When did you people first started studying for MCAT??

[Punisherx]

Hi, I'm a college student interested in applying to medical school. I was wondering when I should start studying MCAT...

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[mdvargas]

Hi, I'm a college student interested in applying to medical school. I was wondering when I should start studying MCAT...

IMO, 3 months before the test date should be minimum.

 

[Genesis12]

tested in April, so I started as soon as first semester of junior year ended (early december), did the kaplan big book once-over and a few kaplan tests by the end of break (mid-January), reviewed the material throughout the semester for a few hours a week until mid-march (spring break), and from there went through 8 of the AAMC practice tests (one every few days) and reviewed topics from the questions that i missed from said practice tests until the day of the test. this seemed to work moderately well, although i wish i would have given myself a few more months to study.

based on what many posters have said, I would actually recommend taking a summer to do some hardcore review and then taking it in august after your sophomore year. trying to study for the mcats really puts a damper on your semester when you have to juggle classes as well. in any case, best of luck to you!

 

[mongrel]

I think it just depends on how much time you can consistently devote during your "study period". I took the first test offered in the year (Jan 27) so I had the whole Christmas break plus the first few non-hectic weeks of school to completely devote. I only studied for about two months and I thought I covered the subjects pretty exhaustively.

A couple other people at my school with MCAT test dates in May are finding themselves trying to cram MCAT studying into regular tests/finals studying and totally stressing out.

 

[jochi1543]

I started 4.5 months ahead. I studied 5-6 days a week, about 3-4 hours a day on average - I'm lucky cuz I have a slacker job, so I can study there...in fact, I studied 1.5 orgo chapters there today, lol.

 

[SpartanBlueJay2]

I'm taking the MCAT May 31. I started studying in January. I did all the ExamKrackers books (except their physics book b/c it's not that great), then about 5 weeks later I started the Kaplan course mainly just to keep me on task.