• Register as early as possible since test centers fill up, and register for the exam you’re mostly likely to take. If you must change your date later, you’ll be able to do so for a fee.   
• If you might be eligible for the AAMC Fee Assistance Program, apply for that ASAP so that you can use the benefits to reduce the cost of
• Use the AAMC “How to Create a Study Plan” to gauge how much time you might need to prepare.
• Consider what else is on your plate: exams, deadlines, etc.
• If you’re hoping to take the exam as late as possible while still knowing your score before submitting your application, aim for early May (see FAQ on “Why Apply Early” for rationale). 
• If you’re a junior taking one or two glide years, the most common time to take the exam is August after junior year.
• There are more pros and cons for various test dates on our MCAT Guide on our website.

If you go into the MCAT exam registration system, you can enter an exam date and state, and you will see your options for test sites. You can click on any of these options to find out the directions and driving times, as well as any public transportation available. Different test sites may be available on different dates. 

Princeton and Piscataway are the closest options to campus.

Generally speaking, it’s best to take the MCAT as close to the time you completed the required coursework as possible. the longer you wait, the more your knowledge of the subjects may fade. 

When is too late? If you want to know your score before submitting your application, take it by mid-May. If you're okay with submitting your application before knowing your score, then late June/early July is okay. Taking it any later than that may delay your consideration by your schools, which is detrimental in a process where there are a limited number of interviews and seats. 

When is too early? Good question! Likely reasons it’s too early are, a) you haven’t taken the required courses, b) you haven’t adequately prepared, including taking enough full-length practice tests that you're consistently scoring around your target score (for most students, this means at least 6-8 tests), or c) your score will expire before you pursue all of the things you’d like to do between college and medical school. As for that last reason, it’s important to remember that MCAT scores are good for three years at most medical schools, meaning that an MCAT from 2021 would be good for anyone matriculating in 2024 or earlier.

There is definitely no requirement to think about the MCAT yet! The earliest you’d be taking it is the summer after sophomore year (and only a small handful of students take it that early) -- the most common time to take it is the summer after junior year. But, we know that some students just feel more secure knowing some basics about the exam. If this is the case for you, here are some resources to use:

• HPA’s MCAT Basics Guide.
• The AAMC, the organization that administers the MCAT, has a content outline that includes every topic that will be tested.
• Khan Academy has partnered with the AAMC to produce free MCAT study materials: you could use their resources to read a sample passage from the CARS (Verbal Reasoning) section, or do a couple of Chemistry questions on materials that you’ve learned in Gen Chem.
• Read some advice from premeds on when and how they studied for the MCAT to get a sense of the timing and strategy.

If you’ve taken the required courses (including Biochemistry), feel very focused on and motivated for medicine based on concrete experience, and feel ready to tackle the process of studying for the MCAT, we do have a few sophomores every year who take the exam successfully. A few words of advice:

• Don’t just do MCAT. MCAT prep doesn’t need to be a full-time job. If you study a few hours a day and take practice tests on weekends, you’ll be well-prepared. If you’re applying after junior year, this is the last summer that you have to continue to gain experiences outside of the academic year that will inform your future plans. We can brainstorm possible areas to enhance and ways you might do that part-time alongside studying.
• MCAT scores expire for many schools after three years, so an MCAT from summer 2022 will be good to apply through fall 2025 matriculation. If you find an amazing two-year post-grad opportunity, like a Rhodes Fellowship or a research position, you would have to retake the test.
• Don’t rush the process. Take a half-length diagnostic early on and see how it feels. Are you really feeling ready for this? If so, excellent – keep moving forward. If at any point you don’t feel that you’ll do as well as you’d like for your schools of interest, don’t be afraid to change your timeline. Trying to do things just to do them is not a good excuse for poor performance. If it does work out, it’ll be nice to have that piece of preparation behind you so that you can focus on the next things!

This is a very case-by-case situation, so please don’t hesitate to be in touch. We can connect you with students who have taken the MCAT so you can learn more about what it’s like from them, and help you gauge your own candidacy, readiness, target scores, and potential for success via a conversation.

