The Berkeley Review

Score received mid July — 512 (87^th percentile), 128, 126, 129, 129.
Largely in part due to the EK Full length exams, and the AAMC sample online. I took one Berkeley review online exam and the Psych section was a complete joke. The other sections were good. (but don’t use any verbal practice close to your exam besides AAMC)
The TBR Bio books are their best asset, the rest of their material is comparable to Kaplan.

This is my e-​mail to the Berkeley Review.
Dear Berkeley Review,
My messages are not getting answered. I paid 2k for this course and at least would like to be able to have materials I paid for. Most of us are mere college students and do not have the luxury to be benefactors to a major MCAT corporations such as TBR. I particularly need the psychology and sociology textbooks. Please either send them to me or have Todd Bennett or Cecile schedule a meeting with me for pick-​up. I have tried contacting Todd on multiple occasions, but to no avail.
Also, I have labs running late this quarter and cannot make it to session at times. I thought the Berkeley Review would also have accessible materials such as lecture PDFs as well for the those that cannot make it. I understand that there may be concerns with copyrighted material, but you can authenticate that by creating a google document in the footer and stating that unauthorized usage and distribution of the material can be fined. I hope the management system improves as my friends at Kaplan and Princeton Review are much more satisfied with their services. There is much greater permeability, cost breakdowns, and resources. Please don’t make me regret my decision in putting my trust in this program.
I did not get my books, or anything. I asked them for a partial refund. It seemed solely at their discretion after Week 2, but Berkeley Review refused. Thanks for swindling away my 2k. That’s a trip abroad to volunteer in a 3^rd world country. Elliot, who is in charge stated he would help me get my materials. It has been over half a month. I’ll edit this review if I happen to get them.
They are very unprofessional and rude. I got a «Please list all the classes you want PDFs for in which you will miss.» And «I do not think you know how to read because you read the enrollment agreement wrong.» I listed ALL of the classes I missed or intended to, which is over 30 of them. We are going to see a lawsuit soon if I don’t get my books, PDFs, and MCAT materials worth my 2k. I don’t think I can have much patience at this rate, when my test is a month away.

Ok. So as a UC Berkeley student, I had heard rave reviews about this place. So since the class was moderately less expensive than other options (Princeton, Kaplan, etc), I figured that it would be a good choice. Especially because they only focus on the MCAT.
Now, let me get this out of the way: the guys who run this show are brilliant. That’s a fact and nobody is doubting that. But when it comes to helping you succeed on the MCAT, I have to give them nothing higher than an F.
Maybe this is harsh because I didn’t score as well as I wanted to but here are the facts.
I was told multiple times that you would score HIGHER on the real thing than you did on The Berkeley Review (TBR) practice tests. Not only was this not true for me, it was completely false. I scored lower on the real thing than I did on any TBR practice tests. 13 practice tests from TBR and I scored worse on the AAMC when I was told people are supposed to score 4ish points higher on the real thing.
The other thing is that people say that TBR goes to in depth. This is easy to confuse because the guys are so smart and it’s easy to get infatuated with their brilliance. I’m going to say something else:
They cover things that are horribly off. Just off.
The bio section was much more in scientific writing style than in textbook writing style. TBR was textbook style passages for 90% of the time. Not helpful, not accurate. Great for adding facts to your repertoire, but not good for helping get you into medical school with a good MCAT score.
The physical sciences section was way too conceptual. The real thing is fairly mathematical. As someone who is comfortable with math, I didn’t think it would be a problem but I was caught by surprise which was not pleasant and probably had a ripple effect throughout the test.
The verbal… don’t even get me started. Just don’t. TBR Verbal is useless. Not only are the passages bad, but they make you feel like you are awful. Do Examkrackers verbal and AAMC and you’ll realize that it’s not about deciphering some convoluted passage but rather understanding a moderately written passage. I was tripping balls on TBR verbal. Totally unnecessary and hampered my learning of the material and style.
Oh…and their in class practice tests. ⁰⁄₁₀. They’re so ridiculously hard that unless you’re in the mood for a confidence-​shattering destruction, don’t bother.
It was a waste of $ 1700. I truly feel like I was robbed. Bipasha has a positive experience with the books and maybe I will the second time around because the first time with the class wasn’t helpful. I’m going to make sure I add plenty of AAMC and sprinkle in some Princeton Review and EKs.
Don’t make the same mistake I did and take the class. The books are okay (minus verbal) but don’t waste your valuable time and money with TBR.

