Altius MCAT Review (2025): Is It the Best MCAT Prep Course?

You’re trying to get into med school, so the last thing you need to do is stress about which MCAT prep course will help you do it.

All you need to know is how serious you are about scoring high.

Enter Altius MCAT Prep, well-known for its one-on-one mentoring and “practice makes perfect” approach. This review will cover what makes Altius stand out from the crowd and whether it is the right fit for your medical school journey.

Who Is Altius MCAT Prep For?

Altius MCAT Prep has a lot to offer to the right kind of test taker. It is best suited for highly motivated medical students who are aiming for high scores on the MCAT. That is to say, this program is designed with a specific kind of learner in mind: those who thrive with structure, mentorship, and a results-driven environment.

🎯Altius MCAT Prep is fantastic for students looking to achieve top-tier, 90th-percentile MCAT scores.

Altius is tailored for students aiming for scores in the 90th percentile or higher. The program’s rigorous approach to MCAT prep and its intensive practice schedule make it ideal for those with ambitious score goals.

🎯Altius is for students who want accountability in their education.

One of Altius’s most significant strengths is its one-on-one mentoring and small-group sessions. Both are major aspects of Altius’s MCAT prep and are a massive boon to current students enrolled in its courses.

If you benefit from personalized guidance, frequent check-ins, and having someone keep you on track, Altius will exceed your expectations.

🎯Altius works best for students who benefit from a live-learning environment.

Altius emphasizes live instruction over passive content consumption. You will likely flourish in Altius’s live-learning environment if you prefer real-time interaction with instructors and peers rather than watching pre-recorded videos.

🎯Altius is ideal for students who desire a comprehensive MCAT course structure.

The Altius program is more than just a review—it’s a full-scale training experience. Yeah, it’s intense. With detailed study plans, diagnostic testing, and integrated strategy coaching, it’s built for students who want a complete roadmap to MCAT success, rather than just a satisfactory score.

While Altius MCAT Prep offers a lot of value for the right students, it’s important to consider who may not benefit from this program.

🚫Who is Altius MCAT Prep NOT ideal for?

Altius MCAT Prep is not ideal for budget-conscious students or students who prefer self-paced studying.

With prices that can be comparatively higher than some other prep options, Altius is not the best choice for students who are looking for an affordable or budget-friendly prep option.

Additionally, Altius places a heavy emphasis on live instruction and structured schedules. It may not be ideal for students who prefer to study at their own pace, without the pressure of a schedule or deadlines.

Scores you can expect from Altius MCAT Prep

Altius MCAT Course Options and Pricing

Altius has a lot of course options to help students survive preparing for the MCAT. It emphasizes mentoring programs and tutoring, which seems to be the platform’s biggest draw. Otherwise, Altius offers limited self-paced courses, a summer schedule, and a “boot camp.” Altius’s course options are pricey, but luckily, it has payment plans available for its mentoring courses.

Courses	Features	Price
Elite*	all available AAMC practice exams 10 Altius full-length exams 20 MCAT practice exams 115+ hours of live, small-group instruction 45 2.5-hour live classroom sessions 30 problem-based group sessions 15 small group tutoring sessions	$2399
Silver	everything from Elite personal MCAT mentor 15 1:1 private mentoring sessions 24/7 access to a personal mentor	$3399
Gold	everything from Silver 10 extra mentoring sessions, for 25 total mentoring sessions	$4499
Platinum	everything from Gold 15 more mentoring sessions, for 40 total mentoring sessions 150+ hours of live classroom instruction 60 2.5-hour live classroom sessions 15 platinum-only mastery sessions	$6499
First Aid Kit Basic	AAMC Online Bundle one MCAT practice exam one half-length diagnostic exam	$281
First Aid Kit Plus	AAMC Online Bundleten MCAT practice exams one half-length diagnostic exam	$381
First Aid Kit Pro	everything from Plus 42 mini-exams Altius study manual	$431
Summer Immersion Gold	14-day trial period 25 private mentoring sessions 127 hours of small-group tutoring 10 MCAT practice exams all available AAMC practice exams	$7499
Summer Immersion Platinum	14-day trial period 40 private mentoring sessions 175 hours of small-group tutoring 10 MCAT practice exams all available AAMC practice exams	$8999
Bootcamp	one Altius MCAT practice exam one 1:1 hour-long mentoring session	$10
Tutoring**	private tutoring offered in packages: 1 session, 10 sessions, 20 sessions, 40 sessions, or 60 sessions	$175–$6599

*For $1000 more, you can get 10 1:1 private tutoring sessions with the Elite course.