To have the best chance of receiving interviews and acceptances, you want schools to have all of your materials (i.e., your primary application, secondary, MCAT score, and HPA committee letter + individual letters) by late July or early August. That's when interview invitations start to go out, so you'll have the most opportunities to receive one. About 60% of the interview invites that our applicants receive are between August and October.

For your application to be complete by late July, you should submit your transcripts and your primary application (AMCAS for MD programs, AACOMAS for DO programs) by early June. It can take up to eight weeks for the application to be processed. 

It takes about a month to receive your MCAT score after you take the exam.

If it's important to you to know your MCAT score prior to submitting your application, and you want to submit your application by early June, that means you should take your MCAT by early May.

If you're comfortable submitting your application without knowing your score, you could submit your application in early June and take the MCAT in late June / early July. Your score will arrive a month later, which is still in that late July / early August window.

To apply direct entry, you prepare throughout junior year and apply in June after junior year. Senior year is your interview year. See overview timeline for more details.

If it's important to you to know your MCAT score prior to submitting your application, and you want to submit your application by early June, that means you should take your MCAT by early May of your junior year.

If you're comfortable submitting your application without knowing your score, you could submit your application in early June and take the MCAT in late June / early July. Your score will arrive a month later, which is still in that late July / early August window.

The question above walks you through the rationale behind this advice.

To apply with one glide year, you prepare throughout senior year and apply in June after senior year. Your glide year is your interview year. See overview timeline for more details.

If it's important to you to know your MCAT score prior to submitting your application, and you want to submit your application by early June, that means you should take your MCAT by early May of your senior year (see above question for the rationale behind this).

Seniors who try to take the MCAT in May often struggle to manage senior thesis, preparing for their glide year job, general burnout, the pull of wanting to spend time with friends before everyone graduates, and other priorities. This is why many of our glide year students decide to take the MCAT earlier than May--often in the summer between junior and senior year or in January before the spring term begins. This is also why some applicants decide to take two glide years--they can then focus on the MCAT after graduation, either during the summer or when they're established in their postgraduate location and life.

In recent years, about 23% of Princeton applicants were early assurance or direct entry candidates; 24% took one glide year; 28% took two glide years; 25% took three or more years between graduation and medical school matriculation. Additional data can be found on our website.

The MCAT is not like the SAT where you may be advised to take it multiple times. You should strive to take the MCAT once. It is a difficult, stressful, expensive experience to take the exam and you're better served by studying well once and moving on to other activities that will improve your application than having to study twice. There is also a lot of psychological pressure that comes with taking the exam and the stress of going into a second administration may negatively affect your performance. We rarely see students' scores improving significantly.

Take many full-length practice tests under conditions as close as you can come to the "real thing" (e.g., same time of day, quiet location).  

Medical school will see all scores from all test administrations. Taking it well before you're ready can lead them to question your judgment. Taking it more than once could lead them to wonder which is a more accurate reflection of your ability.

Most schools will accept a score taken within three years of expected matriculation. If you are applying for 2025 matriculation, your MCAT can be as old as 2022.

A fair number of schools will accept a score that's four years old. A small minority will only accept a score within three years of the exact date of matriculation (e.g., a September 2022 MCAT for September 2025 matriculation). 

School-by-school information for the current application cycle can be found in the AAMC MSAR reports.

Choice of test date is spread across the calendar for Princeton applicants. Over the past three years, August has been the most popular, and March and July the least. We expect that January will become more popular now that finals are in December (which started in 2020-21). About 20% of our entering med students this year took the January 2021 exam. We’ve listed some pros and cons of different dates on our MCAT handout that’s posted on our website.
 
Whether or not you have enough time will depend on your other commitments between now and January, and how much time you need to achieve the scores you’re aiming for. Past applicants have estimated 250-500 hours of studying, including numerous full-length practice tests, which take a full day each. Use our MCAT panel notes and recordings, use the AAMC “creating a study plan” guide, and map study hours on to your other responsibilities to gauge how realistic a January date is for you. We hope to host an MCAT panel this fall with some January test takers who will share their advice.

