"The guy smokes!" I thought to myself as I watched my physical sciences section teacher sitting in his car, puffing away during a break. I would not have been surprised if the guy had been blowing trees; he was a sharp fellow, well-versed in his subjects, a (presumably successful) biochemistry major at a prestigious private school, and had done well enough on the MCAT to teach at this center.
Yet,
he was a total bad-ass. The guy taught us with a confident yet smug attitude, but he laid it down thick and heavy. The first time I saw him he was in a dingy white T-shirt, baseball cap covering his eyes and a goatee on his chin as he raised his muscular arm to the board to write out physics equations. But I respect him; an educated individual with a diverse lifestyle (though I certainly disapprove of smoking) is something I have not had enough of in the Mennonite culture I was brought up in.
That's great, but should I take courses or not?
You're (most likely) 19-21 years old and medicine is where it is at for you. You rocked grades at your undergraduate institution, volunteered, worked at your Aunt's clinic, and became president of the student body. Super. Excellent. Great! But medical school admissions needs to have a standardized measuring stick for you as well - one that is constant across the nation! You face the hurdle in its most ugly form: the MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test). The format has been changed from pencil-and-paper to electronic-only for 2007, but the core remains the same: Biological and Physical Sciences, General and Organic Chemistry, Verbal Reasoning, and a Writing Sample.
Run out to the nearest bookstore and get an MCAT guide if you want the scoop. I'm going to tell you what did and did not work for me.
Thinking...
My forehead hit the table and my head jerked up. Another Saturday afternoon wasted in the test center, taking (full-length, 5.5 hours + breaks mind you) practice test #4 out of 5. How far would you go to get the high-score? I admit; I am not Mr. Standardized test. Anyone can take basic science courses and spit concepts and facts back at their professor, but this thing makes your gears turn.
I took my first MCAT in April of 2006 and got a decent but not stellar score. I decided to take a prep-course over the summer to see if I could smash the test that August. That August was also the very last administration of paper-and-pencil MCAT, so I figured I'd be a part of history. Cute. Not.
You never know until you try, and things are always different in retrospect. I have no regrets about taking the course, but in the end it made no appreciable difference in my overall application process. In short, a waste of $1,000, lots of gas (45-minute commute each way), lots of evenings, and lots of Saturdays I could have spent playing video games and hanging out with friends.
Again, I could not have possibly known during the course that my performance after all that work would not jump into the realm of super pre-med. My personal experience may be discouraging to one considering prep-courses, but take it with a grain of salt, please!
Course Anatomy
The course was simple. You get a pile of books to compliment lectures (twice a week, 3 hours each). The lectures went on (6 hours a week) for about 10 weeks (most of the summer). In the second-half of the summer, you had to come in every Saturday to take full-length practice exams (this gets you in the mode for the real thing, apparently). You have extensive homework assignments and practice test booklets to work on, plus a huge "question-bank". All in all, you could easily spend 8 hours a day all summer with the material they gave you.
The best course, the perfect tutor, the most expensive study aids: they are all useless unless you yourself put your head to it.
If I can take away anything from this whole charade, it is that studying for tests like this comes from within, not from the outside. I made progress when I worked through my own books and did my own practice. By getting caught up in the rigors of the classroom setting, I found myself sliding into a false sense of security that I think a lot of kids in there got:
"I'm going to classes, so I must be improving my mad skills!"
Verdict...
Taking these multiple-choice, standardized tests is an art and a science. Anyone can bust their butt preparing for them (MCAT, USMLE, etc). For me, the trick is knowing the core material cold, then doing practice questions like there's no tomorrow. Time put in correlates positively with performance (up to a reasonable point). Put in a lot of time and still did not do well? Most likely, "a lot of time" wasn't really a lot of time. For MCAT? Some people are inherently better than others at test-taking - welcome to life.
Ultimately, the MCAT is a surmountable hurdle for anyone serious enough about medicine to pursue it. As for prep-courses, they're potentially useful, but it greatly depends on your style of learning. Prep-courses could also feed your ego if you want to be surrounded by pre-med gunners and bigots. I would recommend saving the money and spending perhaps a fifth of it to get some good study materials. You'll likely spend your time more efficiently, get more bang for your buck, and not have to deal with other stinky pre-meds.
I salute you who have yet to jump over the MCAT. Good luck and see you on the other side!
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