MCAT

It’s funny, leaving high-school and moving on to that next step is one of the most stressful moments of an 18-year-old’s life. But at 40, you look back and reflect on your life, and some of the best moments were at that very point – 18 and scared (blank)!

If you’re 18 and moving on to college, that indeed can be stressful. It’s a whole new ballgame, new people, new material, new expectations, you name it. Now within that spectrum you then have another stress point – your major. Let’s face it, there’s easy subjects and areas to major in, and then very hard ones. For all the Art History folks out there, Art History is not comparable to Quantum Physics. Not to say you couldn’t make a great living as an Art Historian, perhaps a curator of a famous museum. But you get the point.

If the medical field is your thing, like Quantum Physics you’ve got a long road ahead. And that road at the undergraduate level starts and ends with the MCAT. Also known as the Medical College Admission Test, the MCAT is a computer-based, standardized multiple-choice test that has been front and center at the medical school admissions process for close to 100 years. If you’re moving on to medical school in the U.S. or Canada, take a wild guess on what you can’t avoid – the MCAT.

MCAT content is divided into four principal sections: Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems; Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems; Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior; Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills. The test is administered from late January to early September and studying for this bad boy is crucial. Before you choose a date to take the exam it is important to consider the likelihood (unfortunately it’s high) that you’ll need to retake the exam at some point in time. Most people do not shoot the first time, hit their high score, and walk off as if they were Michael Jordan having just taken down the Utah Jazz for the 16th time in his career. Rather, you are (name any average athlete) who fails the first time, perhaps a second or even third, but by the time that high score is hit you’ve put in some key repetitions and learned from your mistakes.

There is a cost to take the MCAT and the governing body behind the exam has publicly stated that they do not want cost to prohibit otherwise excellent candidates from taking the test. As such a fee assistance program is in place for students who without financial assistance would normally not be able to take the exam. The knowledge and skills tested on the exam come from courses such as biology, psychology, chemistry, organic chemistry and biochemistry. The best place to start is doing a cursory search online of the best test prep providers. There are plenty, and most are accredited and respected.

Good luck, it’s a wide world out there post-medical school, you just need to buckle down for close to a decade to get there.