Looking at our data from the past three years, we have significantly fewer examinees who take the exam during the semester than we do who take it in January, August, or September. Our average examinee score is highest in January (515.5) and lowest in May (511.4). January has been our most popular month (28% of examinees) and August testers achieve the largest ratio of very high scores (28% achieved a 520+). Trying to manage MCAT during the semester is definitely challenging. If you’re planning to apply this year and need to rethink your MCAT strategy, please come meet with us to talk it through!

That being said, we have seen examinees reach high scores across all of the exam months, plus you certainly don’t have to have a 520+ MCAT to get into medical school—the exam is just one of many data points. Among our committee letter applicants this year, 30% of the accepted applicants took an MCAT in April, May, or June 2023. Our accepted applicants’ scores range from 507 to 526, and there’s still plenty of time for waitlisted applicants to gain an admission offer.

It’s very normal to be worried that you haven’t adequately prepared. There’s so much content you won’t feel like you know all of it. A lot of it comes down to self-assessment and feeling confident that you’re giving yourself your best shot to achieve the score you’re aiming for. Here are some factors:

• Have you taken an ample number of full-length practice tests? Our applicants report taking six to more than fifteen full-lengths to simulate the real thing (in terms of stamina and scores).
• As you take practice tests, can you sense how you’re doing? Being able to gauge whether you’re doing well or not can help you decide whether you should go back to questions at the end to double-check, or even void the test once you’re done.
• Do your official AAMC practice test scores reflect how you hope to do on the exam? These are usually the most reliable practice tests, so we recommend taking one or two toward the end of your study regime.
• Are your stress management techniques in a good place? You will feel some anxiety on test day, so be sure you’ve practiced techniques that will help you reduce that anxiety.

Don’t take the test if you feel unready but you “have to” take it now based on external factors (family, timeline, finances). Every score for every test you take will be shared with medical schools, so take the exam when you’re confident and on your terms.

For more advice from students, see HPA MCAT Panels and AAMC student spotlights.

You can watch the whole webinar recording here! It's hard to capture all of the great advice, but some high-level takeaways:

• Think about how you study: are you self-motivated or do you need external structure? What rewards will keep you going? What worked for you when you studied for SAT/ACT? Knowing yourself is key to creating your study plan.
• Don't let third-party practice test scores intimidate you - they tend to be lower than the AAMC practice tests and not as realistic to panelists' experiences with the test.
• Emulate real test conditions when you take your practice tests. Wear your earplugs, set the screen resolution to mimic test center computers, do jumping jacks before you start to simulate the adrenaline rush of the real thing, start at the time you would start, etc.  
• Make some of your own flashcards based on questions you get wrong in practice to supplement the decks you can find online. 
• Carefully go over what you get right and what you get wrong on practice tests so you can gauge gaps in content knowledge, strategy, concentration, or other areas to address as you continue studying.

This sounds a little excessive, and it could easily lead to burnout or studying inefficiently. As a Princeton student, you've probably noticed that you need to be a certain amount of busy to use your time productively. As a Princeton student, your academic preparation for MCAT is also already much more comprehensive than it is for many other premeds given the rigor of our courses.

On average nationally, students study for about 12 weeks for about 20 hours per week. Of course, you should give yourself permission to take some time to relax and be unproductive so that you can come back refreshed for next year, but you could definitely layer in other summer activities. 

Think about activities that may keep you energized during your study time and/or think about areas of your candidacy that you might want to enhance before you apply: 

• For many premeds, community service is something that brings them satisfaction, which will also demonstrate service orientation and commitment to others to medical schools.
• Consider hospital volunteering, service projects with a population that you're interested in serving ... maybe free tutoring for students from under-served backgrounds, which will help others and could help you reinforce MCAT content.
• Shadowing also requires a relatively low time commitment (much of the work is in locating individuals to shadow and setting it up), plus seeing doctors at work can help you keep the whole reason you're taking the MCAT in mind. Tips about shadowing are available on our website.

