The Flaws of the Kaplan Prep Process 

The Negatives About Taking a Kaplan Course 

For some students, Kaplan will just not be helpful.  Kaplan does a great job explaining topics in a simplified version so you can ascertain the "big picture" of what you are trying to solve but unfortunately, that may not be good enough for a lot of people when it comes to studying.  Many, myself included, prefer a resource that can cover material very in-depth and fully so you have a much deeper understanding of the material rather than a few bullet points.  Kaplan does not provide you with such a resource and many who have used Kaplan also must purchase another MCAT review series like ExamKrackers in order to visualize this entire picture.  Kaplan is notorious for this in most of their study aids and I ran into this problem a few times in Medical School as well.  It is good to provide you with a few interesting facts to consider to know something about the disease, but in real Medicine, a disease is never just two or three small bullet points that you must remember, it is about 2-3 pages of material usually.  

Kaplan is also a very expensive course to take to help you with reviewing.  With the In-Class course costing $2399,  that is a steep price considering most college students are scraping by with the dwindling scholarship money in their accounts and probably a future huge medical school debt. True, at times there are discounts that you can find to reduce the cost a little but you will always be in the neighborhood of around $2,000 so it is a costly venture. 

Another possible negative that I found annoying at times when I completed my course was the fact that you are in a classroom setting and may have mastered something already that a colleague is hung-up on.  I remember a few times where we had a student who was not entirely comfortable with English so as our tutor would explain the material, the student would ask him to repeat it a few different ways in order to fully comprehend what the tutor was trying to convey.  This can get very annoying if you are paying for a course and get hung up on some of the basic points.  Thankfully enough, our tutor was able to pick up on the frustration in the classroom and asked the student to attend private one-on-one tutoring sessions after the class to prevent the class from missing their deadlines.  

My Recommendation: 

I took Kaplan myself and I believe that it helped me score highly on the MCAT so I wholeheartedly recommend it to all of you on the fence about buying this resource.  The material covers exactly what you need to know for the exam and the tutors are very strong so you will be able to ask about anything and they will give you a very good idea of how to interpret the material in a different manner.  Some may question the cost of Kaplan or think that it is a lot of money for a few points extra on the MCAT but when 85% of your peers are using these centers, those extra points can determining you receiving 10 invitations to interview compared to 0.  Self-studying is commendable but if you choose not to utilize any of Kaplan's practice questions or mock exams, you may regret that decision once the MCAT scores are reported.  Medical School is expensive and the costs for licensing exams is on the borderline of fraud in my opinion but you want to do everything in your power to have the best chance to pass the MCAT to get into Medical School.