Review of MCAT Books & Companies: Which one is right for you?

     The average MCAT course, during a period of 5-6 months, costs about $1500-$2000. If this price range is out of your budget, and you feel you have the discipline and study habits to study on your own, that might be the better choice. Kaplan, Princeton Review, and Examkrackers are the companies that offer the books you will need to do this; during my preparation for the MCAT, I used all three. I discovered that neither is outstandingly better or worse than the other, but the advantages they each offer depend more different ways that people learn. The review I provide below is based on my experience with each; none of the companies paid me to say anything in particular about them or the others.

KAPLAN MCAT Review Complete 5-Book Series--This package contains one book per general subject tested in the MCAT: Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Organic Chemistry, and Verbal Sciences. After each chapter it has 10-15 exercises on the material covered and it has three practice tests on the same subject at the end of the book.

-Advantages

• Material is presented thoroughly and in-depth.
• Has a more conceptual approach to teaching,
• Has an accurate representation of the types of problems that show up on the MCAT and how to solve them.
• Their teaching method contains many analogies and metaphors that help you understand scientific jargon in your own words.
• Their full-length practice tests are actually two hours longer than the real MCAT. This prepares your mind with endurance and focus for the when you take the real thing.

-Disadvantages

• Their layout is weak. The information is presented in long paragraphs that intimidate the reader at first glance.
• Hardly any graphs, tables, or pictures available, with the exception of the Biology book. If you are a visual learner this is not the package for you.
• The math you use in these books is more complicated than the math needed for the actual MCAT. The MCAT uses easy numbers because it tests your application of knowledge, not the math used to solve it.
• If you dominate all or certain part of the material already, you will find the metaphors they use comical and unhelpful. Sometimes they spend a page or two just telling a story related to the material they are about to teach in the following pages, instead of just teaching straight away. 
• Not enough practice problems per chapter. Practice is crucial!

Conclusion: Use Kaplan if you need to LEARN  the material again or for the first time. It is also helpful if you prefer the conceptual approach to understanding science. Don't use it if you just need to review basic concepts because their extensive paragraphs will waste your time.

EXAMKRACKERS Complete MCAT Study Package (5 Books)-- Again one book per general subject. Each chapter has sub-subjects and 8 practice problems per sub-subject inside the chapter itself. At the end of the book there is a 25 question test per chapter.

-Advantages

• Good for visual learners. Each chapter has a plethora of pictures, tables, and graphs. The important material is already highlighted for you and helpful side notes with tricks for solving problems are available.
• More practice problems per chapter.
• Each chapter test has a key that breaks down the problems in a way that you can understand where you went wrong.
• Their visual layout allows you to absorb more information per time. Information is presented in a straightforward and concise manner.
• Provides lots of tricks and short-cuts to solving specific problems. Points out how the wording in certain questions can help you get a question right.

-Disadvantages

• Their full-length tests evaluate you more on the precise information they teach rather than accurate AAMC material.
• Not conceptual enough if your understanding of any topic is weak.
• Their physics and chemistry is too concise. It is literally a review of information.
• I also used some of their 1001 Question series. These questions, like their full-length questions, test you in the material they specifically taught you. They are also easier than MCAT questions because they rely more on memorization than application.

Conclusion: Use this company if you just want to REVIEW material, not re-learn it. Avoid Examkrackers if you have a  weak grasp of chemistry or physics. You can use its visual aid as a course supplement.

PRINCETON REVIEW Cracking the MCAT 2010-2011 Edition-- One book that contains reviews of all five general subjects. Each chapter has a practice passage at the end. You also receive access to 4 full-length practice tests online.

-Advantages

• Straightforward and concise information.
• Excellent for refreshing basic concepts.
• Their practice tests are the most similar to the actual MCAT in reference to organization of questions, types of questions and timing.
• You can obtain optional feedback on the essays you write in the online tests.
• Their online tests gives you a report of the questions you got right and wrong. This is helpful to detect your weak areas.
• They also sell a review book per subject that contains more thorough information per subject.

