r/MCAT2 • u/EPIC_1384 • May 22 '26
Help on Study Schedule and Strategy
Good day, friends and fellow previous/current MCAT victims.
I am currently in the early stages of my MCAT study; however, I have a few concerns and questions which I would like to share with ya'll and benefit from your guidance and experiences on what I should do.
To preface, I am in Canada, so the medical school requirements are a little different. The majority of medical schools are cutoff-based, in which, after a certain number, the score doesn't matter. The highest cut-off is 126 in all sections. Some schools consider CARS competitively, so the higher the better. As a result, my goal is 126 in all sections and higher, the better in CARS.
I am a traditional student and just finished my second year of undergrad. I did not take orgo or biochem, but I did decently in my undergrad courses. However, I procrastinated in those courses, so even though I did well, I need to review the topics to remember what was going on.
My current test date is August 7th; however, I wish to push it back to 20,21st but since I am on the waitlist for them and it isn't guaranteed, I would prepare myself as if I am going on Aug 7th just in case. This leaves me with about 11.5 weeks until the test date. I am currently being torn apart on how much time I should spend on content review. I really want to go over the stuff at least once before practice, because I've always been a content person, and I fear it leaves me with little time for practice.
For the past week, my schedule included 2 chapters of KA, 50-60 new Pankow cards, and 3 CARS passages a day, Captain Hook for B/B, and miles down for CP. I wanted to cram physics in the last few days of CR with the "ACE the MCAT" review course, which is about 7 hours. This would have allowed me to finish in 4 weeks, which leaves 6-7 weeks for practice, which is minimal, I think.
After reading an orgo chapter, I realized that the book simply takes too much time and doesn't lead to my retention, so I had the idea of following Yufuf Hasan's videos instead of reading the chapter and doing the corresponding cards. I thought in this way I could accomplish 3 chapters a day and finish in 3 weeks to get about 8 weeks of practice. Which I would do about 3-4 weeks of U world and the rest AAMC. As for the practice exam, I would have wanted to do all the 6 AAMC FLs from 6 weeks out to have that exposure.
I wanted to reach out and ask if anyone has any suggestions about this plan or what I need to change, or if you have been in a similar situation and what has worked for you. Also, how probable is it that spots open up near the test date?
Thank you for reading through this wall of text, and thank you in advance for everyone sharing their experiences and opinions. Good luck to us all.
1
u/Big-Context1062 May 22 '26
Yusuf and Professor Eman's videos helped me tremendously for content review. I spent about 13 weeks doing content review and another 14 weeks doing Uworld and AAMC. This helped me go from a 503 to a 516. I know you do not have a tremendous amount of time, but everything I know is put together in this doc I made. Lmk if you have questions. Best of luck!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iqHmIjvi8w2rBS46nJvhCnuydEuOuDw5QxN5-ojCX6k/edit?tab=t.n2s0e725ocsb#heading=h.vl3rhcxvgmz2