Altius Test Prep

What Altius Test Prep is

Altius Test Prep is an MCAT preparation company for premedical students, built around live classes and mentoring rather than a self-study video library. Its About page gives the fast facts: founded in 2005, headquartered in Provo, Utah, founder Lauren Curtis. Around the core MCAT course it sells practice exams, a study bundle called the MCAT First Aid Kit, undergraduate science tutoring and medical school admissions packages, and since 2025 it has run a free 30-day version of the course.

The founding story on the About page is specific. Curtis was studying for the MCAT as an undergraduate at Brigham Young University, found the available materials were not preparing him the way he hoped, and built his own study materials and strategies, which ended in a near-perfect score. Other students heard about it, he began mentoring them, and before long he was mentoring 30+ students and chose to delay his own medical school admission to keep helping others. The company now describes itself as "one of the fastest growing companies in the education industry," and the home page marks 20 years of Altius.

The MCAT course and mentoring

The home page frames the course around three promises: individual care for each student, one-on-one mentoring and the most accurate practice materials it can make. Under the heading "The Most Class Sessions," it says Altius "provides the most number of MCAT class sessions for your subscription, giving you more time with MCAT tutors and mentors." Clyde Wixom, the Executive Vice President of Mentoring, is quoted: "We care about the individual student, which translates to effort and great scores." The Altius Promise on the About page commits to mentoring "the individual and not a name" and to helping each student improve from where they start.

One scheduled format is spelled out on the home page. The Fall Long Track is for students who want to prepare during the academic year: classes begin in September or October, students sit the MCAT in April or May, and the track is recommended for students carrying up to 18 credit hours at a university. The site's MCAT menu also lists MCAT Mentoring, an Elite option and an MCAT Summer Immersion program alongside the standard course. Anyone weighing the options is invited to schedule a call with an MCAT consultant.

The free 30-day course

The free course was announced in a February 2025 post by Jason Hall, the Vice President of Marketing. It gives 30 days of the Altius MCAT Prep Course at no charge, taught by instructors who earned 520+ on the MCAT and hold a 5-star rating from Altius students. It includes weekly small-group tutoring sessions that review that week's material and MCAT section, and full-length practice exams with reviews using Altius and AAMC materials. The post explains why the course is free: many strong students "simply cannot afford a full MCAT course," and others want to take the course "for a spin before committing." It also pitches the 30 days as a way to find out whether self-study will be enough or a full course is needed.

There is a condition worth noting. Under "What is needed to participate?" the post says the Altius MCAT First Aid Kit Pro "includes everything needed to be successful in the Free MCAT Course," listing 10 MCAT practice exams, 1 half-length diagnostic exam and 42 mini exams. Students should count that kit in the cost of the free month.

Practice exams and the First Aid Kit

The First Aid Kit on the home page packages the official AAMC Prep Online Bundle with Altius study materials, which the company says it heavily subsidizes. It costs $301, against a stated $430 value, and includes the AAMC Online Bundle (a $390 value), MCAT practice exams, a half-length diagnostic exam, mini exams and the Altius study manual.

The practice exams are also sold on their own: 1 test for $40, 5 tests for $169 and 10 tests for $199. Each full-length exam covers the four MCAT sections, with 59 questions each in psychological, social and biological foundations of behavior, chemical and physical foundations, and biological and biochemical foundations, and 53 in critical analysis and reasoning. Every exam allows unlimited attempts and comes with one full year of access from the date of purchase, and a free exam is offered beside the packages. The practice exam page makes strong claims about fidelity: it says the exams match AAMC materials on item difficulty, passage word count, question blueprints, figures, formatting, topic distribution and standardization, that 100% of its questions and passages were written from scratch for the MCAT-2015 format, and that "our students score within 1-2 points of their last practice exam on their actual MCAT." Results can be analyzed by question type, topic, subtopic and scientific reasoning skill, using what the page counts as over 1,500 metrics, with graphs that track progress across all exams taken.

Science tutoring and admissions

Undergraduate science tutoring prepares students for the coursework that feeds the MCAT. The subjects are Foundations of Organic Chemistry I and II, Physics I and II, General Chemistry I and II, Premed Bio-Chemistry, and Algebra, Calculus and Trigonometry. One session costs $100, a pack of 5 costs $400 and a pack of 10 costs $750. Questions about tutoring go to the company by email or on Instagram.

For the application itself, Altius sells admissions packages offering "hands-on guidance from mentors and actual ADCOM members to secure admissions to your target schools." The site also has an MCAT for Military section and a Partner with Altius section for institutions.

Results, scholarships and the team

The headline number is a 516.4 average MCAT score, and the home page states that Altius graduates' average "is the highest average in the industry"; that is the company's own claim. Beside it the page prints 84 next to "Score 510+ on the MCAT," 50 next to "Score in 90th percentile" and 15 next to "Score increase with Altius." On cost, the page says Altius "is priced to be affordable on a student budget," but the site does not print the prices of the main course or its tiers.

The Altius Cares Scholarship is tied to the 20-year anniversary: the home page says the company is giving away over $2M in scholarships through a 2-minute application form, and a separate line says over $3M has been awarded. The Team page says the leadership has "a combined 100+ years of proven experience in medical and higher education services" and names Curtis as Founder and CEO, Wixom, Hall, who joined in January 2025 after a 15+ year career in higher education, and Senior Office Manager Falisha Petroff.

Who it suits

Altius fits a premed who wants a teacher in the room: frequent live classes, small-group tutoring and a mentor who follows their weak spots. The Fall Long Track suits a student preparing alongside a full university course load, and the free 30 days let a student on a tight budget test the method before paying. Students who mainly need practice can buy the exams alone, with a year of access and unlimited retakes, and those still finishing organic chemistry or physics can book science tutoring by the session.

The caveats are mostly about cost visibility. The main course price has to come from a consultant call, and the free course post names the First Aid Kit Pro as what a participant needs. A student who prefers a fully self-paced video course with no live component will find the model less suited to them, since the whole pitch rests on class time and mentoring.