-Disadvantages

• Review is not thorough; too summarized. It  is actually missing information in certain chapters.
• Not enough practice problems per chapter.
• Their full-length exams are MUCH harder than the MCAT. While this is good to help you learn it is unhelpful in regards to accurately tracking your progress, and it is also very frustrating to fail over and over. 
• In one of the practice tests I found material that I had not learn until I took Advanced Biochem. Enough said.
• Does not help you learn difficult concepts. Just review.

Conclusion: Use this book if you have to take the MCAT for a second time and the material from the first time is still fresh. Do not use it for actual learning or as a course supplement.

All of these books can be found in Amazon for a reasonable price.

Hope it helps!

The Waiting Game

    Once your secondaries are submitted, it's all out of your hands until you are called for an interview. It takes about a standard two to three weeks for them to review it, however, you will not hear from everyone right after they review you. The amount of time you will have to wait depends on when you submit your secondaries. Medical schools don't wait until everyone has submitted everything to then evaluate the applications. They start evaluating applications and having interviews as they come. They usually start interviewing in August through September and don't finish until March-April. While this is the general timeline some schools may finish interviews sooner than others, so it's important to submit everything early. A late secondary app submission is around November through December; the closer to the deadline of submission, the later it is.
     Submitting late has the small advantage that you will have to wait less than everyone else to hear the news (rejection or interview). But it has the large disadvantage of appearing like a redundant applicant to schools. If you are late, it means the admissions people have already viewed hundreds of other applicants. Unless you have an amazing application, it will be hard to stand out and still look refreshing when compared to all the previous candidates. You want all cards on your side for this.Schools will usually call if they want you, and email you if they don't, so now is the time to start taking calls on your phone from unknown numbers.
      The waiting game can be tough, especially when you submit early. You start hearing about peers who already have interviews; people keep asking you if you have heard from any schools all the time; then you receive your first rejection and that lowers your morale a little more. All the while there is nothing more you can do to increase your acceptance chances. During this period two key things will help: keeping busy and having a  plan B. Now that you are done working on the application process, you have free time! Use it to do anything that you may have put aside while applying. Hobbies, sports, people, anything. Go out, have fun, relax, put your mind in a different place to keep it from stressing out about the lack of news. It's easier to to do this when you have a plan B. With a career as competitive as medicine, the odds really come out to whoever is meant to be a doctor, will be a doctor. You have to be realistic about the competition and consider what would you do if you do not get in this year. Will you re-apply the next year? Take some time off to work, travel, do research, improve components in your application, apply to PA school? While everyone like to think they're amazing and they're hard work is bound to be noticed, there have been students with excellent numbers that have been rejected. Have a plan ready and don't lose hope. When you finally get that call, things will start looking up.

Filling And Organizing Your Secondaries!

