What is actually in the box set
Seven volumes matching the exam's sections, plus access to three online full-length practice tests. The current release is the 5th Edition of the Complete Box Set.
The science volumes are the strongest part. Diagrams are clear and well-labelled, and the page layout is noticeably less dense than the main alternative, which matters more than it sounds when you are working through several hundred pages a week.
The volumes sell individually. If your gaps sit in one or two subjects, buying those books is far cheaper than the set, and the set only earns its price when you genuinely need most of it.
How it reads
Cleaner and more visual than Kaplan, and slightly less exhaustive. For most students that is a good trade: a book you will actually finish beats a more complete one you will not.
The CARS volume is the weak link, and it is worth being direct about why. CARS improves mainly through repeated timed passages with feedback on how you approached them, and no book can watch you read.
A CARS chapter can describe a strategy; it cannot tell you that you commit to an answer before finishing the passage.
Check the edition before buying. Princeton Review revises less frequently than Kaplan, and earlier box sets stay on sale alongside the current one with similar packaging.
How it compares with the other sets
The Princeton Review against the other MCAT book sets we review. This compares books with books. Where coaching fits is a separate question, covered further down.
| The Princeton Review | The alternatives | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | ||
| List price | $259.99 for 7 books plus 3 online tests | Kaplan about $299.99; ExamKrackers and Mometrix lower |
| Typical street price | Often well below list | Similar across the big two |
| What you get | ||
| Content coverage | Thorough across all sections | Kaplan comparable; ExamKrackers leaner by design |
| Presentation | Cleaner and less dense than Kaplan | Kaplan is more exhaustive; ExamKrackers more conversational |
| CARS coverage | The weakest volume in the set | ExamKrackers CARS is the long-standing favourite |
| Practice included | 3 online full-length tests | ExamKrackers adds 44 mini-MCATs |
| Currency | ||
| Edition freshness | Currently the 5th edition | Kaplan revises annually |
| Online extras | Present but thin | Kaplan bundles more |
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The Unbiased MCAT Prep Course Decision Quiz
Three different problems stall an MCAT score, and buying the wrong fix costs months. Six questions sort out which one is yours and what to spend on it. We name competitors and free resources when they beat us, and say so when the answer is spend nothing.
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Transparency, before you start. We sell MCAT tutoring and courses, so here are the rules this quiz follows.
- Zero budget, no purchases. Free resources only, and we say so.
- Content gap, buy content first. From whoever does it best, which is usually not us. Our tutoring comes up only as an optional add-on for a big gap.
- Strategy gap, we recommend our own course first. We would put our name against it, and we name a cheaper alternative beside it so you can price us against ours.
- Competitors named and linked when they beat us: UWorld, Kaplan, Blueprint, ExamKrackers, Khan Academy.
- We appear only where we fit, with the budget to match, and always beside a cheaper option.
- Our free MCAT resources show up wherever they fit, and they ask for nothing.
Where books fit, and where they do not
Every set on this page is a content resource. That is worth saying plainly, because it decides whether buying one is a good use of your money.
Books are excellent at closing content gaps. If there are topics you have never properly learned, a well-written set will teach them, at your pace, for a fraction of what a course charges.
This is the case books are built for and they do it well.
Books cannot watch you work. They cannot see that you commit to an answer before finishing the passage, or that you lose four minutes on the first CARS passage every time.
The most common thing students write to us about is finishing a full content resource, retaining it, and sitting at the same practice score. No book fixes that, because the problem is not knowledge.
What we would actually recommend. Buy the official AAMC material first, because nothing substitutes for questions written by the people who write the exam. Add one book set if you have real content gaps.
Add a question bank. Only then consider paying for hours with a person, and only if your score has stalled while you already know the material.
We sell coaching, so read that ordering knowing what we sell. It is also the order we would give a friend who was never going to buy anything from us.
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