Which company?

[cookiemonster99]

I've been hearing a lot of about each companies and their strength and weakness regarding preparing schools for the MCAT

I'm thinking about doing it this coming up summer(2012 summer)

I guess my weakest points would probably be writing and verbal

is there a company that does a good job of preparing students for those parts?

 

Also i'm a science student. So, bio and chem is not a BIG deal mostly review.

 

Any advice?

[Dr24]

I used examkrackers for everything this past summer and was really happy with the material. I tried princeton review in the beginning but it was needlessly detailed. I ended up with a 32S. If nothing else definitely practice the VR from EK. For the writing i barely practiced but did read this guide;

 

http://www.medhopeful.com/archive/how-i-got-a-t-on-the-mcat-writing-sample/

 

Good luck!

[bilirubin3]

I took a Princeton Review class and ended up with a 39(15PS/12VR/12BS)S. Princeton Review is pretty rigorous, but personally I found that to be beneficial, as to do really well you need to know the details as well, not just have a general understanding. The writing sample practice helped a lot, on my first diagnostic I got an M as I hadn't done any real writing since high school, but TPR gives you a nice structure you can use and it become extremely easy to do WS once you get good at it. The science prep was pretty good as well (Though I don't know about physics, since I am a physics minor and I didn't study at all for the physics part except for a bit of optics review haha). However, TPRs verbal was really bad (They recommend skipping an entire passage, which makes it impossible to score above 11), their practice material was not representative, and they had a History PhD student teaching it who never even took the MCAT. So for verbal practice I used EK101 and made sure I did all the practice AAMC tests (Which are supplied if you sign up for a TPR course), since they represent what the real verbal section was like perfectly.

[repede]

^ Holy moly, that's an amazing score. Congratulations.

 

I heard Princeton is VERY thorough in their science sections, which is good for some people, bad for others. I found their writing section helpful - the first time I wrote I did no practice and got M. The second time I skimmed a Princeton book at the bookstore and went up to Q. But yeah, their Verbal section prep is total BS.

 

EK is good for narrowing down for you exactly what you should know, and what is not very likely to show up. However, it does not have Writing prep, since it's geared towards American audiences and American schools don't care about Writing section.

[medaholic]

i think a better question is, do you need to go to a company to help prepare you for the mcat

 

there are tons of people who do quite well and might not need to pay the big bucks for test prep.

 

i would recommend taking one of those free diagnostic tests to see where you're at, and evaluate how comfortable you are with the different subjects.

 

i would say you can't really go wrong with kaplan or tpr. supplemental books for the writing section are always out there if you need.