- Joined
- May 24, 2021
- Messages
- 90
- Reaction score
- 107
When I first signed up for Blueprint, I had a difficult time finding people's reviews of their MCAT prep program (probably since it's fairly new). So, I thought it would be a good idea to write a review on their program to help people decide whether or not to pay for their course. I'll be going through each aspect of their website and explaining what I like and what I don't like about each feature.
TL;DR: Not at all worth the money. The only resource I found useful was their practice tests.
What is included in the Blueprint MCAT program?
When you first sign up and plug your MCAT test date into the system, Blueprint gives you a content review and study schedule up until your test date. You also gain access to some AAMC materials, which is pretty standard for any MCAT prep course. You gain access to Blueprint's question bank, a slew of content review videos, and are sent a collection of content review books (these books contain pretty much the same information as the videos, so it's up to you how you want to review). Blueprint also offers live office hours on different topics you'll find on the MCAT. Your study plan will start with a half-length diagnostic exam (which is available for free regardless fo whether you purchased their course or not). Blueprint also offers 10 full length practice exams. After taking an exam (or doing a problem set from the question bank), you'll have access to a variety of analytics related to how you did on the problems. With that out of the way, let's go through each aspect of the course one by one and see the pro's and con's of each.
Schedule
The schedule seems great at first. However, if you're ONLY using Blueprint's program, the schedule they lay out for you is not enough. Each day is composed of a review of 1-3 topics (think thermodynamics, enzyme kinetics, etc.) or a day dedicated to a practice test followed by a day dedicated for reviewing said practice test. Sometimes a q-bank problem set will be thrown in too. My biggest problem with their schedule is how much they emphasize content review as opposed to practice problems. While content review is important, the best way to improve your score (in my experience) is to do practice problems. Speaking of practice problems, let's talk about the q-bank.
Q-Bank
Oh man, where do I begin. The q-bank is honestly what inspired me to write this review, because WOW does it suck. When you make a practice set, you can include up to three science categories or do a CARS practice set. I haven't used the CARS problem sets, so I'll be focusing solely on the science categories. You get a choice between a practice set containing EITHER passage questions or discrete questions. You can't do both. Also, the number of passage-based question sets is far lower than the number of discrete question sets, which obviously isn't representative of the MCAT at all. For example, if I select Biology and Biochem as my two science categories, there are only 39 passage question sets and 344 discrete question sets. ????? You also get a chance to select the difficulty of the questions you receive. You can choose your questions to be easy, mild, medium, tough, or brutal. My issue with this is that I want my practice sets to be representative of the MCAT, which means I want a similar difficulty to the MCAT. Which difficulty does that correspond to? Who knows. What I do know is that the easy problems are waaaaaay too easy, while the brutal problems are borderline impossible. You're also able to select how many problems you do. Now, I've been dealing with this lackluster q-bank for a while now, but the other day I came across this question which made me decide Blueprint wasn't worth continuing. You can't see the question in the screenshot, but it's not important. What is important is that the wrong answer is marked correct, as shown by the correct answer explanation. This might not seem like a big deal if it was a fluke, but when you're as analytic-heavy as Blueprint is and you have the wrong answers marked correct on god knows how many problems, this is a big deal. But the real kicker is the answer distribution at the bottom. Given the difficulty rating for this problem, I'd expect most people to genuinely get this question right. However, what we see is that the majority of people selected the wrong answer for this problem that was mistakenly marked correct by Blueprint. What does this mean? My guess is that the answer distributions on Blueprint's website are completely fabricated. Overall, I was very unimpressed by Blueprint's q-bank.
Content review videos/books
The videos are alright. They cover the topics they need to cover. The books cover roughly the same material. Blueprint also offers some quizzes during the content review videos to make sure you're keeping up with the material. The material is presented in a way that's meant to refresh your memory on different topics, so if you're completely unfamiliar with a certain topic, the content review here might not be enough. Regardless, I think there are better ways to review information than using Blueprint's videos, which I'll get into later. One thing I didn't like about Blueprint's videos is how unnecessary some of them were. Here's an example. Why in the world anyone would have to review this is beyond me.
