Why I think Summer Immersion Programs aren't worth it.

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vs127739

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Sorry brah, they're the Princeton Review. They don't have to make accommodations for people.
 
Ya they seriously don't care, they have plenty of people always signing up for their classes and a majority that improve strongly due to their classes/forcing them to study, you may not like the program - fine, but it's immature to blame your failure solely on them. they didn't make you score worse on the actual test than your practices, and they surely didn't give you your verbal score. I doubt you really follow their guidelines and material if you couldn't get your score past a sub 10% level at all schools.
 
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Honestly, I'm shocked that a review course costing $12k even exists.
$12,000. Twelve thousand dollars. Half of what the average American makes in a year.

I don't know if I'm more surprised that Princeton Review has the audacity to offer a course with that price tag, or that there are people willing to pay it. You didn't need to post this to convince me (or hopefully most other people) that this is a bad idea, you just had to say it costs twelve thousand effin bucks.

Besides that, I'm sorry to hear it didn't work for you. It's a damn shame really, for $12k there should be a 40+ guarantee. But really, most prep courses aren't necessary (even the ones that are $1-2k). All you need are to buy some review books and the official AMCAS practice tests, giving you a grand total of a few hundred bucks. With appropriate scheduling and self-disciple, you should be able to prep for the MCAT by yourself as well as any course can prep you.

Also I highly doubt PR is going to hand you your money back. At best, they may let you take the course again.
 
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Why the hell would anyone pay $12,000 for MCAT preparation? You should have known what you were signing up for before you threw away $12k.
 
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This combined with your previous threads/responses to criticism raises red flags all over the place in regards to your level of maturity.

Please, I think you've disclosed too much information about your scores here that may make you recognizable in admissions processes, keep in mind there are (very helpful) adcoms on here and it may not serve you in the future to promote a negative online persona.

I'm sorry about your experience, though. I hope it all turns out in your favor.
 
I'm beginning to think that any review course outside of just buying the books and doing it yourself is actually worth it...tbh.
 
ciestar- They certainly are, but personally I don't think that expensive Summer Immersion program is worth it. Take a cheaper course and spend a majority of your time studying on your own.
If studying on your own is the most valuable part (it undoubtedly is), why pay for the course? I've never understood that.
 
So you were scoring 27s on practice tests and you scored a 25 on the real thing. Those scores are pretty close. How was this totally unexpected for you?
 
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Isn't?
I is confused by your tone.

Fine, are*? I'm not satisfied with my TPR online course. Hence, me thinking that formal courses aren't worth the money stands true.

Also on my phone so FORGIVE me.
 
So you were scoring 27s on practice tests and you scored a 25 on the real thing. Those scores are pretty close. How was this totally unexpected for you?
This. A 25 isn't unexpected when 30 was your max score and you've been scoring "27s," etc.
 
Fine, are*? I'm not satisfied with my TPR online course. Hence, me thinking that formal courses aren't worth the money stands true.

Also on my phone so FORGIVE me.
No, I'm sorry! I wasn't trying to be a prick, but in both this and the prior post, your TONE says "the courses are not worth the money" but your words say "The courses are worth the money"!
I just wanted to be certain you meant 'not worth the money' before taking you at anything but your literal word, especially as tone is difficult to discern on the internet and thus it's a bit risky to give tone precedence over literal meaning.

I agree with you, for what it's worth.
 
I never proofread when I'm on my phone. It sometimes makes me come across as an idiot.

But to reiterate, no, they're not worth the thousands of dollars they charge. Not at all. I seriously regret paying for my TPR course. I should have just stuck to TBR and worked from there.
 