• On average nationally, students study for about 12 weeks for about 20 hours per week. You should be spending at least a couple of hours per day during the week, with more concentrated time on the weekends.
• The AAMC – the official test administrators – offer their guidance on how to create a study plan, as do many companies (Student Doctor Network, Kaplan, to name a few): read through their suggestions, then create a plan that works for you.
• Content review is important, but practice is critical.
  • You have to adjust to an online test with time constraints, and build your endurance for such a long test day.
  • Most of our students take at least 6-8 full-length practice tests. A practice test takes 7.5 hours and reviewing the exam will take at least a few hours.
  • Reviewing the exam is critical: you need to understand what you got right and wrong, why you got things right and wrong, and then adjust your study and test strategies accordingly.
  • You should invest in the official AAMC practice exams and supplement with additional resources (some students just use free exams that are offered from time to time by prep companies;
  • Blueprint has been popular for realistic practice exams recently, and we list numerous other resources on our website)

This is not an exam that you can cram for and it is important enough that you should not rush to take it before you’re ready. To learn more from students who have taken the exam, we offer an MCAT panel every year - keep an eye out for it!

You can watch a recorded version or go through the slides posted on our website! We introduce a five-step process that’ll help you prepare to create the plan: 

1. learn about the exam via the HPA MCAT Guide, AAMC website information, talking to others
2. assess your current knowledge by taking a practice test and reading through the content outline to see what topics you’ve studied
3. choose your resources with advice from friends and comparison shopping from resources at HPA
4. consider how much time you have by jotting down the hours per week you can commit between now and your test date (anticipate 300-500 hours of content plus practice) create the plan taking inspiration from examples presented in the workshop

It’s very normal to be worried that you haven’t adequately prepared. There’s so much content you probably won’t feel like you know all of it, but your practice tests will hopefully help you gauge how things are likely to go at the real exam. In our MCAT panels, students have reported on scoring similarly to AAMC practice tests that they took toward the end of their preparation. By this time, you should have taken multiple full-length exams to build stamina and familiarity with the format and question types. When you do post-test analysis, you should have a sense of what you’re getting right and wrong.
 
If your scores and post-test analysis show erratic results, or if you just don’t feel like you’ve done enough practice (maybe you spent too much time on content review and not enough on question banks and full-length tests), that may be a sign to postpone until later. And if your score isn’t in the range of your schools of interest (use MSAR, school websites, and HPA data to get a sense of those ranges), that may mean you need more time.
 
For more advice from students, see HPA MCAT Panels and AAMC student spotlights.

Not at all! You have the requisite knowledge, and you'll refresh that knowledge as you prepare for the MCAT. The classes at Princeton aren't necessarily aligned with MCAT prep, so it's more efficient to study from prep materials for those courses where you already have some background knowledge (for others, like Biochem, the classroom background knowledge will definitely be beneficial, though). 

Prepare well, read the prep material carefully, and take full-length practice tests until you feel confident that your scores are aligned with your goals.

PSY 101 is going to cover more of the topics on the MCAT than others, but it is also a larger time commitment since it has the lab component. Topics in Psychopathology (PSY 258), Social Psychology (PSY 207), as well as NEU 201, SOC 101, and others, will be covered on the MCAT. Any of these classes will provide you with some context in which to study the rest of the psyc/soc content on your own.

For more detail about the topics covered on the MCAT, look at the content outline available online. For those students who don't have room in their schedules for PSY/SOC courses, there are plenty of self-study prep options or MCAT courses that will cover what you need.

We have seen it happen for the occasional student, but more frequently it doesn’t work out as well as they hoped. They end up spending a lot of time trying to make up for the lack of classroom knowledge that could have been better used toward gaining experience or developing competencies.

We think it’s a more efficient use of time to do something else that’s relevant to your medical school preparation for the summer, brushing up on your earlier science content knowledge, and starting to prepare for the CARS (critical analysis and reading) section. You can then take the MCAT in January after you’ve taken Biochem.

If you qualify for the AAMC Fee Assistance Program, many expenses are subsidized, including cost of the MCAT. You can also save some money just by registering for the test in a timely manner – registration is less expensive, and more refunds are offered for rescheduling/cancellation if you register a month or more prior to the exam.

Whenever test prep companies offer free exams or other free/discounted opportunities, we post them in Vitals, so be sure to take advantage of those. While HPA does not endorse one test prep company over others, we do share their offers with you so that you can evaluate them for yourself.

