What’s Happening to the Khan Academy MCAT Prep?

Session 188

What’s happening to the Khan Academy MCAT Prep materials? What impact will it have on the financial barriers to becoming a physician? Let’s discuss!

We’re joined by Phil from Blueprint MCAT, formerly Next Step Test Prep. If you would like to follow along on YouTube, go to premed.tv.

Listen to this podcast episode with the player above, or keep reading for the highlights and takeaway points.

[00:45] Khan Academy MCAT Prep is Going Away!

Khan Academy covertly announced that they are dropping the MCAT product from there lineup of products and services and all of the amazing free resources they have.

They claim that it’s a lack of bandwidth, a lack of financing, and other issues to keep the product up-to-date and refreshed and the support needed. I questioned whether those are their true motivations and what else is potentially going on behind the scenes.

They’re going to allow people to keep all of the material on YouTube until September 2020. Then they extended it to September 2021. They also said that the Khan Academy MCAT collection will also be available through the AAMC free planning and study resources page for the rest of the testing year.

[06:39] Why Is Khan Academy Doing This?

Khan Academy was a good resource for that as well. It’s nice to have a video designed for the level of the MCAT and making sure that that’s being met. Phil also doesn’t understand the motivations behind doing this.

“It would go against their reasoning that it's a budgetary thing. If it dropped off, then it's not costing them a lot of bandwidth and so they can keep it.”Click To Tweet

[08:03] Go to Khan Academy Page Now for Resources

Khan Academy has put a ton of work into this. They have a ton of practice questions and that’s where students are freaking out the most. To a lot of students, this is one of the first places they go to for content. So it’s definitely a valuable resource.

It’s really important for students to have some practice questions and have some stuff. That’s why there’s Blueprint MCAT. They give out a free exam and a free diagnostic to any student who wants it because they want to make sure students know what it’s going to be like on test day.

“Taking a practice test is the only way for students to know what the actual test is going to look like. We want to make sure students have those resources.”Click To Tweet

[11:08] Other MCAT Resources You Can Go To

Aside from this podcast, there are other MCAT podcasts out there for other free material. Blueprint has free MCAT study tools, diagnostic tests, and full-length tests. They’re also hosting webinars. Lots of the other test prep companies out there offer free diagnostics and other materials as well.

Anybody who attends or signs up for a webinar will get an email with a video copy of it as well as a copy of the slides. So if they want to like take a look at that, check out Blueprint MCAT.

'There are resources out there and the majority of students don't use those things.'Click To Tweet

You’re not at a disadvantage because you can’t afford some of those things. Don’t automatically get into a negative mindset where you think you’re at a disadvantage because of that.

You need to spend time prepping and doing what you can to study for the MCAT. There are free resources out there as well as paid resources. It’s just important to make sure that you have some efficient prep going forward.