A: With Kaplan's $1,899 course you receive ZERO hours of private tutoring. With Altius' $1,790 course you receive 20 hours of private one-on-one tutoring. Kaplan does offer private tutoring, but it will cost you an additional $3,000 for 20 hours. Kaplan offers 18 classroom sessions. Altius offers 32 classroom sessions. If one were to assume that a Kaplan and Altius classroom session are of equal value, it would be easy to see that Altius offers you significantly more for your money. However, Kaplan's traditional lecture-only format is a far cry from the innovative, fully-interactive, evidence-based seminars Altius provides. During an Altius classroom session students review and analyze MCAT questions, take turns leading the group discussion, and attempt real AAMC questions under timed conditions. The benefits of this kind of experience over sitting thru a lecture are obvious. Finally, Kaplan offers 3, 6 or 10 hour admissions assistance packages, but you'll have to pay even more money ($599-1,599, or approximately $200/hr.). Altius offers FREE admissions assistance to all students, including general admissions counseling and careful review of your personal statement and AMCAS application. These differences alone demonstrate the truly enormous gap between our program and what Kaplan offers. Yet, we havent' even discussed what former Altius students love the most about our program. They rave about the personal attention they receive from their tutor AND from other members of the Altius staff that always goes far beyond their scheduled tutoring sessions. They are surprised to realize that everyone knows their name and checks regularly on their progress. They are inspired by the unparralelled intensity, drive and elevated expectations that permeate the Altius culture. It's the best place you can possibly be if you want a superb MCAT score.
With regard to actual MCAT scores, Kaplan does not publish student performance stats. We suspect that they mirror fairly closely what is published by the AAMC for test takers nationwide (mean = 25). Altius students always score well above national averages. Year to year the average score among Altius students is consistently in the 32-34 range, with only 8-10% scoring below a 30 and one-third or more scoring a 35 or greater.
Q: How does Altius compare to THE PRINCETON REVIEW?
A: The Princeton Review (TPR) offers ZERO hours of private tutoring with their $1,799 package. Altius offers 20 hours of private tutoring for no additional charge with their $1,790 package. TPR offers 42 classroom sessions. Altius offers 32 classroom sessions plus the 20 one-on-one sessions, for a total of 52 sessions. However, there are almost no similarities between a TPR classroom session and an Altius classroom session. At Altius we do not believe in lectures. Lecturing is the most ineffective of all teaching methods. Instead, our students interact with one another and their tutor, studying principles, discussing them as a group, attempting real AAMC practice items, and then analyzing questions and strategies. We are confident that this approach is a major reason for our students' unprecedented performance. It is possible to purchase 20 hours of private tutoring from TPR, but they charge nearly $350 per hour for tutoring from their best tutors. That would cost nearly $7,000, bringing your grand total to almost $9,000. These comparisons make the value of the Altius program indisputable. However, the best part of the Altius program is what comes in addition to the tutoring sessions and classes. Our students are held to higher expectations and generally set much higher goals. We encourage every student to make a 40 their target and push toward it. We monitor each student's progress weekly and hold them accountable for reaching measurable weekly objectives. We believe our program instills in students a far more accurate and realistic understanding of the MCAT, its difficulty, and the proper approach to mastering it. It's those intangibles that would make Altius the best possible choice at any price.
With regard to actual MCAT scores, TPR does not publish student performance stats. We suspect that they mirror fairly closely what is published by the AAMC for test takers nationwide (mean = 25). Altius students always score well above national averages. Year to year the average score among Altius students is consistently in the 32-34 range, with only 8-10% scoring below a 30 and one-third or more scoring a 35 or greater.
