How to take names and kick classes (Aka up your GPA)

I’m convinced that any student can get a high Grade Point Average in college given the right study strategies, self-motivation, and a little luck. Most students realize this later in college, in their third or fourth year when they finally figure the system and know how to study well. I've seen people (including myself) who are not the creme of the crop memorizers, writers, note takers or analyzers of information get very high GPAs. These people have simply found study strategies that worked and executed them consistently for every class. Here are some that I've found helpful. Skip the paragraph below if you are already in a university.

For high school students transitioning to college:

College work is far more independent than high school work. There’s less homework. There are less tests. And far more freedom. Yay! But this comes at a two-fold cost. 1. REALLY important midterms and finals. 2. Responsibility to know information that will not be tested for a while.
The best advice I can give to you is don’t ever get behind. Stay up with your reading, papers, and problem sets. Although you don’t need to learn and memorize everything in detail the first time, you should process everything as it comes so that when you review before a test, you are not seeing it for the first time. Not doing this will lead to hair pulling, all-nighter freak out moments that will make you a less efficient studier and possibly miss entire sections of information before the test.

One of the greatest difficulties in transitioning to college is setting your own schedule. You’ve just had 8 hours of class a day and been able to do most of your work and learning in class. Now all of a sudden you are going to class for only three hours a day and teachers expect you to learn three times more information outside of class. Therefore you have to figure out when you are going to study and then do it. It may help to use a calendar like “Google Calendar” or a daily planner to pencil in a few hours a day to studying.

General Tips for Dominating Classes

Determine what you do not understand:

Once you are able to consistently study and not get behind. You then need to figure out what it is that is keeping you from being a better studier. Many students hit a mental block before writing a paper, give up for the time being, and succumb to procrastination. Others (including myself at times) put off studying for a class for a few days because they don’t understand certain concepts and therefore find the subsequent information boring.

In order to resolve these difficulties, you need to figure out what it is that you do not understand and put that misunderstanding into a question for other classmates, professors, or TAs. Realizing what you don’t understand and then putting that into a question might be the most valuable study skill you learn. It’s certainly an underrated one. Next, don’t be shy about asking. Classes are set up so that you can email TAs. Professors have office hours, and classmates can often be an excellent source of information.

Utilize office hours far before tests:

As a Teaching Assistant for Metabolic Biochemistry and BILD 3, I received about 60% of my questions 24 hours before a test. There were certainly times when not a single student showed up to office hours because the test was not scheduled for two or three weeks from then. Occasionally, a student would come by with questions and we would work through them for an hour one on one. Because these hours were personalized and one-on-one, they were probably the most helpful learning tool for each student possible. Then, every office hour right before the test, around ten students would show up flustered and ready for quick answers. Unfortunately, I had to split my time 10 ways and their learning experiences were far inferior to that of students who had pinpointed their confusions weeks earlier and talked to me about them.

I’ve had this same experience being a student in classes. I received an A+ in Metabolic Biochemistry not because I got the information came easily to me, but because I worked out what questions I had as the information came. I attended office hours consistently with two TAs in different times in the week to resolve questions that arose, hone in on test important information, and to have them challenge me on my understanding of the material. In nearly all of these meetings, I received one-on-one attention except for the week before tests. Given the masses of students at these times, I decided it wasn’t worth attending right before lectures and I emailed TAs instead for those weeks.

-If you are writing a paper or working on a project that is more subjectively graded, office hours and TA/Professor communication is even more crucial. What you think is a good project idea or essay topic may not be in the eyes of your teacher. This is why clarification of what it is that your Professor specifically wants is key. Write up an early draft or project design and ask if your teacher can give you her opinion on it. They will often have critiques that you will need to respond to even if it’s against your opinion. When you eventually turn in your final assignment, the teacher will grade it knowing you worked hard and didn’t procrastinate. Plus, you are almost guaranteed that your final content will more in line with what he wanted.

