The Reality of Using Examkrackers for Med School Applications
Examkrackers released a book called How to Get Into Medical School that covers everything from building your activities list to writing your personal statement. It is not the only resource out there, and it is not perfect, but it has been useful for a lot of pre-meds over the years. The book is currently in its 5th edition, and it runs about 300 pages. It covers the standard stuff: MCAT timing, primary applications, secondary essays, interviews, and the overall timeline of the entire cycle. I used it when I was helping a group of students navigate their first cycle. One thing the book does well is the chapter on activity descriptions. Most pre-meds write these completely wrong. They list duties instead of outcomes. The book walks you through rewriting a vague bullet point like "helped patients in clinic" into something that actually tells an admissions committee what you did and why it mattered. That specific chapter alone is probably worth the price of the book.
Examkrackers How To Get Into Medical School - What It Actually Covers
The book is organized into sections that roughly follow the application timeline. There is a section on prerequisites and GPA strategy, which covers things like post-bacc programs and how retakes are viewed. There is a detailed MCAT section that is separate from their MCAT prep course but still useful for deciding when to take the exam. Then there is the bulk of the book: the application itself, starting with the AMCAS personal statement and moving through the 70-plus character limit work experiences, the letters of recommendation strategy, and the broad interview guide. One thing most people miss is the timeline spreadsheet they include. It is downloadable from their website along with the book. You enter your target schools, your submission dates, and it calculates backward to tell you when each task needs to happen. I found this more valuable than most of the essay advice. Running late on a secondary is the fastest way to get buried in the rolling admissions pile, and the spreadsheet makes that visible early. The downloadable materials also include a worksheet for tracking interview invitations by school and month. If you are applying to 20 or more schools like most people do, this prevents you from showing up to an interview unprepared because you forgot which school called you in October versus November. It sounds minor. It is not.
There is a section on the personal statement that recommends a specific structure: start with a brief anecdote, move into your motivations, then describe your experiences and what you learned, and close by tying it back to why you want to be a physician. This is standard advice, and it is correct. But the book also includes a sample personal statement from a student who got into a top-tier school with a 3.6 GPA and a 508 MCAT. The sample is useful not because you should copy it, but because it shows what a finished product looks like. The average applicant's personal statement reads like a cover letter. This sample reads like a narrative. The gap between those two things is what the book is trying to close.
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The Parts That Don't Work As Well
Not everything in the book is equally strong. The interview section is the weakest part. It covers behavioral questions and standard medical ethics scenarios, but the advice is fairly surface-level. It tells you to use the STAR method, which is fine, but it does not go into the more difficult situational judgment questions that some schools now use. If you are prepping for multiple mini-interviews specifically, you will need supplementary material. The MCAT section is also thin. It explains the testing window and score reporting timelines but does not give detailed study strategies. If you need help with the MCAT itself, Examkrackers has a separate full course for that. Another limitation is the school list coverage. The book mentions general strategies for selecting schools based on mission fit and acceptance data, but it does not include updated acceptance statistics for individual schools. That data changes every year. You should cross-reference the school selection advice with the AAMC MSAR database, which is the official source and costs about $425. The book's general guidance on school selection is sound, but the specifics require current data that the book cannot provide. The section on financial aid and loan repayment programs is also outdated in parts. Some of the program names and eligibility criteria mentioned may have shifted. A few minutes spent verifying anything financial against the official FSA portal is worthwhile.
How to Use the Book Effectively
Read it once straight through before you start any part of your application. You do not need to take notes on the first pass. Just understand the scope of what is involved. Most people start applying in June and immediately realize they should have been preparing since the previous fall. Reading the book first gives you a sense of the full timeline. Then return to the relevant sections as you work on each component. Do not try to write your personal statement before you have finished the activities list chapter. The two are connected, and the book explains how. Your personal statement draws from your activities. If you write the essay first and then go back to add meaningful experiences, you will have to revise the essay anyway. The activity description worksheets are the most practical part of the book. Fill them out completely before you open AMCAS. The primary application has character limits that will force you to edit heavily, and doing that work in the worksheets before you face the real thing saves hours. I had a student who spent three weeks rewriting a single activity description in AMCAS because he had never written it out in full first. The worksheets prevent that.
Use the downloadable timeline spreadsheet immediately after you decide on your target schools. Put in your submission dates and let it do the math. If it tells you that you need to have your final draft personal statement ready by March for a June 1 submission, you will know exactly what the deadline is instead of guessing.
Who Should Skip It
If you are applying to osteopathic medical schools, the book is less useful. It is written primarily for allopathic (MD) programs through AMCAS. The DO application goes through AACOMAS, which has different character limits, different activity categories, and a different personal statement prompt. The general advice about timelines and interviews still applies, but you will need a DO-specific resource for the application mechanics. If you are a international applicant or have a non-traditional background, the book does not address those situations in much depth. There is a short section on gaps and alternative paths, but it is not comprehensive. You may need additional guidance on how foreign transcripts are evaluated and how gap years are viewed by admissions committees. If you are applying to a combined program like MD/PhD, the personal statement strategy is very different. The book covers MD-only applications. For MD/PhD, you are writing a research statement as part of your primary application, and the advice in this book does not apply to that component.
Where to Get It
The book is available directly from the Examkrackers website at examkrackers.com, as well as through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The 5th edition is the current version. It retails for around $24.99 for the paperback. The downloadable resources, including the timeline spreadsheet and activity worksheets, are included with the purchase and accessible through a code in the book or through your account on their site after ordering. There is no free PDF version that is legitimate. Any site offering a download is distributing it without authorization, and the files are often corrupted or missing pages. Save yourself the trouble and buy it new. The book is one solid option among several for medical school admissions guidance. It is not the only resource you will need, and it has clear gaps, particularly around interviews and non-AMCAS applications. But for a pre-med who is starting from scratch and wants a single volume that covers the entire process in reasonable depth, it is a practical place to begin.
