MCAT Preparation

[Guest nancy]

How much time does the average student put into preparing for the MCAT? (ie. how many months before the MCAT, and how many hours a week etc.)

[Guest Ian Wong]

There was an internet survey done a few years back, and the results were posted at this URL:

 

www.premedical.com/results1.htm

 

Unfortunately, that link seems to be dead at the moment, but there it mentioned that the average student spends 3 months studying. I personally think that's on the long end of the spectrum, but it really depends on your previous background. For example, someone who has just finished second year of a science undergrad program, and has just taken Physics, Inorganic Chem, Organic Chem, Biology, and perhaps some Biochem is going to have a much easier time preparing than someone who has been out of undergrad for a few years.

 

Speaking as a science student who wrote the MCAT after second year (basically, what I think is the ideal scenario to write it), I don't recall spending much more than a month studying for the exam, in the midst of working a couple different summer jobs (so I wasn't studying more than a couple hours a day for most of it), and I did ok at the end of it all.

 

Ian

UBC, Med 3