Blueprint vs Altius MCAT – which is preferred?

It might be tough to choose between Blueprint and Altius MCAT review courses, especially considering their high costs and the importance of your MCAT score to your medical school applications.

In a nutshell, you need to make the best decision you can. We discuss our opinions on each course, as well as which sorts of learners might benefit from the various features and teaching approaches, in this comprehensive comparison guide.

Curriculum and content review

Despite the fact that it was a difficult decision, we ultimately picked Blueprint. While both organizations provide comprehensive sets of coursework that cover every aspect of content evaluation, Blueprint’s course format takes the lead.

Their course is divided into integrated and highly simplified learning modules, each of which includes a brief video lecture, quiz, prescribed reading, and evaluation.

This strategy enables you to examine certain subtopics from many perspectives and gain a complete comprehension of them before moving on to the next.

Video lessons

Blueprint, without a doubt, offers the greatest video tutorials for MCAT preparation. In their videos, they use animated depictions of chemical processes and physical systems, as well as beautiful graphics and clever instructor delivery.

Furthermore, the information is relevant. The video lectures are divided into 160 or so bite-sized learning modules, making them easily consumable and, in our opinion, improving subject retention.

Blueprint is the greatest bet for true visual learners not only above Altius, but maybe across all MCAT prep firms). This isn’t to say the Altius video lectures aren’t good – far from it. It’s just not one of their strong suits.

Prep books

We came to an agreement as a team on this one. Without a doubt, Blueprint’s prep books are superior. This is because in large part to the thoroughness with which they have written their topics.

Blueprint provides six hardcopy MCAT prep books that cover a variety of subjects, including Psychology & Sociology, Physics, Biology, Biochemistry, Chemistry & Organic Chemistry, and CARS.

These books are chock-full of eye-catching graphics and callout boxes for key ideas, on top of being exceptionally well-written.

In comparison, Altius only has one “student study handbook.” To be honest, the Altius study guide is a bible-like volume that has everything in one spot. It doesn’t, however, offer the same amount of value as Blueprint’s books.

User interface and overall experience

Altius’ internet platform and digital assets are more than acceptable, although this is not one of their strong suits. Small group live class sessions, 1-on-1 mentorship, and live review sessions emphasize the human aspect of MCAT preparation.

In their training, Blueprint, on the other hand, emphasizes the significance of user experience. Their digital platform is modern, responsive, and just great. This is a no-brainer: Blueprint is the winner.

Practice tests and questions

Video classes are not one of Altius’ key skills, as I just indicated. Practice tests, on the other hand, aren’t. Altius’ MCAT practice exams, in our opinion, are among the finest in the industry. They assessed official MCAT issues for word count, complexity, length, and other characteristics, then used that knowledge to reverse engineer some exceptional practice questions.

They’re quite lifelike and nearly resemble the actual thing. To be clear, the Blueprint MCAT practice exams are also excellent.

The Next Step group (bought by Blueprint in 2020) created their mock examinations, and it was one of their specializations, so you know they’re good. But it’s going to be difficult to beat Altius here.

Problem explanations

Altius has a little advantage in the practice issue explanation category, however it’s a close call. Their response solutions are thought-provoking, extremely thorough, and presented in an easy-to-understand style.

It’s a powerful combo when paired with their mentorship program for reviewing practice exam and quiz outcomes. Blueprint’s MCAT issue explanations are good, however they are a little short.

However, the example flagging for passage-based errors is Blueprint’s saving grace. Blueprint tells you exactly where you should have concentrated your highlighting and strike-through for the best solutions for difficulties that follow a long text flow.

Live lessons

This is another tough choice, but we’ll go with Altius because of their tiny class sizes. Depending on your course option, Altius provides anything from 60 to 200 hours of training time, limited in classes of only 6-8 people.

We truly liked and learned a lot from these live sessions. Our session was taught by two former Altius students who had MCAT scores in the 95th and 97th percentiles and who understood their subject – and how to express it.

Blueprint’s classes, on the other hand, were excellent. They, too, have two professors per class who work well together and effectively communicate Blueprint’s top-tier curriculum.

Pricing

Blueprint provides just two packages: a $2,000 self-paced course and a $2,600 standard package with live courses.

On the other hand, Altius provides a $1,000 self-paced course, but their more expensive courses start at roughly $2,500 and go up from there.

Final verdict

In this comparison, we would give props to Blueprint, despite the fact that it was a tight decision on several fronts.

Blueprint is simply too strong of a course, even while we adore Altius’ small group live sessions, weekly focused 1:1 time with a mentor, and realistic practice assessments.

Their outstanding video lectures, unique coursework format, comprehensive prep resources, and dynamic live online classrooms clearly surpass the competition.

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