OpenReview: The first free MCAT textbook fully integrated into an AI learning space
- Mark Lee
- Sep 7
- 5 min read
Updated: Oct 10
By: Mark Lee, MD
September 7, 2025
Coming towards the end of my medical education, I often find myself reflecting on this journey. On one hand, there is so much to celebrate—it is now time to embark on my career. But on the other hand, there is an abundance of battle scars. Many of which are clinical, but one that surprised me (though was not unexpected) was a financial scar.
It is a bit off putting that after 15 years of education and service, that I finished with $120,000 of student loan debt. And I am fortunate, as this is relatively small compared to my peers. Nevertheless, it is uncomfortable to have such negative net worth well into my 30s.
While perhaps a drop in the bucket by this point, one contributor to this negative amount was test prep and test taking. Throughout all phases of education, we are continually extracted for money. As many of you are familiar with, the cost of taking the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) is over three-hundred dollars. In addition, the materials to study for the exam add up to hundreds of dollars as well.
I recently calculated that over the lifetime of my medical education I spent at least $1,780 on test prep. This is a conservative estimate, as many of those receipts have since gone missing. We in the medical trainee community are a captive audience, willing to do whatever it takes to pursue our dreams. I for one, splurged on three textbook series while studying for the MCAT: Kaplan, ExamKrackers, and the Berkeley Review. I additionally purchased all the official American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) practice tests, as well as non-official practice questions from several other sources. Somewhat comically, I also purchased LSAT materials and subscribed to The Economist, to improve my critical reading.
This is what inspired us to start OpenReview.
A Free MCAT Textbook
Our goal is to build free, high-quality textbooks for the MCAT. Our secondary goal is to modernize MCAT studying by integrating our resources in an AI learning space. Prior to this initiative, there were no high-quality, open-access resources specifically built for the MCAT. The closest was a collaboration between the AAMC and non-profit publishing groups like OpenStax. The AAMC identified free resources that covered the key foundational concepts of the MCAT. The limitation of their initiative was that each concept was simply hyperlinked to resources or textbooks designed to study for college courses. That is, these resources are not distilled to the level of detail and clinical relevance required for the MCAT. We started OpenReview for the MCAT to build upon their initiative.
How OpenReview was Made
In their online platform, the AAMC outlines the foundational concepts required of pre-medical trainees. Each of these foundational concepts were then mapped to free resources by their partners. My co-founder, Rahul Grover, MD, and I, both alumni of rigorous medical schools, compiled information from these sources using Google's Deep Research, recontextualized it to the level appropriate for the MCAT, and evaluated it for accuracy and comprehensiveness. We completed this process for the biological and biochemical foundational concepts. This first textbook was made free to access on Brain Brew AI, a study platform with a comprehensive suite of AI tools for active learning.
Release Schedule
The remainder of the foundational concepts will be released through the rest of the 2025-2026 academic year. The tentative release timeline is:
There are currently no definitive plans for the Critical Analysis and Reading Skills section of the MCAT, as this section is very different from the others. We truly believe in a collaborative process, so any ideas you may have to address this section are greatly appreciated at support@brainbrewai.com!
How to Access
Brain Brew AI is available in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. It can also be accessed online at app.brainbrewai.com. Once on the platform, create a free account. A free account will grant you full access to the textbook, as well as baseline AI resources. Then on the Study Page, go to Discover An Expert Resource and you can find the textbook OpenReview MCAT Biology and Biochemical Systems. Click on it and follow the prompts to add it to your personal library. The amount of AI resources provided by the free account is sufficient for focused sessions. However, to account for the computational costs of higher utilizations, we provided as low cost of an alternative ($2 per month) as possible.
Recommended Use
As this is a new resource, I recommend trialing it prior to dedicated use. As a longitudinal learner myself, I like to spread apart studies for important tests over longer durations of time. Given this learning style and the parameters of the free tier, a long-term priming phase over the course of six months to a year could work well. You could consider reading a chapter per week and reviewing some practice questions. And when you approach your dedicated study period, purchase one of the standard study materials and compare their contents to OpenReview.
How You Can Help
As we are a small team, we truly appreciate help from you! We imagine OpenReview as a collaborative effort that will progressively improve with contributions from each generation of students. If you find certain concepts are not covered sufficiently, you can let us know with the Suggest Revisions option at the bottom of the textbook viewer, or email us at support@brainbrewai.com. If you have general feedback on the study tools available on Brain Brew AI, please let us know as well as we are rapidly building based on your input.
Also we would appreciate your help in spreading the word to your peers. We are available to present more details at your organization if that is helpful. We are also available to chat with your organizations about non-MCAT related topics.
Thank you so much for taking the time to learn about this project! We hope to personalize MCAT studying for students, at the same time make medical education more affordable. Your support is invaluable to us.
About the author: Dr. Mark Lee is a graduate of Weill Cornell Medicine and currently works as an otolaryngology resident at the New York Presbyterian Hospital. He has a long-standing passion for applying new technologies to improving medical education. In the early phases of 3D printing, he built a model of the voice box for young otolaryngologists to practice bedside procedures. Now his research focuses on ways to make education more personalized and affordable with artificial intelligence.
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