    Once you submit the primary AAMC application,  it takes 6 weeks for it to get verified. Once get the green light, your secondaries will start coming in. You will receive an e-mail with instructions, a deadline and a link to the website where you will be filling everything out. Beware of secondaries arriving before your AAMC is verified. Often these require around $100 fee (or another large number) and a week later, they reject you. It's how they earn money. If you feel you are qualified for that particular school and you want to run the risk, it's on you. But if you feel your numbers are a a little off from the required ones at that school, wait until someone else applies first and hear their story. You don't want to throw money down the drain that you can use for another school.
    Secondary applications are a more personalized application for each school. Some schools send secondaries to all of their applicants, but some schools are more select. There is no way of telling which school is more selective or not other than by word of mouth, so fill out all the ones you receive just to be safe. Secondaries become difficult to manage because they tend to arrive at different dates and have different deadlines, they are located all in different websites (unlike the primary AAMC) and you can't do them all in one sitting. Some of them just require some basic information and a an essay answering a specific question. However, many of them ask several short-essay questions that are more personal and harder to answer, such as "Write a 800 word statement that tells us who you are", "What do you think makes a good leader?", "Tell us about an experience in which you had to deal with a negligent team member"; others require you to read specific ethical articles and respond to them.
     The questions they ask you should be thought of carefully and proofread a few times as if it was your personal statement all over again. Their admissions people selected those questions for a reason. For example, when they ask you what it means to be a good leader, there is no one correct answer they want. Studies have proven that when most people answer this question they look for characteristics that they already have that they think makes them a good leader. Rarely does someone answer this question objectively. So the admissions people evaluate how you look at yourself as well as your leadership qualities all in one question. The answer you give is not as important as what can be learned from you in it.
    If you are taking classes and applying at the same time it can become overwhelming to manage everything. The secondaries, however, should be prioritized at this point. The sooner they are submitted, the sooner you are considered for an interview and potentially given a call. Waiting is the worst part of the process, the less of it you have to do, the less stressed you will be.
Here are a few management tips that will make your life easier:

1) Create a file/section in your e-mail just for med school e-mails. This will make it easier for you to find information you receive instead of fishing for it in among all your other e-mails.

2) In your calendar and/or agenda write  out all the deadlines for the secondaries as you receive them. This way you know which ones you should fill out first and will give you an idea of how you can balance school with the applications.

3) Also make a list of the fees each one requires. Make sure you have the money to pay for all of them. Fees vary from $25 to $150 depending on the school. If you received the Financial Assistance waiver for AAMC primary, most schools will honor it and waive the secondary fee as well.

4) Copy-paste the questions into a word document and answer them in your own time. This way: you can still fill them out if your Internet connection is down or if it fails, you can send them to other people for proofreading, and you can make sure all the changes are saved as you write them. Some of the pages expire if "inactive" for a certain amount of time, so if you click submit or save after that time has passed, you will lose everything you wrote.

5) Having your secondary in a word document will make it easier for you to keep count of the number of words/characters you are writing. All of the questions have a limit, but most of them don't count the words as you write them. You will find yourself having to cut out sentences and phrases or having to add more to reach the requirement.

6) Some of the questions will overlap or require a similar answer. If the secondaries are saved in your computer you can easily copy-paste, and adjust the answer to save you time.

7) Research each school before filling out the respective secondary app. Most of them will ask you why you want to attend that particular school or what can you contribute to their growth. Answer this question for -each school as if they are all your top choice, to-die-for-dream-school. If the answer sounds generic they won't believe you. Plus they are more likely to interview someone that is thrilled about attending their school.

Hope it helps. Keep calm and start writing!

Getting Personal With Your MD Application

  In the 2011-2012 application year, about 44,000 people applied to medical school in the U.S . Each school receives about 3,000 to 5,000 applicant depending on the school's reputation and excellence. Each school enrolls a class of about 100 students. Not matter how many schools you apply to, those odds are slim. If you've done everything right, you should not let these numbers discourage you. But, how do you make sure you get picked out from a thousand others for an interview? Although GPA and MCAT scores are important, at this level they serve more as a cut off point. You passed the first test, but why would they pick you  between someone else with the same numbers? This is were your application comes in.

    Besides the transcripts, courses, scores, and basic biography, the application contains a section for extracurricular activities, and of course, the personal statement. These are your chances to point out what makes you different. You are not just a 3.6 GPA with a 28 MCAT. You are the president of the poetry club who has done lung cancer research for two years and works at a retail store to pay your expenses. The activity itself is not as important as the conclusions that can be drawn from it."President of the poetry club" means you have practiced leadership skills but also that you have dominance in the humanities as well as the sciences. Describing work experience tells schools that you have not been spoiled all your life and you know what it is to earn what you have and also that you managed good grades while working a certain amount of hours. When it comes to the application details such as these can be vital. 

