Prep101 MCAT Course - Feedback + FREE Study Aids

[matthewward_prep101]

Hello all! I hope everyone’s MCAT preparation is going well and you are looking forward to the next phase of your medical journey – namely, getting yourself into a great medical school!

 

My name is Matthew Ward and I was the instructor for Prep101's MCAT prep course in Victoria B.C. this summer. My class of 19 students averaged a 20M on AAMC Test #3 at the start of our course (May), yet managed to average a 30P on AAMC Test #10 by the end (July)! For me, it was a very gratifying (and fun) experience to work with this talented group of aspiring doctors over our intensive 10-week course.

 

As promised, below are some recently developed Free MCAT Study Aids for you all to download:

 

http://www.prep101.com/mcat/CardioSystem.pdf

http://www.prep101.com/mcat/DigestionEnzymes.pdf

http://www.prep101.com/mcat/EndocrinologySupplement.pdf

http://www.prep101.com/mcat/GasCirculationSupplement.pdf

http://www.prep101.com/mcat/OpticsSupplement.pdf

 

And there are lots more posted at:

http://prep101.com/mcat/study_aids.html

 

Prep101 is committed to the constant re-evaluation and improvement of our program. Over the next year, I will be spearheading a team of doctors, medical students, and prep instructors to further develop Prep101's MCAT prep course: more skills-based workshops, in-class workbook to supplement study guides and home study kit, more WS feedback, updating online materials, more passage-based questions, etc…

 

In turn, I am looking for constructive feedback from our students (or non-students) about our current MCAT prep course. Unlike other prep companies, Prep101 has always followed a transparent policy with respect to internal evaluations (e.g., posting instructors' evaluations on our website). This is why we want (crave!) open and honest feedback from students on this very public premed forum.

 

Some feedback that would be extremely helpful to our development team (from anyone – not just Prep101 students…):

 

- What did you like or not like about your Prep101 MCAT course this past summer?

- How helpful were our instructors, study-guides, and home study kit?

- Did you take advantage of the flexible schedule or only attend either weeknight or weekend classes?

- What is the most important feature an MCAT course must have to justify your time and money?

- How fair did you find our price of $1395 compared to other prep companies?

- How helpful did you find the free study aids and free WS feedback on our website, this forum (Sameer and Nadil), and our internal forum?

 

I know giving constructive feedback can be a bit of a pain, but your time is sincerely appreciated (after all, it is the only way we can continue to improve this program for our students and learn from any past mistakes).

 

As I have offered in the past, if anyone has any MCAT-related questions, please feel free to contact me anytime at

MatthewWard_Prep101@hotmail.com.

 

Please, take care and the best of luck with your studies!

 

Sincerely,

 

Matt

[nioberry]

Hi Matt,

 

I just wrote the MCATs in June and did really well. I studied using the Prep101 online lectures, books and attended some Verbal classes. I thought the material Prep101 used was very appropriate and I appreciated that a lot of the testing and practice problems were harder than the actual MCAT material, it kinda prepares you more. I liked that I could do the online classes with my full time job, I could come home after work and then focus on whatever lecture I wanted whenever I wanted. My verbal instructor was also great, Jeremy was awesome in Verbal and he would just give you different ways of thinking about the questions that would make them easy to answer. One thing I would recommend is offering classes all year round and not just from May to August because now you can write the MCATs all year round so for the people writing in June i.e. me you really can't benefit from the classes if you wanted to.

 

Overall I had a really good experience with the Prep101 team. The head office always replied to my emails the day of if I had any questions. They were really helpful and I loved the online lectures. Hope this helps!

[lsmy]

Hi Matt,

 

Thank you for asking about the experience I had with Prep101 for my journey in preparing for the MCAT. Having written the MCAT last year and only preparing on my own, I achieved an average score. I decided a prep course was the way to go. I found Prep101 on the internet and was impressed by their website compared to the others that I visited. Other companies were also not getting very good reviews from what I was reading. I signed up and I haven't regretted it one bit.

 

In many ways I feel more prepared to write the MCAT and that is partly due to the great instructors I had for my courses and the work I have put into studying. A few of my favorite aspects of Prep101 are:

- the flexible schedule which I took full advantage of

- the online study aids

- the books used by this program for studying (I felt the study questions were very similar in content and difficulty to the real thing in many cases, especially the verbal ones)

- the instructors were all very knowledgeable and willing to discuss difficulties you might have outside of class hours, they gave out their email address for this reason

- the structure which meant I had to stick to a schedule and cover all material and

- the valuable tips from Jeremy on how to write a great essay for the MCAT.