I used the home study series for the physical and biological science subjects. Overall, the structure and content of these books made studying for the MCAT easier. I felt that these books presented content in better and more «MCAT-​like» ways than did the other books I read. I can only think of one minor concept from the test that was not addressed in the BR books. The chapter review and exam passages are all top-​notch.
Also, the BR full-​length tests more closely resembled the difficulty of the actual MCAT than did the AMCAS full-​lengths. If you are interested in gauging your score I found that the BR tests more closely predicted my actual score than the AMCAS tests.
Only advice is to plan ahead when ordering from BR. That being said, I used a money order from the USPS and received my books and tests very soon after ordering.
All in all, if you are looking to save money and/​or aren’t interested in a prep-​course, I think these books serve as great guides for directed and meaningful study given that proper time goes into using them.

I’m surprised by some of the mediocre reviews. I ordered their books and studied at home back in 2008. It cost me around $ 400 at the time, and was the best investment I made for my MCAT prep.
I already had a decent grasp on the material from undergrad — their materials gave me the comprehensive review I needed for the test. I looked at books from some other companies, and felt the competition oversimplified many science concepts. (I like my details)
Ultimately I scored 35+, can’t complain!

I took this back in 2007-​08 near UC Irvine… its been a while. Looking back i don’t think TBR was worth it. Some people swear by it and that’s the only reason i took it, b/​c someone recommended this place. I echo some of the other comments made about the bio book being too detailed. Same goes for o-​chem, physics and g-​chem. Verbal was def. sub-​par.
I do recall going through a few decent passages in physics and gchem but honestly it’s not worth the money for the entire course or even buying the books.
Todd is a nice guy and i have no idea if he’s still teaching but think about it, would your rather learn stuff from a small time company like TBR or would you trust big corps like TPR or Kaplan. Same goes for medschool too, don’t waste ur time w/​stupid review courses when you study for step 1 (DIT, GIT, Falcon review, other Bullsh– courses. Just stick to a proven formula like FirstAid and/​or Kaplan and/​or UWorld when ur studying for steps). FYI, there is no TPR for step 1.
Again, im sure there are ppl who swear by TBR but it just didn’t do it for me. Part of me genuinely feels that the ppl who believe in TBR were either pretty smart to being with or had their feelings tainted by todd’s friendly and nice demeanor. I feel bad writing this review but i just wish someone would have been this upfront w/​me when i was scared and would have spent any amount of money to do well and get into med school.
I’m half way through medschool and my recommendation would be to sign up for TPR (don’t bother with the class, those are just as useless) but the books and the online resources they provide you with are pretty good. The princeton science workbook is pretty good and so is their verbal book… i don’t know if they still have books or if everything is online now but those were good resources for practice problems. BTW, i came across a science and verbal book from TPR dated from early 2000s and the passages are exactly the same… they are good passages to instill knowledge and get u to look at physics or chem or whatever problems from different perspectives. The online AAMC tests are by far the most useful resource, make sure to do all of them (Princeton and Kaplan will provide you with those if u buy the course, i believe).
Again, i took this prep course a long time ago (about 4 years from today) and things may or may not have changed, my review is of what i experienced in fall of 2007.