      The AAMC application contains 15 slots for extracurricular activities. If you have less, search among your high school extracurricular. If you have more, try to compress them by category. For example, "physician shadowing" can be one category, "pre-med club" can be another if you participated in one, and so on.  The important thing is to make it as unique as possible. Show that you are a well-rounded human being, that your life has not revolved around studying for four years. There are three slots of these fifteen that can be marked as significant to your desire to become a physician. Although you have a limited amount of words, personal stories and experiences can and should be included in this area. Anything that couldn't fit into your personal statement can be re-located here. 

      Don't be shy, especially with the personal statement. Don't enumerate in length all of your activities in it. Talk about choices, difficulties you have faced in your life, your family, their history and anything that has shaped you into what you are. Think about it like a visit to the therapist. But instead of seeking for help, write about what you have done to overcome those difficulties and what you learned from those experiences. Life experience may not be an official requirement for medical schools, but it is one that makes you stand out. There may be experiences that are too personal, that you won't mention to just anybody. But they make you real to the admissions' people, so they must know.

       What makes you  unique, whether it's you hobbies, sports, music, or your family paints a picture to medical schools about the kind of doctor that you will be. This picture is what will get you interviews.

The Smart Way to Pick Which Med Schools to Apply

           By the time you have to apply to medical school, you may have heard which are the best schools just by reputation. However, if your MCAT score, GPA, and activities don't match up to their requirements, they may not be the best choice for you.

            In theory we all want to think that all of your hard work in the four years of college has put you above everyone else. This work will be seen by the most prestigious of schools and they may ignore a lower-than -expected-score for you. But the the truth is there are thousands of others working just as hard or harder than you. Ivy League schools recycle students among themselves. To break into their elite circle the student has to stand out in ALL areas of their application; something easier said than done. If you really want to be a doctor, the school you attend should not matter as much as the career. However, you still should not apply to a school you don't want to attend. Here are some tips to pick wisely:

1.  Research the acceptance score ranges of the schools you are interested in. If your MCAT is a 26 with a 3.5 GPA, but the average MCAT of the school is a 35 with a 3.8 GPA, then you would be wasting your money by applying. If your scores are too far off a school you want to go to, as much as it breaks your heart, cross it off. Applications are expensive and you should invest your money wisely.

2. Have two groups of schools to apply to: dream schools and realist schools. The realist schools are the ones that accept students with scores within you range. Don't let your ego get the best of you--if you have to apply to a Caribbean school, do it. The dream schools are a little out of your range, but not by much. Maybe your GPA falls within range, but your MCAT is off by a few points or vice verse. You should still look like a competitive candidate to them. If you are part of a minority group, your chances in getting an interview at a dream school increases.

3. Pick at LEAST two schools in your state of residency. They are required to accept a percentage of student of the same state. At the same time, you should apply to at least two out-of-state schools, even if you don't want to leave. Play all the cards. If out of state schools are more likely to accept you, then apply to more of them, and vice verse.

4. Of course you should consider factors such as weather, location, expenses, family and relationships when picking schools. You don't want to be stuck for four years in a place where you'll be miserable. Don't apply to a school you don't want to go. 

5. Research the curriculum focus of the schools as well. If it is a research oriented school, or an osteopathic school, educate yourself on it. They will want to see what they are looking for reflected in your application. If you have not done research, don't apply to a research-based school. At the same time, if you have lots of it, apply to more research oriented schools.

  There are resources out there that will help you measure your compatibility with schools. In the following link you can calculate this from your MCAT  scores and GPA http://www.studentdoc.com/medfind.html.

Also, in the AAMC page provided below, you can see the acceptance rates depending on ethnicity, GPA and MCAT.
https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/157998/mcat-gpa-grid-by-selected-race-ethnicity.html

Choose wisely and you will see results! :)

MCAT Strategies by Section

While you may think that knowing all your pre-req science courses back and forth should be enough to give you a good MCAT score, this alone is not enough. Other variables factor into your score, either to lower or to raise it. The MCAT does not just test you in your knowledge and its application; it tests you in your test-taking ability, how you can outsmart the test. Here are some of the strategies that helped me raise my score in each section.