Why I choose Medicine

My passion for medicine began in high school as a Junior when I heard from a Pediatrician who had traveled to many impoverished places in the world such as Guatemala and Africa to provide medical care to the poor. Prior to this, I had little interest in any career, but after hearing his story, I saw medicine as a challenge, an outlet for my interest in Biology, and a way to use my people skills. Later, I went to college as a Biology major and traveled to Mexico with a group called FISH (Fellowship of International Service and Health). We set up a clinic on the side of a market and saw patients, doing blood pressure tests and blood glucose tests. I LOVED IT! The direct patient interaction and feeling like I was really helping to educate people about their health were exhilarating. It also made me determined to learn Spanish, so I took classes and later lived in Guatemala, and now I am fluent (or something close to it). Being the determined person I am, I dedicated a couple of years to getting into medical school. I survived the MCAT through an intense summer of Princeton Review (my least favorite part of the process of getting into medical school). I volunteered in Thornton Emergency Room, lead a chapter of FISH, and became an EMT. I spent thousands on getting into medical school and was successful in six of my eight interviews. I received acceptance to UCSD in October of 2009 and it was one of the best day of my life.

Then a few months ago, I began to deeply question my intentions to go to medical school and become a doctor. Over the past two years, I’ve talked with unsatisfied and even depressed doctors in both the USA and abroad, read books that challenged the efficacy of American medicine and highlighted the unique difficulties faced by doctors within the U.S. I shadowed physicians who saw some of the same patients and problems over and over and OVER again. I hung out with medical students who were in debt tens of thousands of dollars and who studied twelve hours a day. I read pages of blogs of medical students who were fed up with the career, but who couldn’t leave the profession because of the staggering debt. I also traveled to Honduras and worked with doctors who were only able to prescribe very temporary drugs for poor people, and were dismayed by their inability to make a lasting difference.

During my year off, I’ve confirmed that I could make similar wages through less effort in private tutoring than being a doctor. I realized the newest form of income security might be choosing multiple part-time jobs in various, high-demand fields. I’ve dreamed up ideas for creating businesses, developed excitement for becoming a freelance dance instructor, online ESL teacher, tutor of several subjects, founder of a non-profit org, an employer, an inventor and even a simultaneous playing multi-instrument street musician.

I’ve developed new skills in language learning and interpreting, and interests in martial arts, dance, pleasure reading, painting, mechanics, cooking, traveling and overall living a life with a lot of variety.

After seeing people pursuing their own passions and reading the Four Hour Work Week, I realized that the possibility of weaving together most of these creative passions and jobs is certainly possible while still maintaining a stable income.

I’ve realized that I am a more independent person than I had originally thought; that I could work well being self-employed and that I could live happily anywhere in the world with very little money.

Through my travels in multiple continents over the past year, I’ve talked to hundreds of people from dozens of countries about what they do and how they live their lives. I’ve been jealous of those who do little work to gain lots of money, turned off by the number of people who have no particular interest in their jobs, and inspired by people who formulated their lives around their passions.

I then re-contemplated. “How is it that I want to live and be happy?” Or even better.

“What is it that I NEED to live and to be happy?” I came up with a few things.

I NEED to live a life that combines my combination of language, people, and science/math minded skills to make a sustainable and hopefully measurable impact on others, especially those who are impoverished or stricken by injustices.
I NEED to live a balanced life that cultivates my many passions, challenges myself, and allows me to learn new things, and grow spiritually.
I NEED to be loved by and love others and have enough time to develop and keep a sustainable community of friends.
I NEED/(well….probably just really want) a stable income.

I know that I am not able to live my life without any one of these necessities. So I concluded that all of them could be fulfilled WITHOUT medical school and all of the cons that come with that. There are a multitude of ways to help people and maybe in an even more lasting manner than medicine. I could start an ESL program for immigrants looking to build their opportunities in the world and I could find a way to measurably examine its degree of impact. Then I would balance the rest of my life out in a way that made sense likely switching from one passion to the next. If I really wanted to develop unique medical skills, I could fly to a developing country, learn its language, and find a shorter medical program to perform specific surgeries there as has been done in India and regions in Africa. It would never provide me with the certification to do it in the US, but at least I would be able to develop some of the skills I originally wanted to make a sustainable impact.

