Maybe your student just told you about us, and you are here to check us out before anyone spends money. Maybe a score just landed that nobody wanted, and you are trying to figure out what a parent is supposed to do with that. Either way, this section was written for you: the scores, the costs, the timeline, and the honest version of how to help, from a team that has worked with more than 800 MCAT Retakers since 2017.
Here is the deal we offer every family. You get everything on these pages, the guide, the plain numbers, and a straight answer about whether a retake even makes sense. In return we ask you to stay off the controls: check in with your student every two to three weeks rather than every day, ask how the plan is going rather than what the practice scores are, and let them be the one who talks to us. Medical training demands a decade of self directed work under pressure, and the MCAT is where that ownership gets built. The parents who help most are the ones who fund what they choose to fund, keep home steady, and let their student walk through the door themselves.
Everything on these pages in one document you can read in an evening: the exam, the scoring, the real costs, the retake decision, and your role in all of it. You will also join the parent list, an occasional short email from Dr. Teebagy written for parents of premeds, so the information keeps coming as your student moves through the process. Nothing frequent, nothing pushy, and you can leave anytime.
Yes. Retakes are common, medical schools generally focus on the most recent or highest score, and a meaningful improvement between attempts reads as resilience. What matters is that the second attempt is prepared differently from the first, because roughly one in four students who retake without changing their approach score lower. Start with our guide to the weeks after a bad score, and have your student take the free Retaker Diagnostic so the next step is based on a diagnosis rather than a guess.
It depends on the school list. The exam is scored from 472 to 528, the average applicant to MD programs scores around 506, the average MD matriculant sits near 511 to 512, and osteopathic programs matriculate closer to 503 to 504. A score that is a problem for one list is workable for another, which is why the useful question is whether the number matches the specific schools your student intends to apply to.
As little as possible, and we say that as the people your student would be paying. Check in every two to three weeks, ask how the plan is going rather than what the practice scores are, help with logistics and money where you choose to, and let your student own the rest. Medical training demands self directed work for the next decade, and the MCAT is where that ownership gets built.
The official AAMC practice questions, around 300 dollars, belong in every budget. Big prep courses run from about 800 to 9,400 dollars depending on brand and format, and brand name tutoring bills 200 to 330 dollars per hour. The Retaker Course is 1,795 dollars, paid once, with a 7 day fit check refund and the Score-Back Guarantee. Our cost guide walks through the whole landscape in plain numbers.
Those programs are built for first time test takers and priced on the size of their video libraries. Pillar Prep is built specifically for Retakers: the program analyzes the trap patterns behind your student’s actual wrong answers and retrains them with personalized drills, wrapped around a plan with the official AAMC practice questions at its core. Across 800 plus students, 96 percent improved their score and the average gain is 9.7.
A student who completes the entire course and does not improve over their previous official score receives a full refund under the Score-Back Guarantee. Separately, every direct purchase starts with a 7 day fit check: a full refund for any reason within the first week, no forms and no questions. The complete terms are published on our refund policy page.
Yes. You can purchase the Retaker Course as a gift, your student receives an enrollment invitation by email and activates the account themselves, and gift purchases are refundable in full for 30 days after purchase, even if the invitation is never claimed. The activation step is deliberate, because the prep works best when the student walks through the door themselves.
Only if your student chooses that. Students can opt in to a short monthly progress note that shares how consistently they are working and where they are in the plan, and it never includes scores, by design. We work with your student directly, and that distance is part of what makes the program work.
Run the numbers before anyone commits. Our free Retaker Calculator weighs the current score against the target schools, the cause of the first result, and the available timeline, and it will tell your student plainly when a retake looks unwise. The honest cases where retaking is a bad idea are covered in our retake decision guide.
Two free steps answer most of this page’s questions for your specific situation. Your student takes the free Retaker Diagnostic, a real half length exam with a full coaching report on where their score went and why. You download The Parent’s Guide to the MCAT and join the parent list, which delivers the rest of what we know in short, occasional emails.
A real half length MCAT with a full coaching report on where their score went and why. It costs nothing, and it turns every conversation that follows from speculation into a plan.