A. Physical Sciences: Chemistry+ Physics

1) Since no calculator is allowed learning tricks to do quick math will help a LOT. The test won't have complicated numbers but it will have very big or small numbers. Converting those numbers to their scientific notation equivalents will make things faster.

2) Don't just memorize the equations, learn the relationships between variables. If you double the volume, what happens to the pressure? Many students read the questions searching for an equation to use, but if you know the variable relationships, you won't even need to use the formula. If you get stuck, try to think about what is going on in the problem conceptually. For example: if you double the volume that means the molecules will be less compressed and have more space to move around, hence the volume should decrease by the same factor.

3) Another variable relationship trick: If in the equation the variables are multiplied, they are inversely proportional. If they are divided (or you can rearrange the equation to make it so), then they are directly proportional. For example: PV=nRT. P and V are inverse to each other, but they are both directly proportional to T.

4) DON'T skip passages and do the easy ones first. Do the passages in order. This way you have a better idea of how much you have left in relation to the time left. Skipping sections gives you a false sense of confidence because you feel you have plenty of time. Then when you get stuck in the harder passages you will spend more time in them thinking you can afford it and time will slip. When this happens you will rush the remaining passages and get a higher percentage of the questions wrong. Spending and equal amount of time in each passage and then going back to double check the harder ones will work in your favor.

5) If the answer seems to easy, it's probably wrong. Amateurs fall for this one, you must eliminate it at once.

6) Educated guessing!!! Especially in harder questions when you are pressed for time. You are graded in the amount of questions you get right, but you are not penalized for the wrong ones. So never leave a question blank!

B. Verbal Section


1) Find what works for YOU. Many test prep companies offer recycled advise from the SAT verbal. However, the MCAT is made foolproof against those strategies. The whole summarizing each paragraph?  Time wasted. Identifying the type of subject (i.e. philosophy, art, religion) in the passage? Time wasted. Looking for the main idea? Time wasted. The test will rarely ask you that directly because it's what everyone expects. Experiment with different tips and use the ones that benefit you the most.

2) Paraphrase the questions AND the answers.

3) With the allotted time for the section, training yourself to do each passage in about 7-8 minutes should give you enough time to finish and go back to double check answers. So memorize the time intervals for each passage, for example, by 52 minutes left you should be in the second passage already and so on. This one helped me a lot.

4) Pretend everything you are reading in the most interesting thing in the world!!!! Allowing yourself to start thinking it's boring will let your focus slip, make you lose information and re-read. Actual interest in the subject makes you capture more information without re-reading.

5) Read the first half of the passage first. Then read the questions and answer the ones pertaining to that half. The read the second half and answer the remaining questions. Sometimes you don't even have to read the whole passage to answer all the questions.

6) Reading the questions first might make you focus on searching for the answers to them. But some of them are application, so you need to get the basic theme of the passage to answer them. I advise against reading the questions first.

7) Practice taking the verbal section right after you have taken a practice physical section. This is the order in which the sections appear in the MCAT. You may do great taking a verbal practice by itself. But when you take it after the Physical your score may lower because of the weariness of your mind from the previous section. This will give you a more accurate idea of what your score will be.

C. Biological Sciences: Bios+ Orgos

1) Index cards are your friends! Write it all out and test yourself over and over. Bio is mainly memorization.

2) Watch Youtube videos on the bodily systems. It helps you learn and visualize better. If your native language is not English, then watch them in your native language; it helps you remember the system better.

3) Orgo questions are very basic. Memorizing every single reaction there is will be pointless. Learn to recognize possible products from reactions.