Office hours
I never attended office hours, so I can't say much here. Just to give you some insight on how their office hours work, there's usually one office hour session in the evening covering one topic every day. Unfortunately, you can't choose when the topic you're struggling with is covered, so you have to plan ahead and find the corresponding date. Obviously, customized office hours is a lot to ask for a program like this, so the office hours schedule is in no way a con, but it's something to be aware of.
Exams
I actually liked the exams Blueprint provided. I've only done two of them, but they were definitely helpful practice. Plus there are a lot of them, so you don't have to worry about running out of tests. My only issue is that the scores seem to be deflated. How deflated? On my most recent test of their's, I scored a 509. I took an AAMC practice test yesterday and got a 518. So they're deflated quite a bit. Granted, I did study a fair amount between these two tests so the score increase probably isn't completely due to deflation, but a 509 to a 518 is quite a large jump. Either way, the tests offer some good practice, but just remember not to take the score they give you to heart.
Analytics
The analytics are pretty nice. They include the percent of problems correct, time spent on each question, questions that you flagged or changed your answer on, and breakdown by subject, question type, question set, difficulty, and AAMC content category/skill. Definitely not a game changer, but it's a nice touch.
Overall impressions/recommendations
Absolutely not worth the money. If you want, you can buy the exams separately, but thats the only thing I'd recommend buying (and that's only if you aren't satisfied with the 4 practice exams the AAMC provides). With that being said, what should you use to study? A few things I've found helpful are UW, JW, Anki decks, KA, and my old notes. Going over your notes (if you still have them) can really help with content review. You'll be able to refresh your memory in a reasonable amount of time and do it for free. KA is a must, especially for topics you're unfamiliar with and for P/S (see the 300 page doc). I know that KA is taking down their MCAT videos in a few months, so use them while you still can. All of their videos are also available on a google drive somewhere on /r/MCAT if you wish to download them, but they all have random titles so they're a bit hard to sort through. Anki decks are a great way to memorize info. I've been using MileDown's deck and it's helped a TON. UW has the best problem sets I've ever seen. Their problems are quite a bit more difficult than the ones on the AAMC FL I took, but it's still great practice. Their explanation/answer analysis is god-tier. Super thorough, super helpful, and I can't recommend them enough. They also provide analytics and allow you to make flash cards while you do problems, which is also great. JW provides daily CARS passages, which is great since the best way to improve at CARS is to frequently practice doing similar questions.
Anyway, that's my review. Hope this helped
TL;DR: Not at all worth the money. The only resource I found useful was their practice tests.
What is included in the Blueprint MCAT program?
When you first sign up and plug your MCAT test date into the system, Blueprint gives you a content review and study schedule up until your test date. You also gain access to some AAMC materials, which is pretty standard for any MCAT prep course. You gain access to Blueprint's question bank, a slew of content review videos, and are sent a collection of content review books (these books contain pretty much the same information as the videos, so it's up to you how you want to review). Blueprint also offers live office hours on different topics you'll find on the MCAT. Your study plan will start with a half-length diagnostic exam (which is available for free regardless fo whether you purchased their course or not). Blueprint also offers 10 full length practice exams. After taking an exam (or doing a problem set from the question bank), you'll have access to a variety of analytics related to how you did on the problems. With that out of the way, let's go through each aspect of the course one by one and see the pro's and con's of each.
Schedule
The schedule seems great at first. However, if you're ONLY using Blueprint's program, the schedule they lay out for you is not enough. Each day is composed of a review of 1-3 topics (think thermodynamics, enzyme kinetics, etc.) or a day dedicated to a practice test followed by a day dedicated for reviewing said practice test. Sometimes a q-bank problem set will be thrown in too. My biggest problem with their schedule is how much they emphasize content review as opposed to practice problems. While content review is important, the best way to improve your score (in my experience) is to do practice problems. Speaking of practice problems, let's talk about the q-bank.
