This year's medical school applicants are through with the Medical College Admissions Test, but many pre-med students-such as sophomore Anita Krishnarao-have yet to face the daunting five-hour, 45-minute standardized admissions test required by almost all U.S. medical schools.
"Some days I feel nervous because I hear all the juniors talk about it now," Kirshnarao said, adding that she plans to begin preparing for the exam during winter break before spring 2007.
Across the nation, students generally take the MCAT in either their late-sophomore or junior year. The test consists of three multiple-choice sections-verbal reasoning, physical sciences and biological sciences-and a writing component with two essays.
In preparing for the exam, many students opt to take a test preparation course over the summer or as a "fifth class" during the semester before they take the MCAT. These classes come in various packages costing from $1,500 to $1,700 and providing 100 to 240 hours of instruction.
Kirshnarao said she will most likely take a course next spring.
"It'll force me to stay on task while studying," she noted.
In past years, practice MCAT exams were not widely available, so test preparation programs were a good source of practice material for students, said Dr. Kay Singer, associate dean of the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences and director of the health professions advising center.
"In recent years, the MCAT people have made quite a number of tests available, and that has lessened the importance of test prep companies as a source of practice exams," she said.
She added that classes will only help students organize the material. They must also put in the amount of time and effort necessary to achieve high scores.
"For an applicant who pays the money and expects that to magically give them a better score, it would be money wasted for sure," Singer said.
Of those who take a preparation course, most Duke students choose classes offered by Kaplan or The Princeton Review. The competing programs offer students two different approaches to preparing for the exam.
Kaplan's philosophy is to provide students with critical thinking strategies they need to conquer the test, said Amjed Mustafa, MCAT program manager for Kaplan.
"When you're doing an MCAT question, you're not simply regurgitating data you learned before," he said. "You're actually learning new material, applying the material and then getting an answer."
Mustafa added that Kaplan's competitors in MCAT test preparation tend to downplay the importance of giving students practice problems.
"Kaplan's thinking is to provide more practice than anyone else-more than 10,000 questions," he said. "By doing that, we ease [students] into being able to read a passage."
Kaplan's biggest competitor, The Princeton Review, emphasizes a more content-driven approach.
The Princeton Review class is taught by four or five different instructors, each specializing in specific areas of the exam.
"All of the instructors start by having to place in the top 10 percent of the MCAT exam-they receive 60 hours of training to ensure they master the material," said Susanna Aldridge, educational advisor for The Princeton Review. "That's twice as much training as Kaplan instructors."
Aldridge reported an average score improvement of 10 points out of 45 total possible points between a student's first diagnostic test and the official MCAT score.
On the other hand, Mustafa noted that since Kaplan designs its diagnostic tests and offers students classes varying in length, average score improvement is not a reliable measure of a program's effectiveness.
But Kaplan offers a comprehensive satisfaction guarantee to students who do not receive a higher official score than they received on their diagnostic test or a previous MCAT. Further, if they are not satisfied by the amount of improvement or do not feel ready to take the official MCAT after the class, students may retake the class free of charge or receive a full reimbursement.
The Princeton Review offers a less flexible money back guarantee to students whose scores do not improve, provided they take the first MCAT administered following the end of the preparation course, Aldridge said.
Senior John Korman, who took a Kaplan course over Summer 2004, said his official MCAT score improved 12 points from the diagnostic test.
"The classes were helpful but not as much as just sitting down and taking practice tests and studying the old-fashioned way," he said. "It's not as much what they teach you, per se-it's learning how to take the test."
Korman added that Kaplan offers many resources for studying on one's own.
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