4)Hormones: They're all about cause and effect. Learn not just what they do but what would happen to the rest of the body if they are in overdose, mutated, or deficient. Also recognize which symptoms would be caused by which hormones. There's an insane amount of questions on hormones, so learn to love them.

5)Genetics: know how to predict probabilities of genes occurring in different scenarios. Know how to read a  pedigree chart and trace back from offspring to grandparent the genotypes and phenotypes.

IN GENERAL


1) The more time you practice taking the test, the more comfortable you will feel for it. Practicing taking longer versions of the test will also help a lot.

2) Princeton Review's tests are known to be much harder than many of the other prep companies AND the actual MCAT itself. Their score is not accurate, so don't lose your cool if you keep scoring low in these.

3) When you practice, make the environment as similar to the test as possible. Shut off your phone, browsers, go to a quiet place where you can't be bothered and don't cheat in taking longer breaks than you should.

4) Study all sections equally. If you focus more time on a section you think is your weakest, the rest of them WILL fall a few points. Don't get cocky with your expertise in certain subjects.

5) Aim high. Hardly anyone actually gets the score they want, so the higher you aim, the higher your actual score will be.

Hope it helps! Good luck!

Memoirs of an MCAT Mental Breakdown

    Oh, the MCAT,  nightmare of every pre-med student. Whether you're studying on your own or taking a course, it's hard. Four hours of unrelenting focus and top speed intelligence power testing you in four years worth of material and more. Its score will define which Medical Schools you will be able to get into or at least apply. For all those of you going through this process right now, let me share my story with you.
    In the Summer between my Junior and Senior year of college, I scheduled to take my MCAT. I studied on my own using books from different companies. I tested which ones worked the best for me, the made an eight week study plan to prepare for it. In the first five weeks, I would be reviewing all the material covered, and in the last three weeks I would practice practice practice. I was not taking classes, working or anything else at the time. All my time was for the MCAT. The plan seemed brilliant at first but I oversaw one minor detail...
    For those first five weeks, all I did was study. Literally. Weekends, days, nights. I predicted a "directly proportional relationship" between the time I studied and the improvement in my practice test scores. Close to the end of the five weeks hit a rut, stuck in a score of 23 ( I was aiming for a 30). Eight hours of studying a day and I couldn't get past the 23. Slowly the frustration and stress crept in my brain. I started losing sleep. I slept uneasily thinking about test questions, formulas, or I would stay awake thinking of what would I do if I never got into medical school. Would I take a year off and re-apply? What would I do in that time? Should I apply to Caribbean schools as well? The more I thought about it the more stressed I became. The day after a sleepless night,  I would be tired but I would forced myself to study anyway--not an effective strategy. Studying while tired only made my frustration ad stress grow as missed questions from material I knew. I began to take sleeping pills to aid my rest.
  Two and a half weeks before the test I was still stuck in a 23, and I was considering cancelling the exam, when my dad called. He asked me how was I feeling for the test. Before I could manage a "fine" I broke down crying. And when I say crying I mean BAWLING my eyes out, sobbing-can't-breathe-I'm-a-fourth-year-old-little-girl crying. After he calmed me down, I told him all I was doing to prepare for the test. He analyzed my plan, then said, " I see.Maybe you should try studying less?" I went ballistic. LESS? Study less? Two  and a half weeks before and I should study less. He explained there was so much information that a brain could take in a day and it needed time to process it all. Tiring it day upon day would not yield results. Finding the prefect balance between relaxing and studying  in optimal conditions would be the best thing to do. Even if it did involve studying less.
  While I did follow that advice, it came in too late. Had I done that from the beginning, I might have had higher than a 24. Nevertheless, I took the test again the following January and with the advice and five weeks of studying, instead of 8, I scored two points higher.
    So when you're studying, PLEASE, remember to relax. Take a day off in the week. Go out with your friends. Its ok to have fun. Be confident in yourself and don't let it get to you. Keep in mind that the MCAT is not taking you, YOU are taking it. Good luck :)