 

It's been invaluable, which brings me to my next point in that the cost was well worth it!

 

There are only a couple of aspects I would improve and one is in agreement with nioberry above, that the course should be run a few times a year since the MCAT can be written multiple times from January to September. The second is that I think, like verbal, physics should be recognized as another really difficult topic for many to grasp. There is so much material to cover for physics and it affects quite a bit of the MCAT score, but I personally find the concepts some of the hardest to grasp. Understanding physics though will help with the chemistry as well since there are similar concepts involved, for example thermodynamics discussing work and heat. I recognize I am at quite a disadvantage compared to some since it's been many years since I did high school physics but maybe others will share my opinion.

 

That's all I have to say.

 

Thanks.

[pew peter]

Hey Matt,

 

I normally don't give review for classes or professors because as you pointed out it is a bit of a hassel. However, I just thought I would give my input because overall I am extremely impressed with the course. I attended the course in Guelph.

 

Instructor wise, I was generally very happy; however, I do have a couple complaints:

 

- I found one of the instructors fairly unknowledgable. I don't mean to sound mean, but she just didn't seem like she had the basic knowledge (i.e. didn't understand how the reaction quotient (Q) was related to the equilibrium constant). I understand when instructors write a formula down wrong or get little details mixed up, but I think the most important thing would be for them to have a sound understanding of the overall picture. [she was very nice although, and she worked hard, and tried to answer anyone's question]

 

- Also for Organic Chemistry; I ended up adjusting to go another instructors class. I found Narendra taught the course extremely well compared to the other instructor. I had never taken an Orgo class and Narendra taught it in a way that was MCAT specific (understand the main stuff, carbonyl carbon is a electrophile, hydroxyl groups get protonated to become better leaving groups, stuff like that). Steph had a masters in organic, was really nice, but I think she said she neevr took the mcat, and taught it in a memory way (memorize a reaction...not understand what's going on).

 

- Have the instructors teach lesson 1, do the test, teach leasson 2, do the test. Instead, by the end of the course it was "teach lesson 1, teach lesson 2, test 1, test 2" with the instructors saying "if you guys don't want to be here you can leave." I know it's nice to go home early but like we pay 1500 for the course, and I want to be forced to do as much work as possibly. I always wanted to stay and do the tests at the end, but when the instructors say that people would get up and leave; this would lead to me feeling like a jackass for making the instructor wait around for a while. Instead I would just leave, and never end up doing the tests.

 

-Megan was an awesome instructor for bio and writing, she worked extra hard and even made extra study sheets. However, the only complaint is she kinda helped us a bit too much with the in class exams. It seemed like she always gave us a couple of cues at the end of the lesson that would get us a couple of marks on the practice exam but not help us overall, but she would say well these come up on exams a lot (even though I haven't seen any in the AAMC practice ones, but only in the inclass ones). This would gives us inflated marks on the practice exam, but I don't think it helps overall.

 

-Mandatory diagnostic exam in the first bit of the course. I read that you did that with your class, and I think everyone should

 

- Have more verbal and organic classes. I know there was the workshop days...but still I think there could have been another day or two

 

-- I realise those sound like rants, but let me stress that overall I am very pleased, but I see fixing those few things to make the course even better.

 

Now for positive feedback:

 

- the cost is very fair for what we get

 

- I really enjoyed the structure of the course. (Flexible, only twice a week, 4 hours)

 

- I found the EK books great; they seem to be a lot more accurate than Kaplan.

 

- The writing book and online help is unreal. I have bugged Nickie, Sameer, Chris, and Nadil quite a bit and they have been so helpful.

 

- My instructors were manly super nice people and very helpful:

 

Narendra (PHYS/ORG)- real nice, smart guy who taught the stuff great

Sameer (Verbal/Writing) - super helpful, even stayed after class to give me tips on othe medschool related things

Parth (Physics) - I only went to him once, but he was really smart, and taught it in perfectly. Gave us unique problems that made us think about concepts, not just memorizing formulas

Megan (BIO/Writing) - Really helpful, and taught it MCAT specific

Steph (orgo/chem) - really nice, but taught too memory based

Suparna - really nice, and tried to help; didn't understand everything very well

 

-when hiring the instructors for the science sections I would focus solely on those who conceptually think and those who have written the MCAT with the only purpose of going to med/vet school

 

Thank you for the course, and I hope my feedback can help make the course even better

[matthewward_prep101]

Thanks Nioberry, Ismy, and Pew_Peter for your very insightful comments. If anyone else has any feedback about our program (including the free writing sample tutoring offered by Sameer and Nadil on this forum), please feel free to leave a post.