A: As far as we are aware, Ace does not offer private tutoring. Altius offers 20 hours of private tutoring with our basic package. Ace offers 13 classroom sessions for $895. This is almost half the price of the Altius program. However, Ace offers you LESS than half the classroom instruction time and NO private tutoring. Ace provides approximately 36 hours of classroom instruction, while Altius provides 32 classroom sessions totaling approximatley 80 hours. Add the 20 hours of private tutoring you receive with Altius and the cost of our instruction is less than $18/hour. Ace's instuction comes out to around $25 per hour. It is difficult to overestimate the value of private tutoring as compared to the lecture format. However, when that private tutoring comes at a per-hour cost that is LESS than what you're paying for a lecture, the incredible value of the Altius package becomes even more evident.
Ace does report some student performance stats on their website. Prior to 2008 they reported that 89% of their students score a 30 or above. In 2008 they updated those stats, reporting that 81% of their students score a 30 or above and that the average score among their 2008 students was a 32.4. According to their staff, this average was calculated based upon approximately 65% of their 2008 students. By comparison, since our inception nearly four years ago, the average score among all Altius students (with over 90% of students reporting) is a 33.1. Approximately 92% of our students score a 30 or above, over one-third have scored in the 35+ range, and less than 2% have scored at or below the national average. Keep in mind, however, that stats, especially means or averages, can be deceptive. For example, we have actually had far more students earn a 34 or 35 than a 32 or 33, yet our mean is a 33.3 due to the skewing effect of outliers. The best way to understand a data set such as this is to look at a bar or pie graph that shows the complete distribution of scores. Click on the "Results" link on the home page to view a complete distribution for all Altius students who have completed our program since 2005.
Q: If I'm disciplined, can't I do just as well studying on my own?
A: I won't tell anyone that they can't get a good score studying on their own. Anything is possible with sufficient determination and it has certainly been done before. In fact, after purchasing all of the course materials for the three major prep courses off the internet, I studied entirely on my own and did about as well as is possible. However, it would have been far easier, far less demanding, and would have required much less of my time had I had even a few of the resources now offered by Altius. Allow me to offer three key reasons why any student planning on studying on their own should give Altius serious consideration.
First, time is a precious commodity and the Altius program helps you to make more efficient use of your study time than you could ever hope to studying on your own. I have never known a student who doesn't wish that they had a few more weeks to study when test day arrives. Personally, I took almost a year to prepare for the MCAT. The first few months I took a rather lackadaisical approach, but soon I buckled down and logged 25+ hours per week for five straight months. After that, I quit my job and studied 40+ hours per week for the last two months before my test. After all that, I finally did figure out a thing or two about the MCAT. It required, however, every ounce of that dedication and time commitment. Everything that I worked so hard to figure out has now been boiled down to simple, succint principles and strategies that can be mastered in weeks instead of months.
Second, the intensive one-on-one coaching provided by a tutor allows you to instantly know what you do and do not know about each subject. One of the most frustrating things about my preparation for the MCAT was that I would learn somethng incorrectly and then go on for months thinking I understood it. Without the assistance of a tutor, who was going to correct me? I had completed ALL of the Kaplan questions, which I thought would guarantee that my errors would be caught, but it didn't. It was about then that I began to realize that the questions written by test prep companies were not enough like real AAMC questions to adequately prepare me for the MCAT. By contrast, Altius students are constantly having their understanding evaluated and adjusted by their tutor. As a result, misunderstandings are not perpectuated, focus is maintained on only those principles that are most important, and students always know what content they have mastered and what content they need to continue studying. This streamlined catalysis of the learning process is one of the major benefits students miss out on when they study independently.
Finally, research by the AAMC indicates that students who study on their own achieve scores almost identical to those who take one of the major prep courses. This means you are looking at an average score of 25 and you must break into the 90th percentile or greater to get a score in the low thirties. At Altius, we have obviously bucked this trend, because our average student does not score a 25, he or she scores a 33. This means "average" among our group is well above-average nationwide. If you were to break into the 90th percentile among Altius students, you'd be flirting with a 40. No matter who you are, there is always something to be said for surrounding yourself by people who are consistently attaining greater heights.