Done. I’m decided.

Then again…
And what if I got bored or burned out from switching from one job to the next?

What if very few of my ideas succeed?

If they do succeed would I get I get bored of them later on?

What if I ended up wanting something still more challenging?

What if a few years down the road, I realize what I could have done as a doctor?

What if I always regretted that chance I had to pursue medicine?

In reality, if I moved forward with the multi job plan, I would probably never find a job that laced, my skills of patience, teaching, science, culture, people and language together as perfectly as medicine does. My ultimate love for medicine is not just that it allows people to live a higher quality of life and fulfill their own dreams, but that it takes a decathlete of a person to be good at it. It’s more than an imperfect science or just knowing a lot of information. It’s understanding people holistically, where they are coming from, what their resources are, and how they are motivated. You need to know this in order to determine what path is best for them, how that path should be encouraged, and by what means that path should be undertaken. It’s leadership and tact. It’s knowing your limitations and acting accordingly. In medicine, no single life influencing factor in a patient is unimportant. Each patient’s emotional health, spiritual walk, diet, and personal daily decisions are all crucial to each person’s health status. And this is what makes medicine a unique and irreplaceable endeavor for me.

The reality is that people NEED medical professionals. In the USA, there are almost 50 million Hispanics who need Spanish speaking doctors that can understand them. There is predicted to be a shortage of 40,000 family practice physicians in the USA by 2020. It’s crazy to think that there only two doctors for every 100,000 citizens in developing countries like Malawi.

I could always find methods to help people in other ways, but medical school will provide me outlets to develop UNIQUE and needed skills for my own job and for vulnerable populations. If I didn’t go to medical school, I’d be missing out on some valuable connections to brilliant doctors, a workable and detailed knowledge of medicine, and a degree to practice. It will give me a plethora of opportunities to show people God’s love for them and further opportunities that I can’t even imagine right now since I’m not there yet.

My concerns still exist. There will be times when profit-driven medical insurance companies will frustrate me, malpractice lawsuits will haunt me, theoretical memorization will burden me, and residency will likely not be my ideal lifestyle. I’ll forget some information, I’ll make mistakes with patients, and get yelled at sometimes. Furthermore, the inadequacy of medicine as a vessel in promoting health will mean that I’ll need to be inventive and collaborate with other health giving assets like nutritional supplements, public health measures, infrastructure, and digital awareness to name a few of the many essential compliments to making a lasting change on individuals and within communities.

I’m lucky to have been given the chance of a lifetime to pursue my a worthy passion, and I have a head up in knowing what difficulties I will face. The key will be to take each challenge in stride. Every down side in medicine comes with an opportunity to change it or deal with it in a reasonable way.

The hours spent in medical school are relatively flexible and this means I can learn to become a more efficient, effective learner in order to balance in other interests. My other dreams of executing creative ideas, learning other forms of martial arts, dancing, traveling and learning surgery and other languages abroad in my lifetime are not dead.

If there is one thing that living a multitude of lifestyles has taught me, it’s that when I have more to do, I tend to use my free time better. I’m often able to do more recreationally than I would if I had an entire free day. This too can be used to my advantage in medical school. As one med student put it, “Medical school is a lot of intensity - you study intensely but you also live intensely. Every moment is important.”

And every moment will be what I’ll make of it. Decisions are important, but they are still only streams to new lifestyles and challenges. Life was made to love it throughout all of its twists, rough spots, and joyous times, and I’m grateful to be able to enjoy the next step of it.

Special thanks to Peter Wisan, Jimmy Bui, Kari Kjos, David Carreon, Elise Ter Haar, Darrell Tran, Kaitlyn Losey, Katherine Lee, Lisa Rasmussen, Jessica Chan, Blake Spitzer, Chris Ha and Ashley Champagne for carefully considering my concerns and for not pushing me in any direction, but rather helping me to organize my thoughts to make the least regrettable decision.