 

Good luck with your studies everyone!

[obrien]

I have taken a number of prep 101 courses in the past. Prep 101 has no doubt helped me pass a number of classes during my undergrad. I wrote the MCAT a few years ago after having studied on my own and did not do very well. This time around, I am taking the online prep101 course and have the EK books as well. I find the price is right for the material. The EK books are amazing, so many practice questions. The instructors in the course use a lot of examples to make learning easier and they usually work through the answers so that you can understand what’s going on. I have always found prep 101 to be useful and I am certain that this time around I will get a higher score.

 

Chantal

[alliwantismed]

Let me pitch in:

 

I took Prep101 and it really really helped me w/ my MCAT, I mean I scored 37Q!!!!!!

 

I would credit two things to my success:

1) The EK textbooks are great. They're concise but cover all the material you need to do well.

2) The instructors are all very good. They not only teach you the theory, but they also teach you tips & strategies that can bump you up from an 8 to 11.

 

If you're on the fence about taking Prep101, attend one of their info seminars. I attended and it really helped inform my decision.

 

Another key factor that helped me choose Prep101 is their fair price. They offer everything that their compeptitors do (books, practice materials, official computer-based mcats, solid instructors), but you can save like $400!

 

I'm a happy customer & have no regrets about taking their course.

[darknebula]

I am very glad that Prep101 generously helped us prepare for the WS this summer by starting a feedback thread. I am sure it proved a very valuable resource for students. The instructors are very knowledgeable and seem to have a strong grasp on the nuances of the MCAT. I am very thankful for the service! It was a great resource.

[andrewb_uvic]

Hi I'm Andrew Boyce,

 

This is my first post on PreMed 101, so hopefully this works!

 

 

I took the MCAT Prep course through Prep 101 taught by Matt Ward.

After completion, we were asked to provide some input on here regarding the course. I originally chose the course because I had heard great things about the Prep101 biology and math crash courses and it was the cheapest. I had also heard some negative things about the other MCAT prep courses offered in Victoria.

 

Anyways, I'll start off by saying that my initial diagnostic score was a 16M. I was extremely bummed to realize that my summer wasn't going to be a cakewalk. However, Matt, the Prep 101 curriculum, and a summer spent grinding through the ExamKrackers prep books led me to a 34Q!! (PS-11, VR-11, BS-12)

 

Our course ran from 6-8pm (or occasionally 9) 5 days a week. I really enjoyed the format of the lessons (1 hour of lecture on the day's topic, 30 min In-Class Test, 30 min review of the test material). Matt was always dedicated to spend the time to make sure that the class fully understood the material that was presented to us. Thus, when we were struggling with a concept, the class would carry on until we all were comfortable with the topic.

 

I really enjoyed the intimate class setting, as there were approximately 18 people in our class, and group discussion was encouraged. One thing I would have liked to happen more often through the course was for the class to engage in practice problems with the teacher's aid. However, Matt has let us know that he is planning on adding that to the curriculum for next year.

 

The ExamKrackers books were great; they let you know specifically the style of questions that would be on the MCAT and what topics were "must knows," "must be able to recognize," or background information. The VR and Biology problem books provided passage-based practice problems in order to mirror the actual MCAT material. The Physics, Chemistry, and Organic Chemistry books only provided discrete problems. I would have appreciated some passage based problems for these sections.

 

The best part of the whole course was the Weekly AAMC exams. Every weekend we were encouraged to write a practice AAMC MCAT. By the end of the course, I was completely comfortable sitting down to write a 5.5 hour exam. It also provided me with insight on the exact style of the MCAT exam questions. Matt marked our writing samples every week and provided feedback on how to raise our score.

 

In conclusion, I was blown away by the quality of the Prep101 MCAT course. It provided me with all the tools necessary to boost my score from a 16M to a 34Q in 3 months!

 

Thanks!

 

If you have any questions regarding my post feel free to email me. aboy@uvic.ca