**MCAT Tutoring through Altius is offered in session packages: 1 session, 10 sessions, 20 sessions, 40 sessions, and 60 sessions. The cost is determined by which package you choose.

What Does Altius MCAT Prep Include?

Altius MCAT Prep is filled with useful tools to help its students achieve high scores. Most of its material is available at all levels of its mentoring courses—Elite, Silver, Gold, and Platinum—with some exceptions here and there.

Outliers are both Summer Immersion courses and all MCAT First Aid Kits, since none includes live class hours. Otherwise, all available instruction is led by top-notch instructors who know the ins and outs of the MCAT.

☑️1-on-1 MCAT Mentoring

The one-on-one mentoring offered by Altius is some of the best in the business, and it’s also the platform’s main draw. Led by elite instructors, Altius’s mentoring is designed to get you ahead of the curve for the MCAT.

How many sessions you get is determined by your selected course package, but all sessions last about an hour each.

As for content in these one-on-one sessions with your MCAT mentor, you can cover just about anything. Whichever topics you want to cover, you can. However, you can expect an emphasis on working on your personal strengths and weaknesses.

☑️Small Group Live Classes

Small group live classes are yet another thing that Altius is known for. You won’t get lost in the sea of MCAT hopefuls as you may with competitors that feature large class sizes.

Altius’s classes don’t tend to exceed 12 students, so you’re guaranteed individualized attention.

Depending on which mentoring option you select, you can expect to get anywhere from 45 to 60 live class sessions.

☑️10 Full-Length MCAT Practice Tests

Altius’s practice tests are extremely similar to what you would see on the MCAT exam.

Nearly all of Altius’s course options include 10 full-length MCAT practice tests.

Accurate practice tests are just one way Altius prepares its students for the real deal, and when combined with all its other tools, MCAT success is just around the corner.

☑️100+ Live Class Hours

With Altius, you will get over 100 live class hours in applicable courses. This is significantly more than Kaplan, which offers only about 42 hours of live instruction.

That’s right. I said 100 live class hours.

The only other platform to rival the sheer number of live class hours Altius offers is The Princeton Review, which, depending on the specific course package, offers anywhere from 123 to 195 live class hours. On top of the impressive number of live class hours you’ll receive with Altius, it covers all the major topics in its lessons: CARS, PSBB, CPBS, and BBLS.

☑️Office Hours 

Office hours at Altius are held regularly and are led by qualified MCAT instructors. This offers students the chance to clarify concepts, revisit difficult material, and get real-time answers to their questions.

Unlike traditional office hours that may be inconsistent, Altius ensures that hours in the office are frequent and easily booked through the online portal.

☑️CARS-Specific Training

The Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills (CARS) section of the MCAT is the most daunting part of the exam and is notoriously difficult to master. Altius addresses this challenge head-on with dedicated CARS training in its course sections.

Within these CARS sections, you can complete multiple passages under timed conditions and receive detailed feedback on your performance.

CARS training is designed to simulate the real MCAT environment and help students develop the confidence needed for this difficult section.

Based on former student feedback, CARS training offered through Altius is not the most accurate to the MCAT. However, many say it helped develop critical thinking skills regardless (even if they had to reach sometimes).

☑️Weekly Progress Tracking and Accountability Tools

Altius’s courses are filled with tools to maintain student accountability. One of the most significant is weekly progress tracking through an established mentor if you select a course that includes mentoring.

Each student’s MCAT journey is closely monitored through weekly check-ins with their assigned mentor.

These one-on-one sessions are not just for tracking study hours. They’re also strategic meetings designed to reassess goals, adjust study plans, and keep momentum going. You can also review recorded lessons here, just in case you need a refresher.

In addition to personal meetings, students are given access to an online tracking dashboard that visualizes their progress in real time after completing subject-specific assignments and practice exams. That way, you never have to guess whether or not you’ve improved.

From completed assignments to practice test results, everything is logged and visible, creating a data-driven framework that keeps students aware of where they stand and what needs improvement.

Live Classes, Mentoring, and Group Sessions

Altius MCAT Prep stands out for its emphasis on live instruction, personalized mentoring, and its effective use of small group sessions, so even though we’ve hinted at them above, they deserve special attention.

➡️One of the key aspects of Altius’s approach is the small class size.

Classes are intentionally kept small, with anywhere between six and twelve students in a class, ensuring that students can engage actively with instructors and peers. This creates an intimate learning environment that more closely mimics skill workshops than a full-fledged classroom.

➡️The mentorship element is another standout feature.