Why Medical School is attractive to me

Why medical school and becoming a doctor would be awesome:

1. I could develop important, unique, and needed medical skills to use for impoverished populations. In certain developing countries, there is only one doctor for every half a million people. It would be worthwhile to use my MD degree to address some of the significant health needs of the people living there. With an MD, I could more easily create medical teams to accomplish specific health goals in countries or local populations.

2. With my interest and ability in science, research, psychology, use of languages, and education, medical school would be very interesting to me.

3. I would like a career that is challenging to me; a career path to become a doctor will definitely be challenging enough 

4. From my experiences, the relatively flexible schedule and hours of medical school will make me value my free time and really use it well.

5. Being a doctor opens doors for making greater change within the medical system, and having credibility for writing books on health or getting into medical school. I also have some ideas for improving the delivery of care, and the nature of the hospital experience for each patient. These goals would be more easily achieved by being a doctor.

6. I could network through many doctors and medical students, build new relationships, and learn new skills and ideas that I never would have known without going to medical school.

7. I love how medicine is ultimately about finding ways to improve the well being of people when they injured, sick, pain-stricken, or just plain feel bad.

8. It will allow me to have a greater influence on people because they will respect my opinion more regarding their personal health and lifestyle decisions if I am an MD.

Personal hesitations about Medical School

Hesitations about medical school:

Before I invest over $120,000 and over 15,000 hours of studying into four years of medical school as well as work long hours for low wages in residency, I’d like to address some of my personal concerns about doing it.

Am I ready for more theoretical learning/memorization of irrelevant facts? I’m not looking forward to several more years of memorizing the Krebs cycle, studying action potentials etc. Throughout college, I found some of the information interesting, but mainly my goal was getting through all of it by sheer dedication to my studies and being re-compensated for it through doing well on tests and gaining the feeling of “getting somewhere.” This somewhere for me was medical school. Of course in medical school, there is more of that waiting for me.

Is it my ideal lifestyle? Although my ideal lifestyle does include working 50-60 hours/week as I would probably be doing anyway throughout medical school, I would prefer the freedom to work on what I desire as opposed to learning information that is pre-chosen for me. Additionally, I can’t say I’m excited for working for 80 hours a week throughout residency for several years. Talking with other prospective medical students, they feel the same way, but they justify it as it all pays off in the end. Given an investment of over $120,000 for four years and working for low wages and 80 hour weeks for another four years, I would hope it would.

Would I get bored with the same job? I like a lot of variety in my life. I’ve been realizing that I might not be able to do just one job all of my life regardless of what it is. In order to stay interested, I think I would prefer doing multiple jobs or a lot of different and new challenges within the same job. Because medicine is becoming more and more specialized, (as it should if efficiency is the aim) that also means that the career responsibilities are less diverse. I’ve seen family practice doctors who’s jobs I would abhor because most of the patients come in with similar issues. The one doctor I shadowed who I felt had a good amount of variety and challenges within her job through being a bilingual Pediatrician and Family practice Doctor said she felt she was getting bored of her job and needed more of a challenge. I suppose doing anything for too long will produce that sort of a feeling.

Will I help people as much as I’m thinking I will? The nature of a doctor's work is little known by people who are not in the field, and most people just take it as you are helping people. In my opinion, it's not quite that simple for a few reasons. Our achievement-driven society often looks to doctors to medicate themselves and children. Attention Deficit Disorder is far over diagnosed and wasn’t even a classified disorder until recently. Thinking about it, I’d hate to succumb to parents wishes of diagnosing their children with it and prescribing Ritalin and Adderall to boost their focus in school. After reading several articles and the book Pushed, I’ve realized that there are many other controversies regarding quick interventions for other psychotic disorders, and childbirth. You might say “but you could still take trips to other countries and help people there.” After participating in a Global Medical Brigades trip to Honduras, I had a long discussion with the doctor there about how much she felt she was helping. She mentioned how she felt she was just prescribing hundreds of temporary treatments like Tylenol and Asprin without providing a sustainable impact on any of them. I’m not saying that all medical work abroad is like this, but for me it would be crushing to see a whole lifetime of investment lead to ineffective work with good intentions. I talked with other students about our impact, and we came to the conclusion that at no one can refute that our intentions were positive and that is what is REALLY important. But I already have good intentions. My science wired mind needs to see positive results of my work for me to be satisfied. Aside from this, I’m also not looking forward to seeing patient after patient who enters my clinic with a cough or cold. I want to make a change, not distribute medicines to mildly sick and overly concerned people who would probably get better anyway. Although I could choose to work around these situations eventually, I would inevitably confront many of them for years before I would have the chance to work with people to make a lasting change.