I took the January-​April 2010 prep course. In short, I got a 35+ on my MCAT. Did TBR help? Yes. Could it be better? Yes.
# Instructors (4 stars): Dale, Todd, and Khoi were beyond 5-​stars great for bio, o-​chem, and physics. They really know the material, give you plenty of test-​taking tips, and, most importantly, they know how to teach. Office hours were plenty, and they answered all my questions via email quickly.
The writing instructor Doug was fantastic but useless for me, if that makes any sense. I came out of his office hours with a strong personal statement for my med school apps and he gives helpful interview/​application workshops but my writing score was horrible. Then again, my writing is beyond horrible to begin with. (Writing this review is taking 3x too long)
The newer instructors who nabbed a position for a semester or two for extra money were a toss up. 1 was great, 1 average, and the last was new and not excellent at all. The good thing was that I didn’t have my o-​chem lab buddy try to teach the course for $ 1400 (true story @ the Princeton Review – I got my money back, of course) and I had good books to supplement the classes. I completely disagreed with the verbal instructor’s test strategies, which advocated too much underlining and finding the key words business. Use ExamKrackers for that part instead.
# Books and other materials (3.5 stars): much better after they heavily revised it. The books I saw back in 2006 were full of typos and their errata sheet ran long. This time around, 4 years later, it was reasonably good. As other reviewers said, there’s a LOT of material in there but I liked having too much vs. too little info. You can always pare down.
# Practice CBTs (4.5 stars): way harder than the regular MCATs, which I loved. Painful practice tests = painless MCAT. The online CBTs were occasionally buggy but fine to navigate. A little patience never hurt anyone, yes? I did 8 TBRs + 3 practice AAMC tests and felt prepared.
# My tips: if you decide to go with the Berkeley Review, which I ultimately will recommend, you need to adopt good stress management strategies because THIS COURSE WILL STRESS YOU OUT if you let it. They won’t hold your hand, but they’ll give you everything you need to score well (and unfortunately more). It’s up to you to come to class, do the homework every night, manage your time, and proactively ask for help. Supplement with ExamKrackers if you lose the big picture and if you need to look at pretty pictures in color.
Hope you kill it. Good luck!

This place blows. Sorry but I thought I would be direct.
–the review material (esp. bio) goes wayy too in depth, more than you need to know for the mcats. some like that, some dont… i dont.
–when i took it in 2008 they did not handle the transition to computerized tests well. the tests were buggy, couldnt highlight, firefox only capable, unreal testing conditions
–lectures: rather then focusing on mcat tips and strategies, it felt like they just bombarded you with 4 years of mcb info.
–not hw based, its personal preference, but I prefer hw to keep me on task
–the books i used are ridiculously inaccurate and unnecessarily tricky. i.e. question: what is the correct answer: A, B, C, or D. answer explanation: «well the answer falls between C and D so the answer is clearly D» wttff?!!
the books are a huge turn off, i found myself second guessing the answers and i never really knew for sure if an answer was really true.
todd is awesome, hence the 2^nd star.
the sad part is the owner seems anally-​retentive enough to check the Unilocal of reviews on his place. ill either get a very angry Unilocal PM from him or get shot with a lawn dart if i ever walk past shattuck/​center during the day.

My original review for this was really heartfelt and wordy. I then realized that only anxious pre-​meds will be reading this.
Prep Materials:
–Books are too wordy and don’t whittle down the information (might as well use your old textbooks)
–Practice tests in class are very tricky and not given in a realistic setting (no practice full-​length exams until CBTs done at your own pace)
–CBTs are hard to navigate online and not realistic (BS somewhat realistic but too wordy, VR not realistic at all, PS not bad but kind of detailed, Writing realistic)
Instruction:
–Writing instructor was great. He realized that no one really took his section very seriously and gave very helpful feedback.
–Physics and biology instructors were good but the emphasis was way too heavy on the details and on memorization. Instead of going over big concepts they stressed over minute things that would never be tested on a real MCAT.
–Chemistry instruction was terrible. Instructor wasn’t engaging and had just finished taking the MCAT himself. He didn’t explain anything and it was a waste of time to attend. Later in the semester, one of the founders of TBR came and kind of saved the day. If Todd is teaching, he is the *only* reason to take TBR. He is funny, engaging, comes up with great ways to remember things, and explains the concepts in ways that are easy to understand.
–Verbal got a big ‘ol meh from me, but I just didn’t agree with their method of attacking that section.
My advice:
–DO NOT take TBR. The one extra star was earned by Todd and he probably won’t be teaching. It is not worth the money. If I had the balls to ask for my money back instead of just being a passive-​aggressive Unilocaler, I would.
–If you do take TBR, try not to get discouraged. I felt that they were so detail oriented that I lost the big picture, stressed way too much and was demoralized on a daily basis. Not a good way to go into a test so I stopped going before my test date.
–Use ExamKrackers books to prepare instead. Then take lots and lots of real AAMC tests.
–Rock it.