Altius pairs each student with a personal mentor, typically an MCAT top scorer who has gone through the process themselves. This mentor serves as a guide, helping students address their unique strengths and weaknesses, offering tailored study plans, and providing all-around support throughout the preparation process.

➡️All tutors are vetted by Altius and must meet certain requirements before they are brought into the Altius fold.

Altius’s instructors are highly qualified. They have all scored 520+ on former MCAT exams and met all of Altius’s requirements, which means they bring tons of experience both in the classroom and in coaching students through the MCAT. Their expertise in MCAT content is essential, as students gain not only subject knowledge but also test-taking strategies that can be critical for success firsthand.

Small-group instruction and personalized mentoring are both central to Altius’s MCAT prep experience.

In live classes, students benefit from real-time feedback, collaborative problem-solving with other students, and the guidance of skilled instructors. On the flip side of things, Altius’s mentoring stands out for its depth and individualization. Each student is paired with a dedicated, experienced mentor who helps identify strengths and weaknesses and keep progress on track. Together, these two formats create a complete support system: one that fosters community learning and one-on-one growth.

Materials and Study Tools

Some MCAT prep companies shine more than others when it comes to the actual materials they offer. Altius offers a comprehensive list of effective content to help students master the MCAT.

Physical and Digital Books Provided

Altius provides students with a physical study manual. That is, however, the only physical book students receive. All other resources are available via PDF, which becomes accessible upon enrollment.

While Altius lacks physical books, what is provided is clearly written, with content that aligns directly with AAMC standards and testable concepts.

Extensive Question Banks

A major strength of the Altius program is its expansive Qbank, which includes thousands of practice questions modeled closely after AAMC materials. Altius formats and matches its Qbank to actual questions you can expect to see on the MCAT.

The questions are sorted by topic and difficulty, allowing students to target specific weaknesses or reinforce strong areas.

Each question includes a detailed explanation—a key feature for developing a deeper conceptual understanding of the MCAT’s most complicated content.

Practice Passages and Strategy Guides

Altius supplements its question banks with a large collection of practice passages, particularly for sections like CARS and the sciences, such as Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems (CPBS).

These passages simulate the format and difficulty of the real MCAT and are accompanied by strategy guides that teach students how to dissect questions and identify patterns.

These guides are practical and give students concrete methods to approach even the most challenging passages.

Flashcards, Diagnostics, and Analytics Platform

Altius includes digital flashcards, diagnostic exams, and a robust analytics platform.

Diagnostic exams are administered early in the program to assess baseline strengths and weaknesses. These assessments are then used to tailor each student’s study plan and inform mentor recommendations.

Throughout the course, students continue taking full-length practice exams, with detailed analytics provided after each test. The analytics platform breaks down performance by topic, passage type, and question style, helping students fine-tune their approach as the big exam day approaches.

Flashcard sets—organized by subject—integrate seamlessly with the study schedule and help students retain high-yield facts without overwhelming their study time.

Overall, the tools Altius provides are rich in data and ensure that every hour spent studying is efficient, informed, and targeted toward real score gains.

User Experience and Platform Design

Altius’s online learning platform is designed to be user-friendly, though it is a little on the basic side, especially when compared to competitors. Now, it isn’t clunky by any means, but it isn’t very impressive, either. The dashboard gets the job done, with a clear structure that makes it easy for students to navigate through pre-recorded lessons, subject-specific assignments, and progress tracking.

Communication between students and mentors is seamless through the dashboard, with a system that supports messaging, feedback, and check-ins. The ease of reaching out to mentors directly via the platform encourages students to stay engaged and take advantage of the personalized support offered by Altius.

Refund Policy

Altius offers several ways for students to obtain a refund if they are at all dissatisfied with Altius’s MCAT prep. There are some slight differences between Altius’s “Our Promise” page and its actual terms and conditions, which we cover here. Just in case, we recommend checking Altius’s terms and conditions for relevant refund policy information.

For certain course packages, Altius offers a score guarantee. However, you must complete 100% of the selected course to invoke a score guarantee.

The only courses covered by a score guarantee are the Silver, Gold, and Platinum mentoring packages and the Elite MCAT classroom prep—the latter is covered by Altius’s 1-Point Improvement Double Your Money Back Guarantee. This means you get double your purchase price back if you fail to improve your score by a single point.

The mentoring packages have a 90th-percentile guarantee, while its Fall Accelerated track and Summer Immersion courses are covered by a 10-point increase guarantee. Typically, this means that by taking one of Altius’s mentoring courses, you can guarantee yourself a score between 515 and 520.

