I know that the time of year has come where many people are getting themselves ready to begin studying for the MCAT and one of the necessary considerations is whether or not to take a prep course. So, I want to dedicate Today's blog post to reviewing my experience with MCAT prep courses and what my thoughts were after actually taking the MCAT.
I believe I should preface all of this information by saying that obviously I haven't taken every MCAT prep course available, so all I can really speak to is what my personal experience was and how it worked out for me. The prep course that I do happen to have experience with is the Kaplan Prep course. Kaplan is one of the major ones that I know are available, so hopefully this post will help many of you!
The Course
When I went to choose an MCAT prep course, I knew that what most students went for was one that offered in-class sessions. Kaplan happened to have a relationship with the pre-med group at my school and they offered a small discount ( I think $200) for taking the classes on campus. The class regular price was cheaper than the Princeton Review one, so it was a no-brainer for me to take this class. I believe I ended up paying approximately $2000 for the in-person course offered on campus. The class consisted of 6-hours of class per week ( I had mine 6:00-9:00 Monday and Wednesday) and it ran Jan 29th-April 2nd. The $2000 included all the books for the Kaplan course as well as access to the online database that had lots of online content for you to study from.
Pros:
-Signing up for the class meant that you had a built in MCAT time in your schedule if you actually attended class. I never missed a class, so that was always my major MCAT time.
- You were with other students, so you got to see how other people went about answering questions.
- The course package offered you tons of material ( I didn't even get through all of it) and you had access to it well past the dates of your course ( I actually used it to study the second time around).
Cons:
- In class portion took a lot of time out of your day, and I happened to have a full day Mondays and Wednesdays, so sometimes it felt like a lot.
-Class time wasn't always used effectively, so I didn't feel like I was always getting the most out of it.
- There was a lot of material to get through before each class session. I remember it being like 100 pages per class or something crazy. Towards the end, I wasn't doing all the reading because I didn't have the time with my school work.
- The price! Looking back on it, I can't believe I paid so much, but when you want to be well-prepared you don't really think about that.
Overview
Personally for me, the in-class portion wasn't very helpful. The class structure consisted of the instructor going through a lesson book and answering questions with us to help us learn the "Kaplan method". Often times, the instructor would ask a question and wait for someone to volunteer to answer it and as no one really wanted to answer, it always took forever and wasted time. What I did find helpful was the online component. The Kaplan online database offers a ton of study resources and since you can access it at your convenience, it makes studying less hectic. The first time around my MCAT score wasn't my best. I don't solely attribute that to the class, but I do think my style of studying wasn't effective. The second time around I studied more at my own pace using the Kaplan books and online database and that worked out really well for me. The database had 12 full-length exams. It also had some official AAMC exams ( I can't remember if those were included in the 12), and they were really good predictors of my MCAT score range. The Kaplan exams were pretty good as well, but some felt like the scores were inflated as I was scoring way higher on them in comparison with my AAMC practice test scores. I should add that the second time around I was also skimming through the Exam Krackers MCAT books and the content in those was really good and condensed ( My friend actually took their prep course and liked it a lot).
Also, if you are still interested in Kaplan, they do offer other course options. They have a Live-online course ( same price as in-class) where you take the classes at home with an online instructor ( we had some of these for the organic chemistry classes and I thought they were more helpful than the in-class classes), or they have a "self-paced" option ( $400 cheaper than in-class & live-online) where you get access to the database and the books. The second option would probably be closest to what I did the second time around, and I thought it was what worked best for me.
Overall, I say choose whatever will work best for you. You know how you study and what will be most effective. Also, you might have a different experience, so keep that in mind. I hope you guys found this helpful and that you have a great weekend!
~Genesis<3
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