We have a borrowing library of MCAT study materials donated by students and prep companies, which you’re welcome to borrow for two weeks at a time. You can also try contacting local test prep company representatives – they sometimes hire student workers and offer a free course in return. 

Some of our student organizations sometimes receive offers from test prep companies – join their groups and mailing lists for more information. If you plan to enroll in a postbac program to continue to enhance your preparation for medical school, many programs include in-house MCAT prep, so take that into consideration as you evaluate programs.

The AAMC has partnered with Khan Academy to provide free content prep and review questions. The AAMC also provides a number of lower-cost prep materials, including a full-length practice test, the Official Guide, which includes 120 practice questions, and the MCAT Question Pack Bundle, which includes 720 practice questions.

That said, if you start working through test prep materials and feel that you really need a course to stay on track, gain access to additional materials, and feel confident in your preparation, this may be a place where you make the financial investment now in order to reach your goal of becoming a physician. The MCAT is a high-stakes exam – best not to cut corners too much in your preparation.

If you qualify for the AAMC Fee Assistance Program, many expenses are subsidized, including cost of the MCAT. You can also save some money just by registering for the test in a timely manner – registration is less expensive, and more refunds are offered for rescheduling/cancellation if you register a month or more prior to the exam.

Whenever test prep companies offer free exams or other free/discounted opportunities, we post them in Vitals, so be sure to take advantage of those. While HPA does not endorse one test prep company over others, we do share their offers with you so that you can evaluate them for yourself.

We have a borrowing library of MCAT study materials donated by students and prep companies, which you’re welcome to borrow for two weeks at a time. You can also try contacting local test prep company representatives – they sometimes hire student workers and offer a free course in return. 

Some of our student organizations sometimes receive offers from test prep companies – join their groups and mailing lists for more information. If you plan to enroll in a postbac program to continue to enhance your preparation for medical school, many programs include in-house MCAT prep, so take that into consideration as you evaluate programs.

The AAMC has partnered with Khan Academy to provide free content prep and review questions. The AAMC also provides a number of lower-cost prep materials, including a full-length practice test, the Official Guide, which includes 120 practice questions, and the MCAT Question Pack Bundle, which includes 720 practice questions.

That said, if you start working through test prep materials and feel that you really need a course to stay on track, gain access to additional materials, and feel confident in your preparation, this may be a place where you make the financial investment now in order to reach your goal of becoming a physician. The MCAT is a high-stakes exam – best not to cut corners too much in your preparation.

In essence, the two companies provide you with the same chance to review materials and practice enduring a long standardized test. The real benefit of doing a prep course for the MCAT is the structure with which you're forced to work through the content and take full-length, timed practice tests. Test drive their materials (you can access copies of their books in our HPA library) and talk with friends who have taken the MCAT about their experiences. If you have friends who are taking the MCAT this summer, you may want to coordinate so that you have accountability partners taking the same class as you are.

We at HPA don’t recommend one prep method over another – it’s best to do some research on the various options and decide what’s best for you. Anecdotally, about half of our applicants take a prep class and the other half do self-study – the key seems to be lots of practice exams (including the official AAMC tests) to gain familiarity with the computer-based format, with time spent analyzing what you got right and wrong, then adjusting your study based on your performance on the practice exams.

That said, in addition to Princeton Review and Kaplan, here are some links to other test prep services that other students have recommended listed on our standardized tests web page.

Keep in mind that medical school admissions overall is holistic and MCAT is just one of many components that schools will take into account. That said, the great majority of scores for accepted applicants from Princeton over the past few years fell between ~511 to ~524 (with a median of around 517/518). We would be happy to talk with you about your academic metrics, experiences, and other aspects of your candidacy more holistically! 

The easiest way to see how your MCAT score aligns with your schools of interest is to subscribe to the MSAR (a subscription is included with the Fee Assistance Program benefits for students from low-income backgrounds; you can also log in for free at HPA). To gauge your academic readiness for medical school, admissions committees will consider multiple factors including GPA, GPA trends, course choices, MCAT score, and academic letters of recommendation. Try to think of your academic readiness more holistically—it’s more than just an MCAT score.
 
