Since Spring 2025, the Undergraduate Student Government Association has been developing a program to provide students with preparatory books for pre-professional exams like the Medical College Admission Test, Law School Admission Test, and National Council Licensure Examination.
The Prep Books Program lets students check out new prep books from the front desk of Sterne Library. Students can keep them for up to a week or scan them.
As USGA’s Financial Support Coordinator last year, current Junior Sarah Jerry proposed the program with last year’s Financial Literacy Coordinator Param Chauhan, who has since graduated. After approval, Chauhun and Jerry started reaching out to UAB Libraries to help them host the program.
Patricia West, Sterne’s Assistant Dean for Public Services, and Howard Fox, Sterne’s Supervisor of User Access/Course Reserves, were eager to collaborate.
“They were very helpful in kind of poking through the areas we hadn’t well planned out so that we could kind of make the program stronger all around.”
Fox remarked that other organizations had reached out to Sterne Libraries in the past about hosting preparatory books, but they hadn’t maintained them.
“What happens…in a couple years when [the books] are outdated, and you’re graduated, and moving on with life?”
USGA has committed to replacing books as they become outdated, and Sterne is handling the processing and hosting of the program.
Since the program officially started in Fall 2025, each prep book has been checked out at least once, and the most popular book, Princeton Review’s “MCAT Physics and Math Review”, has been checked out a dozen times.
Michael Martin, ‘26, a Management and Information Systems major and student assistant at Sterne, has loaned some of these books to students. He feels the program is a great way to help students save money.
Kenan Strahm, ‘28, is a former Sterne student assistant and Biology student who also remembers grabbing prep books for students. As a pre-medical student, he said he definitely plans to scan some MCAT prep books.
As USGA’s current Director of Funding, Jerry is working to advertise the Prep Books Program and expand it to include more pre-professional exams and a wider variety of prep materials, such as flashcards and question banks.
“More use of the books means fewer students are having to pay out of pocket, an obscene amount for…a set of textbooks that’s already going to be a lot of money to register for.”
Currently, Sterne and USGA are providing Kaplan’s “MCAT Complete 7-Book Subject Review,” “The Loophole in LSAT Logical Reasoning” by Ellen Cassidy, “The LSAT Trainer” by Mike Kim, The Princeton Review’s “MCAT Subject Review Complete Box Set,” and Saunder’s “
Students who want a book that the program doesn’t yet offer can request it through this form.