Do I want to work within the USA’s style of medicine? I’ve never been a fan our large, profit driven insurance and drug companies that try to wield doctors into making them gain more money. Nor am I excited about HMOs running a business over me that will severely limit the time I spend with each patient. I’m also not too keen on potentially being sued for making a mistake or hurting someone because of it as all physicians do from time to time. What would make me more irate is not having the ability to be confess my mistakes with patients for fear of providing incriminating evidence against myself in court. After reading a few books by Atul Gawande, I realized this is one of the biggest difficulties in his job.

How much material will I actually retain after studying? Although I’d love to say that I would have a complete understanding of medicine and be able to answer any medical question asked to me after four years of medical school, I believe the reality would be far from that. I like everyone else, forget things. How long does it take for me to forget something I’ve studied and used multiple times (as opposed to a one time fact)? My estimation would be about one month, and much less time for information that was never used on a consistent basis. In fact, after using my combination lock all throughout South America and Thailand, then coming home and not touching it for just over a month, the numbers became disordered in my long term memory. I had to buy a new one. Looking at the years of “drinking medical information out of a fire hose,” as the medical school saying goes, and speaking with other medical students about how much they remember from prior years, I’ve come to the conclusion that what a person learns at the beginning of one year will soon be forgotten in a few months unless actively worked upon. It of course will be actively studied again and again and again for school exams and USMLEs. In my opinion after school, only some of the concepts, and something like .2% of relevant information will be used for one’s job. Feel free to disagree if you are a medical student or doctor.

Before Applying

Disclaimer: If you are still deciding if medical school is for you, then take a look at my earlier post or other posts of medical school students that dropped out. In summary, make sure you know what you are getting into before beginning on the trail of pre-medicine and then medical school.

And now about what you need to know...

While you are in the pre-application phase, you should know that medical schools virtually require you to have experience with research and exposure to medicine usually through volunteering. Both representatives from Georgetown and UC Irvine told me that they make sure each of their applicants have had some form of research experience either in the lab or clinical. Some applicants are not aware of this. Although you may only want to do patient care in the future, it's essential that you practice research in some form. I recommend that you search for research in Biology or whatever your field of interest is, and then email the principle investigator to see if you can be involved in their research. There are also many summer research programs that could be great opportunities. You may not be paid, but at least several months of research (at the bare minimum. Most applicants do 1-2 years) will pay off in getting into medical school.

In addition to research, try working or volunteering in another medical area of interest to you. I volunteered at the Thornton Emergency Room, UCSD student-run Free Clinic, and led clinical trips to Mexico. I also earned my Emergency Medical Technician certificate at Miramar college. I found these to be more interesting and fulfilling than my research, so I devoted myself more to these activities. Whatever your medical interest is, make sure you are able to show that it is your passion through working or volunteering. If there was one quote that medical students repeatedly said to me throughout, it was "do what you are passionate about." I would add to it by saying do what excites you. If patient care ignites you, go for volunteering in a clinic or hospital. If Diabetes research gets you stoked, invest more in that. You will only be able to talk about a few extracirruculars in your medical school interview so you should have invested significantly in a one or two of them.

The other important tip I can give is to be unique Committees see a TON of applicants every application cycle so if you can look desirable and different than the rest, this will benefit you. This is the reason that 1/2 of non-science majors are admitted to medical school, while just 1/3 science majors get in. Medical school committees like to see that you have taken the time to learn languages, dance, study humanities, business, and statistics, or go abroad, in addition to other activities that make you a more well-rounded person. A medical school committee doesn't want to admit solely science machines and test acers. They want to admit varied, interesting, and engaging people who are also good at science.

