Rule #1: Don’t underestimate the MCAT!
This is the most common problem I see with students trying to decide on a test date.
Think of it this way…the MCAT is much like a cumulative final for all of undergrad science (with a tough verbal section added in).
If you struggled in your science classes...
If you crammed the night before every test and forgot everything a week later...
If you can’t tell a prion from a carboxylic acid…then it is wholly unrealistic to expect yourself to relearn it all in a month.
Please don’t put yourself in that position! The MCAT is stressful enough without constantly feeling like you’re taking too long to learn each concept.
Some students require 6 months or more, and some only require a month. I personally took 6 months to prepare for my exam because I could only commit 10 hours per week. For the average student receiving tutoring, I usually recommend 4 months of prep if they can spend about 20 hours per week studying.
The length of time you’ll need depends on your answer to two questions. “Where am I starting?” and, “how much time do I have available for studying?”
Where am I starting?
Self-honesty is key here. Lying or deceiving yourself about how much you know isn’t impressing anyone, and sooner or later, this test will show you the reality.
One option for figuring out where you stand is briefly looking through a set of review books. Open up to a random page and ask yourself how you would feel about being tested on that information. Repeat this until you’ve looked at a few pages within each major topic area (Gen Chem, Orgo, Biology, etc.)
Do these concepts seem mostly familiar, but just a bit rusty? Then maybe a month of intensive practice will work for you.
Does it feel like you’re reading a different language? Then perhaps 6 months is a more realistic option.
A better tool for answering this question is a diagnostic exam. This is usually a shortened practice exam that provides a baseline score. As you are working the problems, assess where you stand on content knowledge. Don’t worry about timing or passage strategy at this point.
How well do you remember the terminology? How do you do when a question is simply asking you to recall or apply a basic concept?
Pre-Med Panic Disclaimer: Try not to take your diagnostic score too seriously. Even if you are 20+ points from your goal score, this first baseline doesn’t tell us anything except how much work we will have to put in. On my first practice exam, I scored about 20 points below my eventual score on test day and I certainly thought about giving up right there. After licking my wounds, I realized my score was really just an indication of how much I needed to review.
So where can you find a diagnostic exam? It’s not really that important which company you use because we are just looking for a general idea. I personally recommend Next Step’s Diagnostic (now Blueprint MCAT) to my students because it is free and also sets you up with access to their free practice test (which I always have my students take). Here’s a link to that:
So how did it go?
Do you feel like you knew most of the basic concepts but had some trouble with the test format? Did you score within 5 points of your goal score? Then maybe a shorter timeline will work for you.
Did you feel completely lost, get most of the basic concept questions wrong and score 10+ points under your goal? Then perhaps it would be best to start from the fundamentals, and plan on a 4 to 6-month prep timeline (depending your answer to the next question).
How much time do I have available for MCAT prep?
Now that you have an idea of where you’re starting, it's time for a little calculation. Take your baseline score from your diagnostic and subtract that from your goal score. (If you don’t have one check out my post on “How to set a goal MCAT score”) Then multiply that by 40.
(Goal Score – Baseline Score) x 40 hours / point = Total # of studying hours
This is roughly the number of hours you will need to spend studying. 40 hours per point increase. This is not an exact science. Some students require less per point, some students require more. Regardless write down this number...we’ll use it later.
Next, think about your non-MCAT obligations over the next 6 months. Do you have a light semester ahead? Does your job have a bunch of stressful deadlines coming up? Are you the President of 5 extracurricular clubs? Consider your average week and all of the responsibilities and activities you’ll have to manage. Consider your busiest week and how often that will come up. For help visualizing, use this tool to plan out an average week:
How much room is there in your schedule for MCAT study? You want to try to set aside 2-hour blocks so that you can get into the right mindset. Be as realistic as possible, otherwise, you are going to have to readjust later on. And remember you do have to sleep…
Have a number of hours? Ok, now remember that number we wrote down earlier? Take the total number of studying hours and divide it by the number of studying hours you can commit per week. Then divide that number by 4.
Total # of Studying Hours / # of Study Hours per Week = # of Weeks # of Weeks / 4 = # of Months of MCAT Prep
This is roughly the number of months you’ll need to reach your goal score.
That’s too long…
“Woah dude, I do not have 8 months to prepare for this exam.”
Totally, I get it.
But remember what we discussed earlier…that the MCAT is a “cumulative final for all of undergrad science?” Well…that is no small feat to overcome.
The reality is, if you are scoring 15+ points below your goal, you don’t currently have the content mastery required to reach it. That mastery takes time to build, just like it did during your semester long courses.
I always try to remind my students that the material on the MCAT is the minimum expected knowledge for day one of Medical School. Even if you do take 8 months to prepare, it is not time wasted. It is an opportunity to make sure that you walk into your first Med School class feeling like you belong there.
But okay 8 months is definitely a long time. So how can we shorten that?
One option is to find more time to study.
For those in school: are there any extracurricular activities that you can do without for a semester? Could you lessen your duties and responsibilities in that club? Could you put off a tough class until a later semester?
If there is anything that is non-essential, make the tough choice and take a break from it.
Now this doesn’t mean cut out all social activity, all exercise or time to rest. Those are essential for your mental and physical health, which you’ll need at full strength for this test.
For those working full-time: consider discussing options with your employer. Perhaps you could work occasionial half days, or potentially take one day off per week to study.
I know this can be a difficult request, but many employers are surprisingly supportive of anything career growth related. If this is difficult financially, reach out to relatives or family friends that might be willing to partially sponsor you while you study. Again, you may find them surprisingly supportive of you taking on a challenge like this.
Another option that can drastically cut the time is to enlist the help of an experienced tutor.
A tutor can expose blind spots in your strategy, study habits or learning style. They can diagnose foundational issues early on, and tell you which material to focus on and which to ignore. They can make an efficient study plan for you that gets right to the heart of your specific areas that need improvement. A tutor can help you avoid any number of common roadblocks that often slow students down.
With the experience of over 400 students, I’ve learned a lot about which strategies and study plans are useful and which create unnecessary time-sucks. For most of my students, working together to create, maintain, and troubleshoot an effective and efficient plan, we can typically lower that “hours per point increase” down to about 30 hours per point or less.
Click here to learn more about receiving MCAT tutoring with me. The first session is totally free. No commitments are required to receive my initial diagnosis and advice.
After considering these options, recalculate your total number of studying hours, number of studying hours per week and finally the number of months of prep. I hope that feels more manageable now.
So now that you know where you’re starting, how much time you have available and roughly how much time it will take to achieve your goal, we can begin to make a plan and set our eyes on a specific test date.
Check out my post on the "Before You Pick an MCAT Test Day, Consider These 3 Things First!"
Congratulations for having a realistic timeline and giving yourself the time to actually complete it!
And don’t forget Rule #1! ;)
How did your numbers come out? Where are you starting? How much time will you be studying per week? Let me know in the comments below. And as always, feel free to ask any questions at all.
Paul
Summit the Score
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