Otherwise, you are guaranteed at least a 10-point increase from your previous MCAT score or compared to a full-length diagnostic test administered by Altius if you hadn’t taken the MCAT before. This is where the terms and conditions waver from “Our Promise,” which instead claims to offer a 12-point increase guarantee.

Alternatively, Altius offers a 30-day money-back guarantee for its Silver, Gold, and Platinum courses. It also has a 15-day money-back guarantee for its Elite MCAT class prep. After looking into it, Altius’s trial period guarantees are consistent.

That being said, you have within the specified time limit to request a refund, minus the cost of the AAMC codes (those are yours for life, no take-backs). You also won’t get refunded for the cost of any one-on-one tutoring sessions already attended, so keep that in mind.

When we consider all of the above, Altius has a fairly solid refund policy for select courses. It would be rock solid if all of its courses were covered. It would be even better if its refund policy information could be consistent on its website.

How Does Altius Compare to Other MCAT Prep Courses?

When compared to other major MCAT prep courses such as Blueprint, Kaplan, The Princeton Review, and Magoosh, Altius distinguishes itself in several key areas.

When it comes to personalization, live instruction, and overall results, Altius is the place to be.

Features	Altius	Kaplan	Princeton Review	Blueprint	Magoosh
Price	$2399+	$1699+	$2399+	$3239+	$399
12-month access	❌	✅	✅	✅	✅
Installment payment options	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
7-day money-back guarantee	❌	❌ (within 72 hrs)	❌	❌	✅
+10-point score guarantee	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
3+ full-length practice tests	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
On-demand video lessons	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Personalized study schedules	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Email tutor support	✅	❌ (only with live)	❌ (only with live)	❌	✅
Live classes	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌
1-on-1 tutoring included	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌
Mobile app	❌	✅	✅	✅	✅
AAMC fee assistance support	❌	✅	❌	✅	✅

While other providers have been around longer and have a large following, Altius has gained a reputation for delivering results. Students who value close instructor attention and feedback tend to find significant benefits in Altius’s comprehensive approach.

At the end of the day, whether or not Altius is for you is your decision. Another MCAT program may suit you in several different areas whereas Altius may work in only one. Let us be the first to tell you, that is OK! After all, you want MCAT prep that works for you—not for the majority.

Final Verdict: Is Altius MCAT Worth It?

At the end of the day, we can say with confidence that Altius MCAT Prep is worth it. It’s rigorous, sure, but it is effective. Ambitious students who enjoy structured courses and live learning will love Altius, as long as they can afford its high cost.

That doesn’t mean it’s for everyone. Students with a more go-with-the-flow approach to studying may not fit in well with Altius’s strict MCAT prep programs, and neither will students on a budget. 

Altius isn’t just another prep course: it’s a commitment. Like choosing a medical specialty, finding the right MCAT prep is about alignment. If Altius matches your mindset and means, it can take you far.

FAQs

How much does Altius MCAT prep cost?

Altius MCAT prep’s cost varies, though it is considered to be more costly than competitors. It offers a variety of MCAT prep course packages, all with different starting price points. The least expensive option is the MCAT Bootcamp at $10, while the most expensive is its MCAT Summer Immersion at $8999.

Does Altius offer a score guarantee?

Yes, Altius offers a score guarantee for some of its courses, including its Silver, Gold, and Platinum courses, as well as its Elite options. For its Silver, Gold, or Platinum mentoring courses, Altius offers a 90th-percentile score guarantee or a 12-point increase guarantee. In the case of the Elite classroom options, Altius has a double-your-money-back guarantee if you don’t improve your MCAT score.

For all of the above, you have to complete 100% of your respective course for the guarantee to be valid.

What makes Altius different from Kaplan or Blueprint?

What sets Altius apart from competitors like Kaplan and Blueprint is its approach to teaching the MCAT. Unlike Kaplan and Blueprint, Altius focuses on providing tailored coaching and individualized feedback. Its programs emphasize one-on-one interaction with personal mentors who adapt to each student and prioritize their strengths and weaknesses. This customization is complemented by Altius’ rigorous content review, which effectively combines content mastery and critical thinking.

Another differentiator is Altius’s immersive live class model, which blends live instruction with on-demand resources. While Kaplan and Blueprint also offer a range of resources, Altius tends to be more recurrent and more thorough, allowing for frequent progress assessments and adjustments to study strategies.

Can I take Altius MCAT courses online?

Yes, you can take Altius MCAT courses online. Altius offers live online classes, as well as in-person classes based in Provo, Utah.