When making a decision on how to study for the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), it is important that students realistically evaluate their specific circumstances. Every student will have different needs and should identify which modalities work best for them. Our suggestion is for students to consider the following four major facets when making their decision:
- Take an AAMC practice test and identify your strengths and weaknesses. If you are scoring a 30/+ then consider just doing practice problems until your test date. The further you are from this score, the more time you need to spend on establishing a strong foundation of the general concepts.
- Once you have an idea of where you stand, evaluate how much time you can dedicate to studying and how your studying will fit into your daily schedule. The further you are from your target score, the more time you will need to invest. Keep in mind that while the average student takes 2-3 months and about 300 hours to prepare for the MCAT, many still feel under-prepared prior to taking their exam.
- Choosing the right materials is crucial to your success. The key to effective studying is in the QUALITY of the materials and not quantity. Do not overwhelm yourself with dozens of review materials; choose only review materials that are up-to-date and complete. The last thing you want is to take the exam and see a passage concerning a topic you never studied.
- For most students, cost is an inevitable factor when considering what study rout to choose. Search for cost effective solutions that fit your budget. No matter which rout you feel is best for you, do not make the mistake of sacrificing quality. Being truly prepared for the MCAT will save you more money in the long run.
Home review is not for everyone, but we have dedicated years into getting it right. We are upfront in stating that the biggest disadvantage of a home review is not having the live interaction; eliminating the ability to ask questions. To solve this issue, experts at The Scholar Review has carefully designed each lecture and incorporated the most commonly asked questions as well as strategies to the most common traps used by the test makers. Our goal with this complete in-home MCAT review is to help guide you into knowing how to approach each question making you fully prepared come test day. The Scholar Review covers only the information you need to know, but has more lecture hours than you would receive in classroom prep courses. This is because The Scholar Review is thorough in covering all the “need to know” material extensively.
Aside from the quality and the content, cost is another attribute that makes The Scholar Review such a viable option. Health Care for Tomorrow Inc is an advocate of education and believes that every student should have the opportunity of reaching their dream. MCAT prep courses are astronomically expensive and not every student can afford to enroll in one. In addition, students often find classroom quality to be variable and unpredictable, attributes directly dependent on the instructors teaching ability. Don’t be lured in by the fact that the instructor scored a 41S, the most important question is: can they teach YOU to get a competitive score! Make sure you are not equating cost to quality. Just because a course is the most expensive, does not make it the best.
We’ve seen Other Home Review Videos. How is The Scholar Review Different?
The vision of Health Care for Tomorrow’s CEO was to create a home MCAT course that would bring the classroom to the pre-med, offering convenience and quality content at a reduce cost. A few other companies have attempted to produce MCAT videos in the past, but all have fallen short for two main reasons. The first is due to the quality of the content. Specifically, the lectures are too basic and do not cover the level of information tested by the MCAT. It is true that the general concepts for the most part remain the same, but the way in which they are tested do not. The MCAT expects you to extract simple concepts from a complex setting; it does not test the simple concepts directly. You are less likely to be tested on the structure of a neuron and more likely to find a passage where a neuron acts as a capacitor and expects you to identify the flow of current as voltage gated Sodium channels are open. Needless to say, these simple lectures do little to prepare the student for the actual intensity of the new MCAT.
The second reason companies have fallen short is because of the quality of the videos themselves. Having a cheap camcorder rest on a tripod while someone reads their notebook is not a quality course. There is nothing engaging about watching someone reading a notebook. Some websites have gone as far a piecing various videos off of You Tube to make a course. When your future career in on the line by what you score on the MCAT, it does not make sense to take these shortcuts.
The Scholar Review has dedicated its MCAT course to a standard of quality. After 4,000 pre-production hours, 100 production and 150 post-production hours, a quality product was created. What is more important is that the content for The Scholar Review is updated every year to assure you are getting the best and most up-to-date review for the MCAT available. The Scholar Review not only teaches you all of content that the AAMC publishes to be on the exam, it also teaches you test taking strategies and what common traps to avoid.
