Can AP Classes Carry Me Through the MCAT?
As we hit June, the endless freedom of summer break has left me feeling a bit bored, leading me to spend my downtime watching med students break down their MCAT study plans.
What I’ve realized after watching hours of MCAT prep videos is that everyone has a completely different opinion on how to study. While one person swears by a 12-hour isolation method, another says they only studied while walking on a treadmill. But from watching dozens of these videos, everyone had one thing in common: Kaplan, Khan Academy, and Anki.
Khan Academy, Kaplan, Anki
Since all the high scorers used these three tools, I’ve decided to follow in their footsteps for my MCAT content review. But the crazy part is that I haven’t even stepped foot on a college campus yet. I’m just blindly hoping my knowledge base from AP Bio, AP Chem, AP Physics, and AP Psych is enough to carry me through the wreckage.
So, how exactly am I using all three of these sites to learn the content?
Kaplan: This is where I will learn or relearn the bulk of the MCAT content. My current goal is to knock out two chapters per day, this way I can go into depth with each chapter and not completely burn myself out by the end of the week.
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Khan Academy: This is where I will be supplementing my Kaplan learning through more human-style video lectures. Each video unit I complete will correspond with the Kaplan chapters I read that day. This ensures that if there is a concept or topic in the Kaplan book that I didn’t fully grasp, Khan Academy has me covered.
Anki: The spaced repetition tool. Obviously if I just learn a concept and never look back at it I won’t be able to recall the information on test day. Anki will ensure that the material is able to be retained in the long run. However, from watching countless videos I have learned that doing Anki gets exhausting. I mean I’ve seen people do a couple hundred cards a day to thousands and I am not sure if I can do any of that. So currently I am pivoting from watching where to learn content to how to use Anki to supplement my learning. But that’s another topic for another day.
The Calendar
All this begin on June 15. This is the day I decided where I want to put myself back in the academic grind.
The goal of this journey is to finish everything by August 2nd so that I can take my first diagnostic test a couple of days later. I have also built in 2 weeks of buffer so in case there is an emergency and I can’t study that day, I have days to fall back on. The hard deadline is August 11th where I will be moving into my dorm. It’s a race against the clock to see if I can conquer the toughest exam in higher education before my freshman year even officially begins.
Here is a link to my MCAT Calendar: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Fua-UXbdWhoRStJdEY4Q8-NOPbdY7wjleWN2B1066XU/edit?usp=sharing
Wish Me Luck
At the end of the day, this whole project is a massive experiment. Taking on the MCAT before even taking a college midterm might be incredibly naive, or it might just give me the head start I need. Either way, the calendar is set, the books are open, and June 15th is coming whether I’m ready or not.
I’ll be documenting the wins, the burnout, and the inevitable Anki meltdowns right here. If you want to see if a bunch of AP classes and pure stubbornness can survive the ultimate pre-med boss fight, stay tuned.
