How Much Preparation

[Guest J]

For people who have taken the MCAT already and done well, how much time did you spend preparing? I took all the courses that would help on the MCAT (other than biochemistry), and am also starting my Princeton Review course this weekend. I've done pretty well at verbal practice passages that I have tried, but heard the real MCAT is MUCH harder. I've been studying about 15-20 hours a week for the past 4 weeks, and plan to continue that (not including the time in the MCAT class, etc.) until the end of July.... then I'll do more intensive studying in August once my summer job is done with. Should that be OK?

 

Thanks for any suggestions.

[Guest YongQ]

Are you coming out of 2nd year? If you are then ~20hrs/week should be quite enough, and you should be confident about orgo. The summer I took it (August 2000) I was taking 4 summer courses and so couldn't study more than 3 hours/day until August 10th, then I put in about 10 hours/day from August 10-18, and had the test on 19th. I suggest that if you're scoring 13-15 on any one section, don't spend more than 5 hours a week studying for that (I had that status for the BS, PS, and WS), so my time was spent mostly practising the AAMC verbals. I ended up with a pretty good score (>30, S), which was what I expected. But everybody's different I suppose. Remember, after you've went through all the notes and study aids, it's quality and not quantity of studying that counts.

[Guest J]

Yes, I just finished 2nd year. Reviewing orgo, g-chem, and physics were no problem. Bio has a fair amount of stuff I still need to remember, but hopefully it's not too bad. I guess I'll get a better idea of where I stand at this point when I do the first diagnostic this weekend.

 

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Guest Mark]

Hi there. I was just wondering if you could provide a little input to my situation. I've been out of school for a little while now (about 2 years) and it's been forever since I studied orgo and biology. I was thinking of writing the test in August, but I don't really think I could pull off my bvest scores since I have to relearn most of the material. I was thinking that I would be better off waiting until next April while doing my review throughout the year. By then I will have been able to get comfortable with all the necessary material and also hammer through plenty of practice exams. What do you think?

[Guest Ian Wong]

The MCAT is something you ideally only want to write once. Writing an MCAT again, even if you obtain a higher mark, is still unlikely to be as beneficial as if you obtained that high mark on your first attempt.

 

If you've been out of school, and a lot of the material isn't too fresh in your head, then it might not be a bad idea to study and relearn throughout the year, while trying to pick up some research experience/publications, in addition to doing some volunteering in order to obtain strong reference letters.

 

However, if the rest of your application is already very strong, (ie. high undergrad GPA, previous research and volunteer exp, plus some other unique stuff such as travelling or international work) and you want to apply to medical school immediately, then writing the August MCAT might be a viable option. If not, I think it might be best to delay writing it until the next year, giving you a chance to work, and hopefully make a dent in some previous university debt, while building up the other areas of your eventual med school application.

 

Ian

UBC, Med 3