[buglady]

Do Berkeley Review! Especially since you're right there in SF!

I took Kaplan last year and I thought it was okay, not the best, but adequate. My mcat scores were a bit suckier than expected...so I decided to do some things differently, thus I decided to take another review course. TBR is a bit more comprehensive in some areas, which is good, especially if you never were taught the material correctly the first time around. Also, the teachers (at least chem and bio) wrote the books, so they can point out what is important vs. what is not. The bio books are outta control! Way too much detail, but they told us up front about how their books are overdone!

ALl of my teachers, with the exception of one, are not students themselves and have taught the courses for the past 10 or 11 years...so they know their stuff!

On the other hand, if you don't think you need tha much review for the test, Kaplan will be enough for you. Their resource center is pretty good, with all of the materials, but you don't have your own copy of the practice materials. TBR has a ton of passages to practice with in their books.

Can you tell which one I liked better?? :wink:

Good luck and happy studying!!

 

[lola]

I looked into Berkeley Review and unfortunately it won't fit into my schedule, thus I've opted for Kaplan. It's too bad, because I definitely need a lot of review! It's been almost 9 years since I took some of these courses. At one point I knew the material very well, so hopefully it won't be too hard to relearn the stuff.

 

[buglady]

I'm sorry! Kaplan will be alright, don't worry. Just do lots of practice passages OVER and OVER and OVER. Especially the AAMC practice materials....!

 

[lola]

Now that I've looked into the other programs, it just seems as though Kaplan is the best option for someone who is working full time. Although I'd prefer to take a course that met more often with shorter classes, this is just not practical for someone who is working. Aaaah... wish me luck :wink:

 

[SarahL]

I took a Kaplan course in SF and didn't find it tremendously helpful. Then again, I'm good at studying on my own. The teachers were pretty good(I actually ended up asking one of them out and dated him for a while), but I stopped going after the first month of class and just used their books.

The best thing about it was getting a sense of what's on the exam. If you use their books you don't end up reading your entire physics book again. However, there were a number of errors in their books and I ended up consulting my textbooks frequently without a comprehensive review of each course.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

 

[buffy]

DON'T TAKE KAPLAN!!!!!!! They don't give you practice materials to take home, so you have to go to their site to practice passages or sneak them out of the building and xerox them. I really wish I'd known that before I signed up for the class. Their practice materials are hard to work with because they're covered in plastic covers that people have written all over, so a lot of times you can see someone else's answer. I signed up for Kaplan and then broke my leg, so going downtown to practice passages was pretty difficult. Also, I thought their teachers were pretty unprofessional and clearly inexperienced at teaching. I didn't do as well as I'd hoped that year and retook the MCAT the following year, along with the Princeton Review. I thought their practice materials were great (and I had more than I could get through to bring home with me) and I really liked most of the teachers. You can actually meet with them outside of class if you want, and they were all accessible by email or phone. It was infinitely more useful than Kaplan, and I would strongly encourage you to go with Princeton Review. Another thing--Kaplan seemed to discourage people when we got our scores back. Several teachers told me I wouldn't get into an MD program and should go for an osteopathic school (and I have 3 acceptances from MD programs so far, and I'm still waiting on several schools). TPR seemed to teach you how to take the test and acknowledged that the test sucks without focusing on instilling bitter resentment. Clearly, I have a lot to say on this matter!

 

[SarahL]

Those are really good points. I had forgotten what a pain in the neck it was to go to downtown San Francisco to use Kaplan's materials. Their study rooms weren't very cosy, either. Sounds like the Princeton Review would be better.