Committees also like to see that you can be an effective leader. In essence, a doctor is a leader to nurses, families and hospital staff, so medical schools love to see that you have taken initiative and have lead organizations and groups. Being a leader of an organization means 100 times more to medical schools than being a member of an organization. In fact, anyone can write he was a member of a group on an application after attending just one meeting. But being a leader or better yet, the head leader of an organization requires much more responsibility and work. I was the leader of FISH (Fellowship of International Service and Health) for two years, and a decent amount of my personal statement was devoted to what I had learned from it. About 50-60% of the questions I received from interviewers were about the organization and how I lead it. This made interviews more enjoyable because I like talking about FISH and what I had done with it. If you can work your way to the leadership of an organization or found your own, this will show dedication and initiative. Still, make sure you are passionate about it, and not just in it to throw it on your app, because if you are, you will soon burn out. One of the great things about leading an organization is that you learn so many skills at once. Public speaking, delegation, planning, improvising, and communication are all so necessary that you will soon develop in all of these areas.
In the end, you should be you and if leadership is not your thing, it might still possible to get into medical school, but you better have the smarts of Jonas Salk. Remember to never fake who you are just for the admissions committee. Come interview day, don’t attempt to pretend you were incredibly interested in research when you were not or invent stories of when you were a great leader. Now is the time to find your unique talents and interests, and look for unique experiences and leadership roles.

Letters of Recommendation

Generally, medical schools require two science and one non-science letters of rec and sometimes an additional letter from a coach or boss. How do you get a strong letter of recommendation? Start by getting to know some professors. At UCSD, there are hundreds of students in most science classes, so making contact is not easy. Try going to your professors’s office hours in the first week of class. Better yet, go to as many office hours as you can early on in the quarter. From there, it's hit and miss as to which ones will be worth attending. Some classes will have 20-30 students in office hours. If this is the case, and you are attending mainly for a letter of rec, you'd be wasting your time to stay in on these sessions. Try to find a professor with five or less students attending. Then, you can ask some questions and introduce yourself. Lower division science classes are often great opportunities for this because, let's be honest, most people are procrastinators and won't bother pursuing professors for letters until they are doing all upper division coursework. So if you are still taking lower division classes, beat the rush and go to office hours. I can't tell you how much this helped me in getting mine.

Once you've found a potential professor(s), try to attend office hours as consistently as possible throughout the quarter. You may have to ask fairly knit-picky questions, but it's worth going in so your professor can see you are trying to understand the material and that you are a consistent studier. It's also good to talk about other extracurriculars you are involved with so they can include this into his/her letter of recommendation. Meanwhile, you should obviously be working for a high grade in this class or else the teacher won't be able to say much in regards to your work ethic or mastery of the subject.

After one quarter, you can ask for a letter. Although, it's better if you can take another course with him, work in his lab or be a TA.

If you are a UCSD student, once a year, you can get a dine-with-a-prof card and eat for free in the faculty club. Aside from eating some bomb food for free, this is another great opportunity to get to know your professor. This will give him more things to say than just "Sally was a nice person and got an A in my class one quarter."

If you are not a UCSD student or you have already played the dine-with-a-prof card for that year, do not fear! You can ask him or her to lunch or coffee anyway. This takes COURAGE, but hey, so does being a doctor and these out of the classroom meetings are important for establishing a personal connection.

Once you've developed a relationship with your professor, go ahead and ask the dreaded question: "would you be able to write me a strong letter of recommendation to Medical School?" Ask it this way instead of "could you write me a letter or recommendation to med school?" If your prof will not write you a strong letter, and you are not desperate for one, you should look elsewhere for someone who will positively write about you. A professor rejection might actually do you a favor by allowing you to avoid a mediocre (or poor) letter of rec.

Hopefully, a rejection or apathetic response doesn't happen, and instead your professor says "YES! I would love to!" In this case, give your prof a due date and a packet with the career services information letter. You should waive your right to see the letter because this makes it more convincing to medical schools.

