It's safe to say medical school is a costly investment. Tuition and fees can reach as high as $60,000 or more per year. Prospective students' wallets often take a hit from simply preparing for the medical school entrance exam: Test prep companies often charge more than $2,000 for their standard general MCAT prep course. Plus, premeds who want one-on-one comprehensive MCAT tutoring or especially rigorous MCAT courses tend to pay higher prices than those who are satisfied with a traditional MCAT prep class.

"Commercial prep courses are very expensive," says Dr. Lynne Holden, a professor of emergency medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the president of Mentoring in Medicine, a nonprofit organization that helps disadvantaged youth and adults become health care professionals.

Holden suggests that cost-conscious premeds seek out free and low-cost test prep resources, such as online test prep materials and informal study groups with peers. But she says it's important for premeds to continuously assess whether the study methods they use are effective ones and for them to shift gears if they are not finding success. "If you join a study group, and you find that it's not effective, get out immediately and regroup," she says.

Free or Low-Cost MCAT Prep Courses and Resources

Recognizing that many medical school hopefuls have limited finances, the Association of American Medical Colleges offers an abundance of free MCAT test prep materials, including a free guide on how to create an MCAT study plan, plus free video tutorials offered in partnership with Khan Academy, a nonprofit digital education provider. In addition, the AAMC website includes public testimonials from medical students who describe their MCAT experience and explain the test prep strategies they used.

"The AAMC believes that the cost of applying to medical school should never be a barrier or deter aspiring physicians," Karen Mitchell, the senior director of admissions testing service with the AAMC, wrote in an email. She adds that the AAMC offers a fee assistance program to help individuals who would struggle to afford the cost of taking the MCAT and applying to medical school without financial aid.

People who qualify for this program receive the AAMC's MCAT Official Prep products that ordinarily cost money for free, and they also get other benefits, such as reduced MCAT test registration fees.

Brian Galvin, the chief academic officer at Varsity Tutors, an online education firm that offers test prep classes, advises premeds with limited budgets to figure out which areas of the MCAT they need to prep for the most.

"Only pay for what you need!" Galvin wrote in an email. "The MCAT is designed to primarily test concepts already learned. Take a few practice tests and review some content before rushing to spend time and money on expensive classes. At Varsity Tutors we're thrilled when students can come to us with a large percentage of the test already figured out and a narrow section for further expert guidance."

Dr. Ryan Gray, the publisher and CEO of Meded Media, a company that provides information and advice to med school hopefuls, says premeds who qualify for AAMC fee waivers may be eligible for hefty discounts from commercial test prep companies.

Gray, whose media outlet produces two free weekly podcasts about the MCAT exam, adds that prospective medical students may be able to obtain used MCAT prep books from someone who has already taken the MCAT. Premeds could also borrow test prep books from their academic advisors or their local libraries, Gray suggests. He adds that students who are going to purchase test prep books should realize that they don't need to purchase all of the various types of MCAT test prep books.

"Just buy one set," he says. "You don't need every set of books out there. They'll all cover the material well enough for you."

Gray notes that many test prep firms provide free daily emails analyzing an MCAT question of the day, which can be a great way to get free advice from test prep experts. Ultimately, he says, it's important for premeds to personalize their test prep approach based on their unique needs.

"Don't try to just copy what somebody else did and force that into your life, because your schedule may be different (or) your study habits may be different," he says.

Medical school hopefuls who are taking the MCAT have a number of cost-efficient test prep resources to choose from. Here are a few resources recommended by health care professionals.

Dr. James Flowers has been helping students prepare for the MCAT since the early 1970s and spent his fourth year at Harvard University's medical school writing an MCAT test preparation book. Flowers, who is a practicing physician, is currently revamping his MCAT curriculum and plans to release a new version of his test prep course in June 2020, but he says he intends to set the price for the new course around $500 or $700 or perhaps even less for a six-month program. Flowers says six months is the amount of time that is typically necessary for premeds to prepare for the MCAT if they haven't had an ideal premed educational experience. "It's going to be adjustable for those who think they can do it in less time," he adds. Flowers says he wants the price for the MCAT course to be as low as possible so that it is affordable.

"I couldn't even really afford to take the test when I was a student," says Flowers, who grew up on welfare. He now practices as a general internist outside of Las Vegas. "I'd be a little sick if I wanted to make people pay through their noses now."

Flowers notes that his course is designed to help aspiring doctors overcome deficits in their undergraduate education if their premed curriculum was lacking in some important way. "Most of these preps are not adequate for what is really needed, especially for students (who) have not had the best opportunities and the best preparation," he says. "These students are not going to be able to prepare in a month or two months."

In addition to offering free prep materials for the MCAT, the Association of American Medical Colleges also sells various products, such as flashcards, question sets, full-length practice exams, plus its print textbook "The Official Guide to the MCAT: Fifth Edition." Premeds can buy a bundle with all the AAMC's print and online test prep products on the AAMC website.

Gray advises anyone who plans to take the MCAT to take a look at the AAMC's official prep materials. "Those are the people who write the test, and so getting practice tests from people who wrote the real test is always going to be the gold standard," he says.

MOOCs

Massive Online Open Courses are online classes that are essentially open to the public. "(Students) can go in and sign up for a biology course or a chemistry course or a physics course. And there's no cost," Mitchell says.

Coursera and EdX are two of the more popular MOOC providers. The sites offer classes through a number of universities, such as the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill, Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown University.

No matter what resource a student chooses for studying, Holden encourages aspiring doctors to place studying for the MCAT at the top of their priority list.

"You have to learn the language of the MCAT," she says. "You have to devote time to it."

Flowers agrees and warns that the MCAT is a rigorous exam which demands both content knowledge and critical thinking skills. Some MCAT questions require students to apply knowledge from two or more academic disciplines in order to discover the right answer, Flowers explains. To derive the solution to a single MCAT problem, a test-taker may need to use concepts from two scientific fields, such as biology and physics, he adds. Plus the MCAT tests a person's understanding of multiple subjects, including biochemistry, psychology and social sciences, Flowers notes.

"It's a difficult test," he says. "Don't underestimate it."