Name: 5 Tips to Achieve a 99.9th Percentile MCAT Score
Uploaded: 2022-01-05T17:41:30.000Z
Duration: 9 min 50 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

The MCAT is one of the biggest roadblocks standing in the way between premeds and medical

school acceptance - and it’s only getting harder.

Every year, the average score for medical school applicants and matriculants inches

steadily upward and the bar is raised a little bit higher.

If your dream is to become a doctor, it’s more important now than ever to do well on

The MCAT is known for being one of the most difficult exams you will ever take.

It’s nearly 8 hours long, covers a wide variety of subjects, and has the added pressure

of being one of the first metrics that admissions committees look at on your medical school

More students applied during the 2021-2022 medical school application cycle than ever

before - approximately 62,000 compared to just 53,000 the year before.

This means that it’s becoming more and more important to make your application stand out

amongst the thousands of other applicants, and one way to do that is to have a stellar

Here are 5 tips to help you maximize your MCAT prep and achieve your dream score.

A common misconception is that MCAT prep starts in the months leading up to the exam.

In reality, it actually starts the moment you step into your first biology or chemistry

When going through your prerequisite classes, it’s important to focus on building a foundation

of knowledge - not just so you can get an A in the class, but so you can learn and retain

The best way to accomplish this is by using the spacing effect.

Study a little bit each day over the course of weeks to months instead of trying to cram

By repeated exposures to a piece of information at increasing intervals between each repetition,

you can optimize memorization and retain the most amount of information in the least amount

We know from neuroscience that repeated recall of information strengthens neuronal connections

in the hippocampus where episodic long-term memory is stored.

In short, stronger connections are formed with multiple repeated exposures spread out

over time as opposed to one intense cramming session.

I was fortunate enough to have realized this early in my college career and focused on

In doing so, by the time I was preparing for my MCAT, I was able to score in the 67th percentile

on my first practice test before diving into studying.

If I had goofed off during my classes and crammed at the last minute, I may have scored

20th percentile and had a much larger gap to fill to achieve my desired score.

The general rule of thumb is to spend 2 hours every week studying for every hour you spend

Consistently putting in the hours is only the first part of the equation though, you

also need to spend that time efficiently.

You want to prioritize active learning techniques over passive ones.

When I was preparing for my MCAT many years ago, I made the mistake of relying too heavily

I would read through content review books, highlight the important points, and re-read

the highlights repeatedly until they stuck.

The issue with this approach is that it is painfully inefficient.

It takes much longer to consolidate key facts to memory than if you were to spend that same

time doing active learning in the form of practice questions and flashcards.

It also makes it more difficult to determine what areas need the most improvement.

When you are reading through content books and have the information in front of you,

there is a tendency to overestimate how well you know the information.

Once you take your notes away, however, it’s often a much different story.

It wasn’t until I got into medical school and drank from the proverbial fire hydrant

of information that I realized the power of active learning techniques - namely practice

questions and spaced repetition with active recall.

By using these, I was able to optimize my studies and learn more information in less

I have found that oftentimes students are scared to use practice questions until the

This is a huge mistake as practice questions can be a great way to learn information in

addition to honing test-taking strategies.

I started doing practice questions from the get-go and took my first full-length test

The key isn’t just to get through the practice tests but to review all of the questions thoroughly.

I made sure to go over every single incorrect answer as well as any I guessed on or got

I believe that starting practice questions early was one of the best things I did during

my prep and contributed heavily to my 99.9th percentile score, or 100th percentile for

Flashcards are also heavily underutilized during MCAT prep.

Active recall with spaced repetition is one of the best ways to consolidate information

to long-term memory - which is incredibly important for the MCAT given the sheer amount

In addition to not using flashcards enough, many students also don’t know how to create

It wasn’t until after years of making my own flashcards through medical school and

residency that I realized how subtle and nuanced the best flashcards are.

To make the most effective flashcards, you need to have a mastery of the subject at hand.

For the MCAT, you must understand related concepts that contrast with the topic, whether

it’s high-, medium-, or low-yield, and how it’s tested on the exam.

If you’re looking for high-quality flashcards and a learning experience that’s better

than any premade Anki deck, be sure to check out Memm - link in the description.

No matter how much you refine your study techniques and use spaced repetition though, you will

This is where having an effective MCAT study schedule comes in.

I’ve seen countless students plateau with their scores despite dedicating several additional

The issue is that the more time you spend studying for the MCAT, the more likely you

After working with hundreds of premeds, I’ve found that a few months of intense, high-quality

studying will often beat out a year of low- to medium-intensity studying.

For most students, two-and-a-half months at the lower end to six months at the upper end

This time frame allows you to maximize information acquisition and retention and minimize forgetting.

To accomplish this, you want to find a time where you can dedicate a few months to full-time,

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5 Tips to Achieve a 99.9th Percentile MCAT Score

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