Session 33

The OldPreMeds Podcast started as a collaboration between the Medical School Headquarters and the OldPreMeds.org, the site for nontraditional premed and medical students.

Currently, Dr. Ryan Gray is the Director of the National Society of Nontraditional Premed and Medical Students and now runs, operates, and publishes OldPreMeds.org which is now part of the Medical School Headquarters.

The Medical School Headquarters is also starting a new collaboration with Next Step Test Prep to produce The MCAT Podcast, which has been in the works for several months now. Today, they are sharing with you their very first episode on today's session.

The MCAT Podcast is a weekly episode dedicated to the MCAT. Ryan will be mainly talking to Bryan Schnedeker, Next Step Test Prep's MCAT Guru where they discuss the different aspects of the MCAT to help you get a better grip of the MCAT especially being nontraditional students.

Go to www.themcatpodcast.com and sign up to be notified when it's going to be on iTunes. What The MCAT Podcast offers:

• Weekly information all about the MCAT
• Tips, tricks, and common pitfalls
• Content to help you break down some of the passages
• Ways to things about passages
• How to rule out questions
• Shorter format (around 10 minutes)
• Easier to consume

John Rood is the Founder and President of Next Step Test Prep which he started in 2009. John has a background in test prep and they started out doing one-on-one tutoring for the professional graduate schools in Chicago until eventually spreading to other cities and going online.

In 2013, Bryan Schnedeker joined the company and currently serves as the Vice-President for Next Step's MCAT and Tutoring. Bryan is Next Step's resident MCAT Guru having taught and tutored MCAT students over the past 15 years.

About Next Step Test Prep:

One-on-one tutoring programs

35,000 students have signed up for different MCAT practice tests and materials

Customization is at its core seeking to meet the individual needs of students

They have a team of five people working full-time on MCAT content and 15-20 people working part-time on specialized parts of their content.

About Ryan Gray:

• A physician by training (an Air Force flight surgeon for five years)
• Stumbled into the premed advising world after talking to young airmen in the Air Force about what it's like to go to medical school and coming across a particular website offering very negative and cutthroat information
• Wanting to create a safe place for people to go and get collaborative information that is not cutthroat and competitive
• Started the Medical School Headquarters in 2012

Today, Ryan runs the following podcasts:

• The Premed Years Podcast  - 3 1/2 years old; nominated 2x as a Top Podcast in the Science and Medicine Category; with almost a million downloads
• The OldPreMeds Podcast

Next Step pivoting into providing courses:

Going into the course market to put together a course with all the essential resources that any of the other major label courses would have:

• 12 full-length exams
• 11 books containing thousands of pages
• Course priced at $1,300 ($700-$900 less than students would have paid for courses under the legacy pricing system)

A Next Step exclusive: Customized study plan tool Diagnostic test followed by a short questionnaire that will allow a generation of a custom unique to you study plan so you're following the best possible prep for your needs

Our goals for The MCAT Podcast:

• Regularly repeating podcast of 5-15 min. mini-lessons on MCAT itself, building study plans, quick reviews, pitfalls and how to avoid them
• You get a little nugget of MCAT wisdom offering high value to students

Links and Other Resources:

Go to www.oldpremeds.org/mcatclass and use the coupon code: MCATPOD to save money off their tutoring and 10% off their products

www.mcatpodcast.com/subscribe