There are many questions to ask yourself as you assess if and when to retake the MCAT:

• How did you prepare for the exam? How much time, what resources?
• How many practice tests did you take? How well did your score align with your practice tests?  
• What’s the risk that your score would go down in some sections?
• Would the time you’d need to dedicate to a retake detract significantly from developing other aspects of your candidacy that may need more enhancement than your MCAT?
• Are you mentally burned out after studying the first time?
• How important is it to attend a “top school” versus become a doctor?

We can work with you on these questions and more, and help you determine a new test date if you do decide to retake. The good news is that you have a lot of time between now and application submission in June to decide whether to retake and manage a retake if you have to.

It varies by school. Some schools will consider the most recent scores only,  a few will average the scores, and others will take the highest score from each section; a majority of schools choose to take your most recent or highest scores into consideration. However, ALL scores are seen by admissions personnel.

There are a number of factors we'd want to chat with you about: How low was it? Which section? How did your preparation for that section go? How did the score align with your practice tests? Were there other factors at play in your test performance? What other evidence do you have of ability in that content area? What schools are you aiming for? What are the chances that you could bring it up on your current application timeline? How flexible are you about changing that timeline?

Use the AAMC Medical School Admissions Requirements (MSAR) to try to gauge your competitiveness at schools of interest--you want your GPA and MCAT to fall within the range of applicants that they've accepted in the past, and MSAR is the place to access this information. We can provide additional Princeton-specific information in a meeting. Ultimately, there is always a risk in retaking and scoring the same or lower. There's also significant opportunity cost--those hundreds of hours spent restudying may be better invested in volunteering, shadowing, classes, or other aspects of your application. We're happy to provide guidance based on your specific situation!

Determining whether your academic metrics are competitive for medical schools is dependent on a lot of factors: what courses you took; what the trajectory looked like (did you have a hard first year and then improve over time?); what medical schools you’re aiming for; how strong your academic letters of recommendation will be, especially in the sciences; and the strengths of other aspects of your candidacy, among other factors. A junior with a lower GPA, for instance, would almost always be better off waiting to strengthen other aspects of their candidacy so that their academic metrics had time to improve, they’d have stronger letters (from thesis, for example), and they’d have more experiences as part of their portfolio before applying. A student who has taken two glide years who showed academic improvement and who has done amazing humanitarian, clinical, or research work (with strong letters to go along with them) has more of these other strengths that may help to offset GPA to a degree.

We talk with students all the time about the strength of their candidacies and we’re happy to do so with you, but if you just want some numbers, the MCAT/GPA grid published by the AAMC will give you some data to use as a guide. For example, in the 2018-2020 application cycles, it shows that among students with a GPA of 3.0-3.1, about 17% were accepted, regardless of MCAT; about 81% of students with a 517 or greater MCAT were accepted regardless of GPA.

There are other "AAMC FACTS tables" that will give you additional data, including the MCAT/GPA averages by race/ethnicity and MCAT/GPA averages by state of residence. Accepted Princeton students tend to have a lower GPA and higher MCAT relative to national averages, but averages are just averages: there's a wide range of accepted GPAs and MCATs and many other factors come into play! In addition to academic metrics, medical schools place a high value on community service, physician shadowing, clinical experience, leadership, and performance in the interview when selecting students (see this report for more information). In addition to studying for the MCAT and classes, give yourself time to engage in enriching co-curricular experiences.

HPA has additional data that we share with students available in our office and on our website under Admissions Statistics.

With any potential ‘red flag’ in your application portfolio, we can help you brainstorm ways to mitigate it. With every admissions factor, data can be triangulated from many sources. If you had a low bio MCAT subscore, for example, think of other parts of your application that show your readiness for the biomedical science curriculum. If your MOL, NEU, and EEB grades were strong, your classroom performance is helping to make that case. A strong letter of recommendation from a biology professor can help, as could working in a basic/translational science lab, tutoring others in biology, taking more classes, etc. We can also share information and context in our committee letter of recommendation.

In some cases, it may make sense to seriously consider a retake. This will depend on factors like how low your score was; which section; how the score aligns with your practice tests; what schools you’re aiming for; and many other factors. But retaking is not a decision to take lightly and rushing into a retake can cause more harm than good, so please schedule a time to meet so we can talk it through!