What factors should you consider when deciding how to prepare for the MCAT? [Show summary]

Our guest today has been providing MCAT prep for just under 30 years and he's going to share his best MCAT prep advice with you! 

The Berkeley Review’s CEO, Todd Bennett, shares his best MCAT prep advice [Show notes]

Our guest today is Todd Bennett, whom I met many, many years ago. He is the CEO of and an MCAT instructor at The Berkeley Review, which he co-founded in 1992. Todd, welcome to Admissions Straight Talk!

How did you get involved in MCAT prep many moons ago? [1:22]

So much of life is serendipity. So, way back in 1988, I had a job teaching organic chemistry as an adjunct lecturer at UC Irvine. And one summer there was nothing to teach and realizing that, hey, I need money for rent, I went to the job listing on campus. And there was an interesting offer tutoring chemistry and physics to postbac students trying to get into med school, a bridge program through Dave Hacker and Charles Gipson. I signed up for it and fell in love with it - greatest teaching job in the world; motivated students, smart, dedicated, and best of all from a teaching standpoint, no grading. You were purely on their side in working their way through it. So that summer I wrote up notes and practice questions and put together a pretty good booklet, and without even noticing it, it became kind of an underground sensation around UC Irvine and then Southern California. And somebody in San Diego got wind of it, who ran an SAT company and said, "Hey, what do you think about doing MCAT?"

And so, we started something called Hyper Learning at the time. It ends up that the people I was with, honestly, I don't think one of them had any interest other than making a quick company, selling it, another quick company, and selling it. And so, it was on the selling block immediately and I thought, "No, no, I like what I'm doing. I don't want to switch." And so in 1992 we started The Berkeley Review, grabbed one of the bio teachers, a physics teacher I knew, and just went for it. Amazingly, it just shot off like wildfire. I mean, at the time it was just really needed.

Do you want to bring us up to date a little bit in terms of what's been happening with The Berkeley Review? [3:03]

We change with each test. So since we started, there've been three changes in the test, and each one's brought a new challenge. I mean, I know this is probably blasphemous to say, because it's stressful for a lot of people, but the MCATs are a really well-written and well thought-out test. You can reason your way through it, and it really does test pertinent skills in analyzing data material and getting you to work well with things you maybe don't familiarize with at first. And in time you realize, "Hey, I get this. This is simple.”

We continue to do classes. COVID forced us to go online. We were very antiquated for many years and got up to speed, and I realized our fear of going online had a lot to do with losing the personal touch. Knowing each person individually has been key.