The MCAT

The all important MCAT. I will be honest, I was a crazy wife while D was prepping for this bad boy. If I was in the kitchen and I heard the TV flip on I was there in two seconds to hand him his prep book.

There are a lot of options when it comes to preparing for the MCAT. For us it came down to four main options:

1. Individual study plan
2. BYU
3. Kaplan
4. Altius

The Individual Plan: studying on your own, using a store bought prep book, maybe a friends old stuff and making your own schedule. On the plus side this plan is flexible and freeeee! It is a great plan if you are disciplined and can make yourself/husband study productively for 30 hours a week for six months. This was not the plan for us.

BYU/college supported prep: these are generally taught by a handful of professors each is there respective subjects. For BYU, the course is only about $600-700 which is nice. However, (according to the friends we had that went this route) it wasn't entirely effective because the professors pull notes and slides from their courses rather than having material designed for the MCAT. It's good in that it gives you structure and forces you to study and stay on top of it, but it is somewhat limited in real help on areas of the test you might struggle with.

Kaplan: maybe the most popular test prep program nation wide. Kaplan costs around $1600-1800 (after the discounts that are always ending...but never actually end). Kaplan is a good program. They have been doing it for a long time so they have worked out the kinks, thus they know what works and what doesn't. They know the test well so not only do they prep you in the test areas but on how the questions will be asked in that specific area. That being said, there are a lot of mixed reviews. A friend of ours did Kaplan one year and didn't do well and the did Altius the next year and saw significant improvement. Obviously, other factors are involved but he loved Altius and their program in comparison with Kaplan. And it's not uncommon to hear those kind of reviews.

Altius: maybe we are bias, but this is our favorite program. It costs between $1700-1800. Again this program focuses on not only subject review but on how you will be tested in those subjects specifically for the MCAT. They cover all necessary material but also do a good job simplifying it so you don't waste time in areas you don't need to. One thing that drew us to Altius is the small group sessions and one on one time with the same tutor the entire process. They were flexible to work with but firm enough to keep D on track. They had a lot of helpful study methods that helped D to stay encouraged and improving.

There are a lot of plans out there! It definitely depends on the person, so explore all your options and be honest about how much structure you do or don't need. For us, Altius was the best options. D had a really positive experience with them and it helped him do really well on the test. It is an expensive investment but one we still feel like was absolutely worth it!



Anyone else have a good experience with Altius or another program? What worked best for you?