Though there is a TPR forum I didn’t see this mentioned there, so I’ll venture it here.
I have been working through the Flowers & Silver 4th edition MCAt study guide. PLus I have taken 1 full-length MCAT (prior to the guide) and am taking 2 more full-lenth TPR practice exams, plus one more Kaplan one.
I am taking 3 pre-req courses this spring, but without forking over $1,600 (which I don’t have) am I missing anything in my MCAT prep?
Danke!
jeffc
Quote:
Though there is a TPR forum I didn’t see this mentioned there, so I’ll venture it here.
I have been working through the Flowers & Silver 4th edition MCAt study guide. PLus I have taken 1 full-length MCAT (prior to the guide) and am taking 2 more full-lenth TPR practice exams, plus one more Kaplan one.
I am taking 3 pre-req courses this spring, but without forking over $1,600 (which I don’t have) am I missing anything in my MCAT prep?
Danke!
jeffc
Hi Jeff,
I used Flowers and Silvers for MCAT prep. I didn’t do any MCAT practice exams (I had one month between my comprehensive exams for graduate school and the August MCAT)so I did not have the time for practice exams. I took the MCAT in August only and did extremely well.
If I had it to do over again, I would end up preparing the same way under the time constraints. If you believe that you are getting a good review, then you do not need to fork out $1,600 dollars for a prep course.
The greatest value of the F & S book was that it helped me with developing a strategy for doing well on the MCAT and helped me concentrate on the things that I thought I needed in a very short period of time.
I love the strategy materials that Princeton Review has in their coursebooks but I would not have been able to take a prep course and it turned out that I didn’t need one. I suspect that you may be fine too.
Only you can guage how your review is going and what you need. If things are working, stay with it!
Natalie
Thanks once again for the feedback. One never knows. Not long ago, I was riding in the car of a friend and he volunteered that “Oh, yeah, I thought about medical school once, and I took the MCAT.” This person is a gas storage engineer. When I sheepishly asked what score he received, expecting something like, “Well, I didn’t do that well”, instead, he said, “Well, I didn’t study but I got a 33”.
I began secretly hating him… 
There are some folks who are just too smart for their own good. The good news is lots of them don’t get into med school! Not long ago, I attended a seminar for OPM’s put on by the University of Houston, conducted under the guise of “medical school application guidance”; secretly, a codeword for “how do we get these monkey’s to sign up for grad school here at U of H.” Anyway, one young lady there had a 3.99 GPA in Biochemistry!!! She interviewed at 5 schools and was accepted to none. She decided to pursue biochem because she didn’t have the life experience or desire to volunteer that apparently med schools are now looking for - she was just extremely smart. As for me, I would much rather have a caring, dedicated doctor who may have to consult a journal or make a telephone call every now and then, versus an academician who is only involved in clinical medicine because it pays better.
Have a great day ( or night, depending on your location!)
jeffc