We've written before about why studying entirely alone tends to work against candidates. That advice holds up, but it comes with a genuine exception worth being honest about: a study group backfires when there's mismatched pace, groupthink on wrong answers, or sessions that quietly turn social - and the fix is structure, not avoiding groups altogether.
Mismatched pace
A study group where members are at meaningfully different levels or paces tends to either hold back the stronger candidates or leave weaker ones struggling to keep up in silence rather than actually asking. Neither outcome is a good use of anyone's time, no matter how well-intentioned the group is.
Groupthink on wrong answers
A confidently wrong explanation from one group member can spread unchecked through a group faster than a single person's individual misconception would ever spread on its own, especially if nobody in the group has a reliable way to verify who's actually right.
Social time disguised as study time
This is the most common failure mode: a group session that starts with good intentions and slowly turns into a social hangout that happens to be in the same room as some open textbooks. It's genuinely hard to notice this happening from inside it.
How to actually fix, rather than avoid, group study
Group with people at a genuinely similar level, not just people you like spending time with. Set a concrete agenda for each session, specific topics or specific past questions, rather than an open-ended "let's study together." And build in an honest way to check answers, an answer key, a more reliable source like official past papers, not just group consensus.
The honest verdict
The problem was never studying with others. It's studying with others without any structure. Fix the structure and the original advice holds; keep the structure loose and it backfires exactly the way this article describes.
Not sure if your current group setup is actually helping or quietly wasting time? The Lounge is a free IMAT score predictor - answer a few questions and see exactly where you'd realistically land, and which universities that score would clear.
Try the free Score PredictorStudying with others is still generally a good idea. It just isn't automatically a good idea, and the difference comes down entirely to structure.
