Do MCAT Preparation Courses Really Help?
A Discussion which came up in May 2002 on the HLTHPROF listserv

The effectiveness of commercial MCAT Preparation Courses comes up, virtually as an annual event, on discussion groups and listservs. The following are memos distributed via the HLTHPROF listserv, starting in May 2002, regarding the effectiveness of these preparation courses:

Daniel Marien (May 24)

I have a recollection of an earlier published study appearing in the Advisor, I believe, likely to have been a reprint of one that was published in the then Journal of Academic Medicine. It came to the conclusion that there was no significant difference between testers who had taken review courses and those who had not. That was when I began not to encourage using the commercial review courses for anything more than a possible positive psychological effect when the test was taken. But it might work the other way as well through unjustified overconfidence.

I am reminded of the many students I had in my classes who could be seen studying in the hallway just before they walked into an exam room. I always felt that was likely to be counterproductive, reinforcing fear and introducing confusion. I aways advised, naturally, keeping up with the work all along, some review, and quitting study the evening before. Do something diversionary that evening. [When I was an undergraduate ages ago, I went to a movie in town]. I well remember the palpable fear before a comparative vertebrate anatomy (two semesters worth) practical exam!

Lolita Woods-Hill (May 23)

I advise students to begin studying 9 months before the exam and find that any MCAT review course is better than none. As I have many ESL students who did not attend high school here I always encourage students to take a review course. We have one of our own which is offered twice a year and I am going to begin a verbal reasoning review for students to take the entire year before they take their MCAT. I hope it shows some positive results. I agree that Kaplan, Princeton, Betty Blank's review, ExamKrackers, etc. all seem to fall short in some area. But I also often find that my students tend to not make good use of the materials and/or that the instructor, although knowledgeable about the subject matter, knows little about teaching. Overall, however, I encourage students to take a review. And as I mentioned before, students who are from disadvantaged backgrounds have a myriad of summer programs at medical schools offering MCAT prep. The trick is to get the student to take the prep BEFORE they sit down to begin their MCAT studying. Its a big exam, and for minority students and other economically poor students, I can't assume that they will be able to master the the test taking skills needed without formal assistance and good grades, at my institution, are poor predictors of success with the MCAT, again the verbal section really hurting my students.

I think there is not sufficient evidence that an MCAT course does a whole lot to improve scores of students taking the MCAT. As a matter, I remember reading a study, unfortunately I don't remember where it was, that looked at students who had taken the MCAT and were going to take it again. These students were broken into two groups. Group one were those students who took an MCAT course between taking the first MCAT and the second MCAT and group two were those students who didn't take an MCAT course between taking the first and second MCAT. Nobody in either group had taken an MCAT course prior to taking the first MCAT. The results of this study showed there were no differences between the scores obtained on the MCAT by either group. At least this is what I remember.