Ask your teacher if she would be comfortable with you providing suggestions as to what she should write. Professors will usually say yes because they are doing a favor for you and would like to include what you want them to say. Then, pick two or three positive characteristics that you believe you posses and have shown to the professor. Provide reasons for each. For instance, if you think you were not only a focused student, but a positive contributor to other student's learning, mention that she should write about this. Then support it. "In certain office hours, I asked others what their questions were and then helped clear up their confusions." Print out a paper with these suggestions, and generally, the professor will incorporate them into his letter. This way, you will better ensure a positive and supported letter. Professors generally love this too since it pleases you and gives them less work.

In summary, look for personal opportunities to connect with professors, consistently meet up with them, display your strengths, ask for a STRONG letter, give them suggestions and you are done!

MCAT course/Advice

Princeton Review/MCAT Advice

My opinion on the course:
The course is a good idea for a few reasons.

1. It allows you to access the practice tests which are by far the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO DO in preparing for the MCAT. There is no better way to study than take practice tests. Although at the same time, you want to have reviewed a decent amount of material before you do too many.

2. It allows you to pace your studies. If you are a good self starter with studying, than this might not be an issue for you, but it was nice to see that I would finish reviewing all of the material before I took the test.

3. Class time is helpful, the teachers are selected stringently and they give you good practice passages and guidance in class.

Keep in mind that most of the studying for the MCAT is done to prepare you to think though the passages quickly as opposed to memorize material to regurgitate it later (like on a UCSD bio test). The MCAT is like the SAT in that they want to see how well and fast you can understand complicated science material and non science material (verbal). This is why the practice of taking MCAT diagnostic tests is good because it trains you to pace understand quickly.

There is no section where pacing and understanding is more important than the verbal section. Princeton Review has a verbal strategy that works for some and not for others. When I took the course, they advised students who could not do well on all 7 passages to to only do 5 or 6 well and guess on the other one or two. This could be the best method for you, but I discovered that it was not for me. I did better going through all 7 passages even if I was rushing. If you are like me, this will be your most challenging section and a cause of great frustration. I spent about half the time used studying for the MCAT on this section alone.

You can prepare without the course, but I would not try it unless you are a. A superhero standardized test taker who has already taken a Practice MCAT and done well. b. An excellent self-studier and self-planner who doesn't need extra motivation, or pacing. or c. You just don't have the money (Although you might be able to apply for a scholarship.)

If you don't use a course, you need to find some good books to study, a good MCAT study schedule so you cover everything and take diagnostic tests on time, and plenty of practice tests and practice passages. Some good books include...1. Examcrackers 2. Princeton review's comprehensive book. 3. Kaplan is alright too.

Either way you will want to purchase online tests through the AAMC and get any test you can get your hands on. AAMC tests are $35 a piece. A definite bummer, but worth it.

See what your weaknesses are and work on them because a 10 10 10 is better than a 5 14 13 or something like that. This is why I spent a lot of time on verbal.

You can assess your weaknesses and mistakes by analyzing your practice tests. Each time you plan a practice test, allot at least five hours to doing it and then another two to three sometime later to check over it. It doesn't need to be on the same day, as I would recommend a good fiesta or chilax time after taking an MCAT practice test. But sometime soon after you should see why you got questions wrong and really think about why you picked what you did. Then you can adjust your studies to focus more on these types of questions.

Another tip: If you don't read a whole lot like me, you should start trying to read the New York Times/ Economist.com to try and understand articles quickly. It will help you for the verbal a lot.

Also, don't stress about not doing well on your first several MCAT diagnostics. I think i started out at a 17 maybe 18? You will improve if you stick with it. Don't compare yourself to others either, just work on improving where you can. If you talk to other pre-meds taking diagnostics they will often ask you what scores you are getting on practice tests in order to judge their own. To me comparing practice MCAT scores is equivalent to comparing GPAs and doesn't help anyone achieve a higher score. The MCAT is a test of mental endurance and you don't want others taking you away from your goal of improvement. That said, ask others about strategies and resources that help them. Good luck!