The scoring went like this: 26, 27, 27, 28, 30, 29, 32. <----- In that order. You wouldn't think you'd fall below the outlier.

mathematically, i don't think any number is an outlier in that set. most stats books define outliers as points that are 1.5*IQR above and below the upper quartile and lower quartile, respectively. in this set IQR = 2.5, UQ=29.5, LQ=27. so none are outliers in the set. however, this approach makes some assumptions that are not true for MCAT score distributions
 
Look, a negative response gets a negative feedback. They are a LOT of trolls all over this place but you're right they are good helpful people here too thats why I want to send a message or warning out. I'm really not concerned about Adcoms finding my identity. I'm just going to ignore the trolls for now on. But let me be clear, Summer Immersion Program is not all that it appears. I'm about to write more about it in the comments below. I think consumer feedback is an important part of our capitalistic society, and this thread is simply another line adding into the fabric of our economy.
You are complaining that you scored a 25 when you said you were scoring only in the mid/upper 20's region during the entire class? 1) Your score isn't far out of what you were scoring on practice tests - the slight drop is either random or due to your test day failure, not TPR's. 2) You didn't mention any efforts to talk to the instructors or administrators during the course about how you weren't succeeding - you paid 12k and watched yourself fail continuously without changing something or even reaching out? 3) You say the content was irrelevant to the MCAT? Are you serious? Do you know how many people on SDN successfully use TPR material to great results? Much less the fact that there is no way TPR would continue to exist if their material and teaching methods weren't able to yield success. Not for you? Sure. But why pay for a course with material you don't like, and why stick with it?

Ya it definitely sucks you wasted 12k on a course and obviously didn't manage to learn any of the material they were teaching or giving you, but you chose to spend all the money on this course, and unless everyone else in your class also saw no improvement, it looks like the problem included you as well. If everything was so terrible from the start why didn't you bring up your concerns? I know for a fact people have pulled out of TPR courses after joining and seeing they weren't for them and received their money back.
 
mathematically, i don't think any number is an outlier in that set. most stats books define outliers as points that are 1.5*IQR above and below the upper quartile and lower quartile, respectively. in this set IQR = 2.5, UQ=29.5, LQ=27. so none are outliers in the set. however, this approach makes some assumptions that are not true for MCAT score distributions
Cool to know... stats always make me curious, so I enjoy hearing about them. I really should've taken that course in college...
 
mathematically, i don't think any number is an outlier in that set. most stats books define outliers as points that are 1.5*IQR above and below the upper quartile and lower quartile, respectively. in this set IQR = 2.5, UQ=29.5, LQ=27. so none are outliers in the set. however, this approach makes some assumptions that are not true for MCAT score distributions

There's a ton of different ways to identify outliers. Which ones you use is highly contingent on your data set and the population. You can definitely cook the books with your data if pick you pick the right ones to trim outliers.
 
I feel bad for you man, but the best PR will probably do is let you retake their course. I doubt they will give you your money back.

Also, the reason for the stats discussion is that judging from the scores you provided, a 25 wouldn't be unexpected, so there is no reason to call it an "outlier."

Did you consider doing self-study before doing the summer immersion program?
 
Wow, chill out dude. I felt that TPR wasn't helpful to me and I have every right to express my grief about it. You must think I'm some lazy pre-med who hasn't busted his a$$ off in school or made sacrifices to get to where I needed to be. Well guess what... I payed my dues. Btw, I did tell the staff members of what was happening but nothing was done. My MCAT score was way lower than expected and the promise of improvement didn't come through. I took the test again and got a better score months later but this time without Princeton Review. If I'm doing reasonably well in my practice scores, then you would think a 25 is an outlier.
Were you happy with your last few test scores of about 30? If you were happy with those, then how did the program not get you to where you wanted to be? Plenty of people flop on their test days for whatever reason, if you didn't get the scores you were averaging how was that the programs fault? They can't take the test for you.

Although I find it hard to believe that you could be scoring only in the mid 20's if you really paid attention to their classes, did all the practice problems, and all the practice tests, I find it even harder to understand that if you saw that this wasn't working the whole time, why would you have stayed in the program? Also you say the instructors were excellent but content terrible? So the instructors were friendly, professional, and great at teaching you the material but the material was bad? Are you try to say that the books didn't have the right info for the MCAT?
 
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