Award-Winning MCAT Courses & Classes in Houston, TX

If you're applying to medical schools, you may be overwhelmed by the prospect of preparing for the MCAT. A Houston MCAT prep course provided by Varsity Tutors you can find direction and support. The MCAT, or Medical College Admission Test, is required by almost all American medical schools, including local institutions like the University of Texas Medical School at Houston and Baylor College of Medicine. The test covers a wide set of subjects, including chemistry, biochemistry, biology, physics, psychology, and sociology, and will also test your general critical thinking and analysis skills. The MCAT is quite long, clocking in at 7.5 hours including breaks, and with such a range of topics to review it can be easy to feel intimidated and difficult to know where to start when it comes to preparing yourself for test day. Regardless of where you find yourself in your test prep, a Houston MCAT course can be a powerful tool in getting ready to do your best on the MCAT.

A Houston MCAT course is provided in a live, interactive online classroom, where you'll see and speak with your instructor and other students just as if you were sitting around a table together. An online course of this sort has some serious advantages for anyone getting ready to apply to medical schools. As a student going into the medical field, you may be swamped with coursework, and adding MCAT preparation to your existing load may seem difficult. However, an online course means very flexible scheduling and zero time spent commuting, so you can find a class that's right for you, and that meets you where you are. Fresh course sections start each week, so there's always a new section waiting for you and getting signed up is simple. A lot can ride on your MCAT score, so having easy access to support can be very valuable to students.

What will a Houston MCAT class help me review?

The MCAT is a timed, multiple-choice, computer-based test that is split up into four separate sections. These sections will test you on your knowledge of the physical sciences in a medical context, as well as testing you on social and cultural factors that are relevant to medical practice. Let's take a short look at the specifics of each section, and what a Houston MCAT class will cover.

First off, the Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems section will test you on your knowledge of biology, chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, and physics. You'll be applying this knowledge to questions that focus on the organ systems and tissues in the human body, and will have to demonstrate your understanding of the physical and chemical factors that underlie the operation of these systems. This section will ask you to answer 59 questions in 95 minutes.

Second, the Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills section. On this section of the MCAT, you'll be provided with 9 passages to read, and asked a set of questions about each passage. The passages will cover various topics in the social sciences and humanities, but you do not necessarily have to have any knowledge about these topics. The test is not intended to assess your existing knowledge, here, but rather to see how well you can comprehend English-language texts and analyze the information they contain. You'll have to extrapolate information from these passages, apply information from the passages to new contexts, understand how new information might affect the meaning of a passage, and perform other, similar tasks. Here you'll have 90 minutes to answer 53 questions.

The third section is the Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems section. Here you'll again be asked to show knowledge of physical sciences like chemistry, biology, and biochemistry, but the focus of this section's questions will be the processes that living organisms undergo. You'll have to know how organisms reproduce, grow, maintain homeostasis, provide themselves with energy from their environment, and adapt to adversity. For this section, you will be provided with 95 minutes to answer 59 questions.

Fourth, and last, is the Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior section. This section will provide you with sets of questions related to written passages, as well as a smaller number of questions that do not correspond to passages. For this section you will have to draw on your sociology and psychology skills to answer questions about how medicine intersects with social issues such as population diversity and mental health. These questions will require you to prove an understanding of the impact of social stratification and limited access to resources on human well-being, as well as how differences in culture affect people's perceptions, needs, and health. This section will allow you 95 minutes to answer 59 questions.

What can a Houston MCAT course do to help me get ready for the test?

In a Houston MCAT course, you'll be taught by an expert instructor in an online environment, alongside your classmates. Collaborative environments like this have been shown to improve students' ability to gain and retain knowledge, and learning with other prospective medical students can be a great way to get to grips with the MCAT. You may even find that exposure to diverse voices and perspectives on the fields that the MCAT covers are a great asset, and might provide you with refreshing new ways of thinking about these medical subjects. Additionally, while group discussion may be very effective, it can always be nice to get some one-on-one time with a knowledgeable instructor, which is why an MCAT class allows for exactly that: you'll be able to reserve time where you'll sit down with your teacher and go over material alone, in case you find yourself needing to spend some extra time on certain subjects.

All of these services are delivered entirely online, for a very convenient classroom experience. By taking a course like this, you can minimize the obstacles between you and MCAT preparation, bringing you one step closer to pursuing a great score on the test. Course sections start every week and are available in 2-week or 4-week courses, so you can pick the schedule that's best for you.

How can I get signed up for a Houston MCAT class?

The MCAT is one of the critical parts of a medical school application and may have an impact on how admissions boards view you. It is a long, rigorous test, which is fitting, as medicine is a rigorous field that can demand a lot from those who choose to practice it. While preparing for this exam might be stressful, it can be helpful to think of it as more than just a necessary period of preparation for a necessary exam. Instead, it can be an opportunity to try to set yourself up for success going forward. After all, should you be admitted to medical school, any skills that you hone for the MCAT can continue to pay off for years to come. Reach out to Varsity Tutors today, and we can get you set up with a Houston MCAT course that will bring you into conversation with other med school applicants so that all of you can take this opportunity to pursue a successful future in medical school.