Question 12: Do you have any advice on taking the MCAT or studying for it?

Absolutely. The MCAT is a wonderful exam. No, I haven't gone crazy and I haven't been overdosing on caffeine (today at least). It really is, because its ultimately fair. Think about med school applications without the MCAT. I guarantee that anyone not in a top private school would be ultimately excluded. It would just be assumed that the guy with a 3.4 at a top school was smarter than the 3.9 at a public school, because the top school guy had the standardized test scores to get in there! It would make admissions so much more subjective than it is now, because there would be no firm reference on the level of academic ability of the applicants. The MCAT is not necessarily an IQ test, except for perhaps the Verbal reasoning, because it requires a certain level of outside knowledge. Regardless, your score tells much about the combination of your work ethic and natural reasoning abilities. We are not the same people we were in high school. Maybe the public school guy, like me, decided to go for fit or finances instead of prestige when he chose his school. Maybe he or she was an underachiever in high school. Maybe the private school girl was a top notch student in high school, but lost her drive or chose activities over grades. The MCAT puts everyone on an equal playing level. The material covered is not super advanced really, so where you learned it isn't going to affect you (Seriously, does anyone think that a brilliant Nobel prize winning Chemist knows more about the concepts of a general chemistry class? That knowledge is so basic that anyone with a PhD has plenty of knowledge. That professors realm of knowledge is so far above that of a general chem or organic chem class, that they probably have to review the material just as much as anyone, nor does their knowledge make it any easier to teach that class (in fact, perhaps it is harder because of that knowledge). Ultimately, your teacher's skill at teaching is what determines that, not their innovativeness in the field). The MCAT is a unbiased way of looking at a students academic prowess without consideration to their school, major, etc. Its why you can go to any school and, with the right gumption and talent, go to any medical school. It also gives medical schools perspective on your GPA by averaging the MCAT scores and GPAs of other pre-meds from that institution. For example, lets say a school had an average MCAT score of 33, and GPA of 3.6. If a student showed up with a 4.0 from that school, that's pretty impressive, given the already high quality of their students (based on their MCAT). Anyways, enough talk about the MCAT:

1) The MCAT is ultimately a self study exam.

Medical school is primarily self study, and so is the MCAT. No matter what any of the test prep folk might hint at, only you can get yourself a good MCAT score. Expect somewhere between 300-600 hours of studying before you're prepared. Naturally, if its been a while since you last performed a backside attack on a bromine functional group, your learning curve is going to be higher. The lectures offered by Kaplan and Princeton Review will not shoot your score up 10 points without some out of class review. It would take far more hours of lecture than even PR gives for that to be the case. However, I'm not saying the lectures are worthless. They are a great way to synthesize what you are self studying, keep you at a good pace and give you a schedule, and reinforce strategies and tips that can actually be pretty helpful . However, its the bazillion and a half questions, pages of notes, and practice exams that are ultimately what is worth the price. With a little extra time an effort, you could find a TA or a help center on campus (if you're still in school) to answer any content related questions you might have, but the lecture add on to the Kaplan and PR material provides you with a competent, MCAT oriented teacher that you can email questions to any time you need to. They are also familiar with their own material that is given, so they are better suited to answering questions.

2) 3-4 months of 20-40 hours a week is enough

If you feel like you need more time, go for it, but studying for more than a year is ludicrous. If it takes you that long to get through all the content and strategy, you're going have forgotten what you began a year a go. Doing it in as few months as possible is the best strategy for retention when you combine this with occasional reviews of the material.

3) An August test before your application cycle begins can be useful

This is useful for two reasons. First, it gives you a chance to retake the MCAT before the start of your application cycle if you don't get the score that you are looking for. This prevents you from being tempted to retake the MCAT when the application cycle has begun, and thus putting you behind the curve in beginning your applications, which will hurt you. It also gives you the advantage of a lower curve to compete with. This assumes that you are well prepared, but if you are the MCAT average is approximately 1 point lower in August, compared to May. This is probably because so many underprepared people take it in the Fall, but you can use this to your advantage if you've been studying since the previous summer. A lower curve means it is easier to reach the top scores (slightly). This, of course, requires that you have completed your pre-reqs in the first two years of your undergrad, or potentially during the summer. Do NOT try and take the MCAT without all required classes. Get the score you want the first time around. Medical schools note how many times you have taken it.

4)Take a noon MCAT, or prepare well for an 8AM one.

It is hard to be awake for the MCAT at 8AM, especially since you won't sleep well the night before on your own. I really regret taking my MCAT at 8AM, though I ended up doing well enough for my purposes. The problem was that I had not practiced taking 8AM MCATs, because I had taken most of my exams at night or at noon. Practice taking MCATs at the time you are scheduling for, be it noon or 8AM. I personally think that, even if you didn't sleep well, you will be more awake and alert at noon. It is true that so will everyone else that is taking the exam, but I'd rather trust myself at 100% against everyone else's 100%.

5) 35 is the magic number

Shoot for a 45T, period. Setting your goals lower only limits your success. Sure, you probably won't get a 45T, I didn't. However, I had a friend who wanted a 36. When he started to score 36s, he stopped studying as hard. He ended up not getting a 36, and I really think that it was because he didn't push himself towards perfection. If he had kept going until he was peaking at a higher grade, he might have made his goal or higher. As they say, shoot for the moon, if you miss at least you'll be among the stars.

That being said, 35 is the magic number. At this point you have reached the 95th percentile of scorers, and the differences between points starts to shrink to a single question or two. The difference between a 40 and a 45 is basically 5 wrong answers. This means that higher scores become less and less important at this point, because you could go up or down a few points by luck and chance. Medical schools recognize this. Even if a 43 sounds impressive on paper, its really not statistically much higher than 39 (99.9th percentile versus 99.8th basically). Once you reach a 35, you are about average or higher at almost every medical school, and you are reasonably competitive at even the top schools. I would not retake the MCAT once you reach this score or higher. You might feel that you can do better, and quite possibly you could. However, why risk it? I think I should have done better on the MCAT, and if that is true I will have another shot to prove that on the Step 1. Why risk it though? You're in the top percentiles, and its the rest of your application that will ultimately determine where (and if) you go to medical school.

In addition, a 33 MCAT score is considered competitive at most schools. You might not get into a top 10 school, but most students don't anyways. The only people who really care all of that are pre-meds anyways. A doctor is always a prestigious profession. Also, it should be noted that a high MCAT can help compensate for a low GPA. Don't expect to get into school with less than a 3.0 though, unless its been years since your undergrad.

6) Consider a chemical method of going to sleep.

Just like interviews, you will not sleep well on your own the night before. Especially if you are taking a noon exam, serious consider chemically putting yourself to sleep, either via a sleeping pill (small dosage, just enough to relax you) or even a couple drinks. Your mind will be racing, if you want to be asleep you'll have to force it to stop thinking. I'm serious, I laid in bed for 5 hours before I finally fell asleep. As I said, make sure its a light dosage so you don't wake up still feeling the effects (or with a hangover!).