Spousal Support

Hello all, I am a spouse of someone who is taking the MCAT. My husband is working in the military full-time and graduated with a Bachelor Degree in Medical Science 6 years ago. I want to help him aspire to his dreams, but as a spouse, that studied Communications, it has been a difficult ride! My husband is taking his MCAT in March. I paid for the Princeton Review course, but he feels overwhelmed with work and keeping up with all the course work and finds it more difficult then beneficial. Any recommendations on how to help him? I have suggested taking a day of rest. Basically he works, comes home and studies 3 hours of reading, 3 hours of homework, and then online class…every other saturday he takes the MCAT. The first week he got a 24 (after 6 years of not studying) and he used the test from AAMC, but a month later he took Princeton Reviews at got a 19 and is feeling overwhelmed. Any help?!

I’m not a spouse, nor do I have a spouse, but am actually in medical school now. So I won’t be answering from a spousal angle but from an applying to med school perspective.


The MCAT is a test that you really only want to take once, and you really want to do as well as possible. Perhaps a discussion with him about whether it is the material that is a problem (he hasn’t taken it before or took it a really long time ago) or whether it is how to take the test itself because that is a bit of an art (you need to understand how to approach questions in the different sections, especially verbal reasoning - if the approach isn’t the issue then practice under “test day conditions” will help).


You didn’t mention where he stood on his pre-reqs for med school. If he hasn’t taken them recently, he may need to revamp his time line for getting into med school. As member Gonnif says: Is your goal to get into med school or get into med school quickly. Ideally you want to have taken the pre-reqs shortly before you take the MCAT.


You could also stay aware of deadlines regarding changing the date for taking the MCAT test. He doesn’t want to get caught deciding to change the date only too find that it is too late.


Also, as a disclaimer, people get into med school after having taken the MCAT 2, 3 or 4 times, but it is grueling and once is always preferred.


I’m sure others will chime in as well, but that is what popped into my mind from a “technical preparation” point of view.


Good luck to both of you.


Lynda