Jerome's Opinion

When it comes to the MCAT, it is important to try to keep in mind that it is just a test. I know for many of you pre-med students out there, that is easier said than done.  Back in my pre-med days I remember hearing other students say “the MCAT is probably the biggest test of your life...once you get in, you’re set”.  Let me make it clear that the MCAT is NOT the biggest test of your life, no matter what anyone says!

To see how important the MCAT really is, we have to first look at how the MCAT is used by medical schools.  Today it is clear that most schools use the MCAT in some sort of cut-off fashion.  For UofT they use the MCAT to screen out low scores, but not necessarily to accept only high ones.  Generally for UofT I have heard that having above an 8 or 9 in each section, and higher than an O in writing is good enough.  For Queens and Western they use the MCAT as a cutoff, only offering interviews to students scoring higher than a particular standard (which changes every year).  Some schools have even gone without using the MCAT, such as Mac and UOttawa.

So what does this tell you?  It means that med schools have figured out that doing well on the MCAT does not correlate with becoming a good doctor.  At most, med schools use the MCAT to screen for applicants who meet a baseline cutoff.  This also means that if you take the MCAT for your first time, and bomb it, that does NOT mean you are not cut out for medicine!  The MCAT is no predictor of the quality of doctor you are!  It is purely a tool used by medical schools to compare students in a standardized fashion.  So just look at it as a cutoff you have to surpass and leave it at that.

There are several courses out there that are available for you to take in order to prepare for the MCAT.  Two popular ones are Kaplan and the Princeton Review. Of the two, the main difference is that Princeton Review has more in-class hours than Kaplan, which some people find more beneficial than others. Another key difference is that the extra hours come with a price, so be prepared to spend up to $1500 for the Princeton Review course.  At most universities, joining your school’s Premed Society gives you about a $100 discount, so don’t forget to do that.  If you are an exec of a Premed Society, apparently you can get an even cheaper rate.

In preparation for the MCAT I took the Princeton Review course, thinking that the extra hours of tutelage would improve my chances.  Instead I found most of the classes to be a bit of a waste of time. Many of the science classes regurgitated what was already in the book, and so pretty much I burned 3-4 hours per day, 4 days a week, attending classes that did not make much of an impact. To be frank I could have been studying in that time.  There is one class, however, that was quite useful. The Writing Sample class with the Princeton Review was very good at helping me to develop a writing style suitable for the MCAT. Every week we practiced writing 2 writing samples in class and the tutor would take all our writing samples home and give us a grade and some comments at the next class.  The grade I was receiving by the end of the class was the same grade that I ended up receiving in the MCAT, so I found the Princeton Review approach, as well as the tutor, very helpful for the writing sample

However, for the Verbal Reasoning classes, I had the exact opposite experience.  Verbal Reasoning is considered by some to be the hardest section of the MCAT, and so I started out pretty poorly in the section.  What I quickly came to realize was that the Princeton Review classes and strategy for doing the Verbal Reasoning are poorly designed and I recommend NOT using their method.  Instead I refer you to the Exam Krackers method of approaching the Verbal Reasoning.  Read their exam book for the theory behind their approach and I believe you will probably do better.  They also have a big book of 101 Verbal Reasoning passages which I found useful in practicing for the MCAT.

However I don’t want to end my mini review on the Princeton Review on a bad note. So what I will say is that their books are quite comprehensive, so at the very least I would get a set of their books when studying for the MCAT.  Given that from my experience the Writing Sample was the only class, I am not sure that paying $1500 is worth it just for this one class.  Probably your best bet is to buy the Princeton Review books off someone who took it recently and to read the theory for the Writing Sample on your own and get someone to proofread it.

My last piece of advice is to take advantage of the past exams that the AAMC offers online.  What I would suggest is that during the last 2 weeks before the MCAT, to take an old MCAT every other day, going from the earliest MCATs to the most recent ones.  On the off days that you are not doing a practice MCAT, review the areas/questions you got wrong.   On the day RIGHT before the MCAT, I suggest just lightly reviewing some things that need memorizing (such as formulas or brutal facts) but to just take it easy so that you don’t stress yourself out too much.