A little bit about me - I studied for the MCAT's a while ago and heavily used SN2ed's guide to ultimately score a 38 and get into med school. I'm actually looking to give back to the community.
I've deferred med school (Weill Cornell entering 2017) and am working as a software developer in SF in the mean time.
Thoughts about compiling an adaptive schedule on a website with all the resources? So for me, I had a lot of time to study for the MCAT's and was terrible at CARS. So I found myself modifying the guides to spend more time on CARS and less on stuff I was good at like OChem. Also, I studied a lot less each day because I had a whole year to spread it out.
I'm thinking of making a community resource where you fill out a short questionnaire of what you need (timeline, desired score, current ability, etc.) and the site points you in the right direction for a custom-tailored study schedule.
I think this would be an wonderful resource for students if you can find enough people with the desire and time to devote to creating it.
I can offer an idea that might be useful. Some websites and software allow you to rate how familiar you are with the flashcard (1 know it, 2 don't know it at all, 3 need to study it more), and shuffles the cards you need help with back into the stack so that you see that card more often. The idea being that more exposure to that card will better familiarize you with the idea.
I feel this can be applied to any type of question. If a question bank is divided into groups-and you struggle with a question from one group-you can be presented with the same question or with a different question from the same group. Example: If you have a problem with a stoicheometry question, you will see a higher percentage of stoicheometry questions in your practice quiz/test. Also, the end of test screen or question review screen could suggest resources to better familiarize students with the material.
Big Edit: As far as thoughts for your specific idea go, I think this would do-able. I suppose a student would specify their study period (ex: 3 months), how many hours per day they wish to spend, and what materials they have (every student would have the free online materials, + whatever they purchase/find) and the website would do its best to divide up the reading and problem sets for each subject evenly across the specified time period. Having a schedule is really comforting for some people (me included), and this planning feature alone would save many hours of work. Having a concise list of popular study material by itself would save hours of work. I really like what the MCAT wiki on reddit is doing in this regard:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Mcat/wiki/mcat2015exam
Then I suppose some of the extra bells and whistles would be: Remove certain chapters of books, etc. entirely (or maybe even partially) if the student felt they knew the material. Warn if the study schedule looks impossible. Allow students to make percentage adjustments for whatever the common individual study habits are (Ex: Some students would like 50% review 50% practice questions, others might like 30% review, 70% questions, spend no more than x consecutive hours on one subject, etc ). Suggest additional resources when a student runs out (in a non-affiliated/non-profit making fashion, just provide the master list) Strongly recommend working in full-length practice tests.
"Algorithm:**"
Time till test date / daily study time = hours spent studying per day
Hours spent studying per day x (.7) = (time to spend on problem sets) --- for a 30/70 split (reading vs problems)
Hours spent studying per day x (.3) = (time to spend on reading) --- for a 30/70 split (reading vs problems)
**Sometimes it may be necessary to review a subject entirely before attempting any practice problems. Many study schedules save practice problems and practices tests for later. This is just meant to be a simplification of a solution for a student with complicated needs.
For each chapter: Reading calculations can be estimated (Ex: average minutes per page spent reading a Kaplan book). If you wanted to get more in-depth there are probably free reading tests on line to find a persons read words per minute.
For problem sets: A bit trickier to average the time it takes to do a problem. I imagine most resources design problems like MCAT problems, so they expect students to take the same amount of time solving them as what's provided on the MCAT. so about 1.5 minutes per question:
http://nextsteptestprep.com/2014/11/21/mcat-2015-time-limits/
