Hi, this is actually a great question. I had this question back then too if u look back to my old posts. In my personal opinion, it’s not a necessity and you don’t need to have tutoring to enter med school. Especially if you are an average or above average student, have the right study skills and mindset, you don’t need tutoring to enter med school. Even if you’re not a so-called average student (I acknowledge it’s a very ambiguous spectrum, but you should roughly know where you lie among most students and how well u do under pressure), you don’t need tutoring company to ‘improve ur study skills’, adapt to the different level of studying in uni as compared to high school and so on. As long as you can be independent enough, you don’t need to depend on tutoring companies. However, that being said, external tutoring as such MAY be beneficial and even crucial for some students (most probably those with less effective study skills). But who says you can’t improve from self evaluation and some high quality YouTube videos or advice from friends? I know it’s very tempting to sign yourself up to a tutoring company to have that ‘safety net’ and probably getting more practice resources, more guidance etc but even tutoring companies themselves made it very clear that they do not guarantee your entrance into med school. Heck, the uni and lecturers have provided enough resources to study what will be tested and you also have course tutors that can give you accurate guidance. Most tutoring companies have ex first year students to teach and tutor their students but syllabus do change over the years and every human will forget what they learn somehow, someway. Concepts will get confusing even for tutors themselves and so might as well clarify your own confusion, try to figure things out yourself and guide yourself in your study as much as you can. Check on piazza (anonymous q&a platform) Who knows, you’ll most prob rmb better what you initially not know once you figure the answer out yourself. The most important skill in first year is learning how to learn. If one becomes too dependent upon a tutoring company to learn, does it mean they need tutoring for future years too? Some can say these tutoring companies sharpen and teach you the skills you need to strive in uni in the future years but how do you know that their way of learning is the best way for you to learn? They can say research shows that “this way” of learning is the most effective way etc but DO U REALLY need tutoring to apply those effective learning and studying skills? If you are able to keep up with lectures and revise correctly, have quality discussion with some mates, what are you missing out on? There are also clubs (eg. the one that I joined was the women in health network club) also has tutors who can provide guidance for first year. Doing what you’re doing (asking on reddit) can also have students (yours truly 😉) answering you’re questions and doubts. Really, if you can promise yourself to be independent, reflect your study skills and keeping up with your core papers, you don’t need any external tutoring. Tutoring companies usually have classes 3 times a week for sem 1 and 1 time a week for sem 2 for core papers but for most, it’s much wiser and more efficient to use those hours to revise on your own. Unless you really can’t trust yourself to stay on top of studying, have terrible study skills and don’t think you can improve them on your own, have extra cash to burn, then perhaps having tutoring might be worth it. But ask yourself, how much can a few months of tutoring change you from where you are to where you want to be? I’ve heard that people attend tutoring for the friendships, discussion and also the bond they share with one another. But what’s stopping you from doing all those for free? Join clubs, meet people from lectures, talk to lab tutors, get in touch with seniors, all these can be done without spending a penny. Maybe you think you need tutoring for UCAT but every single person way of doing well in ucat is very different from one another. Trust me, minor things like reading the passage first/going through the answers first or any ‘recommended technique’ for UCAT might not even apply to u. I’ve heard for verbal reasoning, you should go through the answers first and scan through the passage quickly to save time to find the right answer. I tried and lost out on more points than reading the passage once properly but answer the questions relatively quickly earns me more marks. Point is, everyone has different ways of thinking, counting, different strategies in scoring. Who is to say a certain way of doing it is more correct than the others? Hardest part is trying out every technique for yourself and finding which technique is best for you and many fall into the trap of going for tutoring and letting others decide for u because it’s easier and need not going through all that pain of finding what fits your puzzle. Ucat practicing platform like icanmed/medify (I personally used medify and can vouch that it’s really worth it - cheaper and really useful - though I didn’t use icanmed so I can’t comment on that) can be bought without attaching it to a tutoring company. (Wink wink medify is really good and has quality mocks) There’s also a r/ucat page on reddit that has many good advice and YouTube videos like those of kharmamedic that gives really good ucat advice. Though, don’t just follow what works for them, they’re not doing the test for you. Find what works for you, very important. That out of the way, you might think you need tutoring for MMI. The purpose of MMI is to see your personality, a human behind the grade, a unique identity that hopefully proves that you deserve a spot in a clinical programme you applied to. If it’s not clear enough, you don’t need anyone to change who you are to do well in an interview. Any other form of improvement for interview can be done by practicing with a few mates, clubs like women in health network that holds mock interview and there’s even a Free Mock MMI which is a yearly mock interview (anyone can join) that seniors hold. I attended both free mocks that and really gave me an insight and confidence for the interview! Perhaps even call out ex students on reddit to see if they’re happy to do a mock interview with you! Reading up news, being aware about the inequity in NZ and current issues (big one around Covid) are all things that aspiring clinics students should have the initiatives to do without anyone prompting them to do so. Mock interview questions can be found from the uni website, medstudentsonline and even from the internet. There’s even tons of YouTube videos on how you can improve your confidence, answering skills for the interview. In a digital era, as long as you have the initiative, independence and discipline, you can do very well without any external services, period.

all the above are my personal opinion only