Q-Bank
Oh man, where do I begin. The q-bank is honestly what inspired me to write this review, because WOW does it suck. When you make a practice set, you can include up to three science categories or do a CARS practice set. I haven't used the CARS problem sets, so I'll be focusing solely on the science categories. You get a choice between a practice set containing EITHER passage questions or discrete questions. You can't do both. Also, the number of passage-based question sets is far lower than the number of discrete question sets, which obviously isn't representative of the MCAT at all. For example, if I select Biology and Biochem as my two science categories, there are only 39 passage question sets and 344 discrete question sets. ????? You also get a chance to select the difficulty of the questions you receive. You can choose your questions to be easy, mild, medium, tough, or brutal. My issue with this is that I want my practice sets to be representative of the MCAT, which means I want a similar difficulty to the MCAT. Which difficulty does that correspond to? Who knows. What I do know is that the easy problems are waaaaaay too easy, while the brutal problems are borderline impossible. You're also able to select how many problems you do. Now, I've been dealing with this lackluster q-bank for a while now, but the other day I came across this question which made me decide Blueprint wasn't worth continuing. You can't see the question in the screenshot, but it's not important. What is important is that the wrong answer is marked correct, as shown by the correct answer explanation. This might not seem like a big deal if it was a fluke, but when you're as analytic-heavy as Blueprint is and you have the wrong answers marked correct on god knows how many problems, this is a big deal. But the real kicker is the answer distribution at the bottom. Given the difficulty rating for this problem, I'd expect most people to genuinely get this question right. However, what we see is that the majority of people selected the wrong answer for this problem that was mistakenly marked correct by Blueprint. What does this mean? My guess is that the answer distributions on Blueprint's website are completely fabricated. Overall, I was very unimpressed by Blueprint's q-bank.
Content review videos/books
The videos are alright. They cover the topics they need to cover. The books cover roughly the same material. Blueprint also offers some quizzes during the content review videos to make sure you're keeping up with the material. The material is presented in a way that's meant to refresh your memory on different topics, so if you're completely unfamiliar with a certain topic, the content review here might not be enough. Regardless, I think there are better ways to review information than using Blueprint's videos, which I'll get into later. One thing I didn't like about Blueprint's videos is how unnecessary some of them were. Here's an example. Why in the world anyone would have to review this is beyond me.
Office hours
I never attended office hours, so I can't say much here. Just to give you some insight on how their office hours work, there's usually one office hour session in the evening covering one topic every day. Unfortunately, you can't choose when the topic you're struggling with is covered, so you have to plan ahead and find the corresponding date. Obviously, customized office hours is a lot to ask for a program like this, so the office hours schedule is in no way a con, but it's something to be aware of.
Exams
I actually liked the exams Blueprint provided. I've only done two of them, but they were definitely helpful practice. Plus there are a lot of them, so you don't have to worry about running out of tests. My only issue is that the scores seem to be deflated. How deflated? On my most recent test of their's, I scored a 509. I took an AAMC practice test yesterday and got a 518. So they're deflated quite a bit. Granted, I did study a fair amount between these two tests so the score increase probably isn't completely due to deflation, but a 509 to a 518 is quite a large jump. Either way, the tests offer some good practice, but just remember not to take the score they give you to heart.
Analytics
The analytics are pretty nice. They include the percent of problems correct, time spent on each question, questions that you flagged or changed your answer on, and breakdown by subject, question type, question set, difficulty, and AAMC content category/skill. Definitely not a game changer, but it's a nice touch.
Overall impressions/recommendations
Absolutely not worth the money. If you want, you can buy the exams separately, but thats the only thing I'd recommend buying (and that's only if you aren't satisfied with the 4 practice exams the AAMC provides). With that being said, what should you use to study? A few things I've found helpful are UW, JW, Anki decks, KA, and my old notes. Going over your notes (if you still have them) can really help with content review. You'll be able to refresh your memory in a reasonable amount of time and do it for free. KA is a must, especially for topics you're unfamiliar with and for P/S (see the 300 page doc). I know that KA is taking down their MCAT videos in a few months, so use them while you still can. All of their videos are also available on a google drive somewhere on /r/MCAT if you wish to download them, but they all have random titles so they're a bit hard to sort through. Anki decks are a great way to memorize info. I've been using MileDown's deck and it's helped a TON. UW has the best problem sets I've ever seen. Their problems are quite a bit more difficult than the ones on the AAMC FL I took, but it's still great practice. Their explanation/answer analysis is god-tier. Super thorough, super helpful, and I can't recommend them enough. They also provide analytics and allow you to make flash cards while you do problems, which is also great. JW provides daily CARS passages, which is great since the best way to improve at CARS is to frequently practice doing similar questions.
Anyway, that's my review. Hope this helped
Last edited:
