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You’ve probably heard stories about premed students who went to well-respected colleges, had extensive clinical and volunteer experiences, worked in the same lab for multiple years, and achieved a 3.9 GPA but were still rejected from every medical school that they applied to. Odds are these students had less-than-stellar MCAT scores, one of the most important factors admissions committees consider when evaluating applications.
If you think of medical school admissions as a tiered evaluation process, the MCAT falls in the top tier of what admissions committees look at when they evaluate an applicant, in addition to your GPA and personal statement.
Why do admissions committees care so much about the MCAT? The MCAT is an attempt to compare students who come from a broad range of backgrounds, majors, regions, undergraduate institutions, and much more.
For example, let’s say that a Stanford student and a student from a small state school have the same application, but the Stanford student scored a 505 on the MCAT while the small state school student scored a 518. The small state school student proved a high science and critical thinking aptitude, and admissions committees will likely choose the small state school student, despite the differences in the undergraduate reputation.
Here’s the bottom line: lots of otherwise qualified students don’t get into medical school because of a low MCAT score. What’s more, a large number of these low MCAT scorers didn’t dedicate sufficient time to developing a study schedule because they weren’t “ready to completely start studying” or were “just getting started in the process.”
Creating a study schedule is the single most important piece of the MCAT puzzle that you will complete at the beginning of your test prep as it serves as a roadmap, friend, and accountability tracker throughout your entire MCAT journey. Students who are thoughtful and spend the time upfront creating a solid study schedule tend to perform much better on the MCAT.
Don’t be afraid to spend a few hours designing your MCAT study schedule! It will pay off in the long run when you crush the MCAT and get that acceptance call from your dream medical school.
Let’s dive into what this guide covers and how to make an MCAT study schedule.
To help you sit down and write out your own MCAT study schedule, we’ve developed a comprehensive guide that will help you achieve a 520+ score and get into medical school.
This guide will cover the following:
After reading through this guide, you’ll have all of the information needed to build yourself an effective study schedule that helps you achieve a high score on the MCAT.
Let’s get started!
In order to build your MCAT study schedule, you’ll want to select a test date.
This is often not an easy decision to make, so there are a few questions you should ask yourself before selecting a test date.
To assess your time, try this simple exercise.
You should aim to study for at least 300 hours for the exam. In other words, if you study for 3 months (~90 days), you should average a little over 3 hours each day.
Be sure to select your test date carefully. Your study schedule will be constructed around this date.
In general, you should spend at least 300–350 total hours studying for the MCAT, and up to 500 hours. This includes content review, taking practice tests, reviewing the practice tests, and studying what you miss. The number of hours may slightly vary based on how long it has been since you completed the courses, your major, and/or your comfort with certain topics.
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Let’s now look at the anatomy of an MCAT study schedule. You can think of an MCAT study schedule as two distinct phases.
The first phase is content heavy with a little bit of practice. This means 70% of your time should be spent studying content while 30% should be practice-based. The second phase of studying is practice-heavy with a little bit of content. During this phase, the numbers flip and you should focus on 70% practice and 30% content.
To split your study schedule into these phases, count the number of weeks you will spend studying for the exam. Are you studying for 4 weeks? 8 weeks? 12 weeks? 16 weeks?
If you are planning to spend 12 weeks studying for the exam, you should use 6 weeks for the mostly-content phase and 6 weeks for the mostly-practice phase.
12 weeks, or about 3 months, is a good standard to keep in mind when developing your MCAT study schedule. Studying 25 hours per week over the course of 12 weeks will get you to 300 hours of study time. This is the minimum amount of time that we recommend, assuming, of course, that you study wisely. This can be compressed or extended based on your schedule.
To begin building the content phase, write down the name of each chapter from your content review books in an Excel or Google Sheets page. Next, count the total number of chapters that you will need to complete. In general, most content books will have about 9–12 chapters per subject, which includes biochemistry, biology, chemistry, organic chemistry, and psychology and sociology.
If you have 12 weeks to study, aim to finish your content review in 6–8 weeks, which breaks down to between 7 and 10 chapters per week, or at least 1 chapter per day. Many students are surprised when they complete this exercise—there is a lot of content to go through!
Don’t fear, though. Not all of the content is important or high yield. For example, you are much better off spending time on biochemistry instead of physics, so you can put one biochemistry chapter on a Monday and take a deep dive into it while going more quickly through three physics chapters on Tuesday.
Here is an example of a study schedule showing a sample first 6 weeks of content mapped out:
This study schedule can be adapted for any set of MCAT prep books. Each book is shown by the color code at the top of the study schedule.
Let’s notice a few important features of this study schedule:
This content phase of the study schedule looks great! Something is missing, though. Can you guess what it is?
CARS is missing from this study schedule, and CARS will make up 1/4th of your final score. For Canadian medical schools, CARS is one of the main scores that admissions committees will look at. So, let’s adapt our study schedule to include CARS:
Now, notice that you will be completing 1–2 CARS passages per day. Make these passages count as taking passages followed by careful analysis is one of the best ways to improve your CARS score.
This is an example of a solid mostly-content phase that will set you up nicely to begin your mostly-practice phase. Let’s take a deeper look at our next phase.
You are now mapping out the second phase of your MCAT studying journey. The mostly-practice phase will be 70% practice and 30% content, and the content that you review will be chosen based on what you find yourself missing in practice. For example, if you find yourself missing optics questions, go back and review the optics books chapter or watch the optics Khan Academy videos.
To build the practice phase of our test schedule, we want to work back from test day. Remember: at a bare minimum, you should work through all of the AAMC resources at least once.
When you take MCAT practice questions during this phase, it is not enough to simply take the practice passage, skim over the answer choice explanations, and move on. Rather, you need to understand why you missed the question, write it down, and study it later on. You should approach each new full-length with new information, or you won’t see an improvement in your score.
Here’s an example of what the practice phase of the study schedule we designed earlier might look like:
As you read through this, you might wonder what MQL stands for. MQL stands for “Missed Questions Log,” and this is the personal document or excel sheet you use to track every single question you’ve missed throughout the course of your MCAT studying. The MQL should include enough information for you to get the question right the next time around.
For example, let’s say you miss the following question:
What type of enzyme is a kinase?
a) Ligase
b) Oxidoreductase
c) Transferase
d) Lyase
The answer is transferase, but let’s say you selected lyase. You should write down the definition of each answer choice that you don’t know in your MQL. Then, when it says to study the Bio/Biochem (B/B) MQL on your study guide, you will come back and memorize the definitions of these different enzyme classes.
You are better off being extremely prepared to take the exam the first time around instead of relying on retaking the MCAT. As a safety valve, however, you can book a second exam to make sure that you will still have a testing seat and can always cancel it if necessary (the AAMC has specific refund policies, though).
Admissions committees will also expect to see a strong score increase on your second exam, not a small score increase that might just be the result of you taking the test a second time. So, retaking the MCAT involves certain risks.
Let’s look at the important features of the practice-phase study schedule:
While medical school adcoms will see all of your MCAT scores, different schools will evaluate multiple scores in different ways. Some schools will consider your highest score only, while others will consider the average of every score. Still others will consider all of your scores but weigh your recent score most heavily. Schools do not often explain their methodology on their websites, but you can contact admissions committees to ask how they evaluate multiple scores.
Many students are fearful of changing their schedule after they have made it. The point of a study schedule is to guide you through the studying process—it is not law.
Refining your study schedule as you work through studying for a test like the MCAT is not only common, but it is often necessary and highly encouraged. Unexpected time commitments will inevitably arise, and you will have to shift some of your MCAT studying pieces around. Don’t be scared to do this!
It is a lot easier to shift your pieces around if you build in flexibility from the start, so don’t discount the importance of a flexibility day or a couple of flexibility weeks (instead of the days) before your test date. Flexibility days can be filled with work you didn’t get to during the week, but you should also try to use them as a time to relax, destress, and recharge for another week of MCAT studying.
Studying for the MCAT while working full time can seem like a difficult challenge. However, many students with full-time jobs manage to achieve high scores on the exam. To build a successful study schedule, there are a few key considerations to keep in mind.
One reason that studying for the MCAT while working full-time might seem daunting is the sheer amount of time it takes to read and learn all the content you will be tested on. Although you may not have the luxury of dedicating eight or ten hours a day to MCAT prep, you can achieve a significant amount of studying with smaller daily chunks of time spread out over the course of a longer study period. For instance, covering one or two hours of content every evening would allow you to prep for the MCAT on a six-month study schedule. Completing smaller tasks throughout the day, such as using flashcards to review and memorize vocabulary or listening to MCAT content while commuting, is also extremely valuable study time.
The key to making this approach to studying work is building consistency in your schedule. Studying for an hour or two every day for a few months will begin to add up. However, studying an hour or two sporadically for a few months will lead to little to no progress.
In addition to studying consistently for smaller periods of time to cover content knowledge, regularly taking full-length exams is critical. Practice exams will allow you to synthesize the content you’ve reviewed, assess your progress at points in time, and develop the stamina for an eight-hour exam.
When planning your study schedule, be sure to account for at least five full-length exams: one at the beginning of your studying and at least four in the weeks leading up to your exam. These may be best scheduled during weekends, holidays, or strategically scheduled vacation days.
Despite your best planning, emergencies and unexpected situations may arise. When we assist students with developing a custom MCAT study schedule and selecting a test date, we consider their personal and professional obligations that may end up consuming more time than expected. These might include professional review periods, family holidays and gatherings, or periods of sickness. Building an extra month or two into your study schedule would allow you to catch up on material that you may be weak in at a much less frantic pace, without neglecting your non-MCAT life.
Finally, burnout is more common among MCAT students who have layered MCAT studying onto an already full plate; prepping for the MCAT with a full-time job fits the bill. Therefore, though it may seem counterintuitive, you should take at least one day completely off from studying each week. It may seem like you’re missing an hour or two of studying in the short term, but the long-term benefits include having the time to recharge and attack the next week with newfound energy.
