Back in late May we have conducted a member survey consisting of about 15 questions that over 1,000 GMAT Club members participated in (big thank you to you guys). One of the interesting patterns we have noticed is the relationship between users of books and courses. It seemed fairly normal at first, but after digging in, we have noticed a number of differences. This topic will hopefully answer the question I often get on the forum - which one is better Course or Books? The specific questions I wanted to zero in are: 1. What materials did you use? 2. What is your starting/diagnostic score? 3. What is your target score? 4. How satisfied/close are you to your target score? Findings: 1. Prep Materials Used books vs courses.png 2. Mean Target score: 730 The average target score for all groups and segments was closely aligned with 730 (+/- 5 points). This is not surprising since the 730 is the average for the top 5 schools. However, the average is higher than expected for such a large sample. 3. Mean Starting Diagnostic Scores: 560 – 590 Mean Starting Diagnostic Scores Books 590 On Demand courses 580 Live Online courss 560 In Person courses 566 Note: Interesting to see that those using courses actually needed the most help and most improvement, starting out with 560 vs. 590 for those using books 4. Prep Results People are Happier with Courses satisfaction with prep.png Progress Feedback & Happiness with GMAT Prep Books On Demand Live Online Very Unhappy I have not improved much despite spending more than 100 hours preparing for the test. 6% 0% 3% Unhappy While I have improved, I have improved by fewer than 40 points. 18% 11% 7% Neutral While I have improved more than 40 points but I am still quite far away from my target score. 52% 52% 52% Happy I have improved considerably and am within 20 points of my target score. 21% 34% 35% Very Happy I have improved considerably and am confident of hitting my target score. 3% 3% 3% 5. Score Improvement - Courses deliver 37% better results Using the above information and knowing the average starting point as well as average target scores, we can calculate the average score improvement each prep method provides based on about 900+ responses Books: 66 Points Courses: 91 Points Difference: 37% Takeaways: Today when On Demand courses are as inexpensive as book sets (or even cheaper in case of Magoosh's $99 course), why higher score improvement with a course? and what to use for prep? I have a few theories and suggestions: 1. The ROI is definitely starting to shift from the old perspective of using books as the best value for the money. Today an on-demand course can easily be less expensive and as the results have shown, can be 37% more effective 2. A big advantage of using a course vs. books is the timeline and sticking to a fairly defined study plan; that can explain why some of the folks may be getting more score improvement 3. The explanation could be statistical as well - those who sign up for a course could have a more serious attitude and having invested into a time-sensitive product, are forced to progress or lose access What works for you? Please post if something worked really well for you (or really did not work well at all); otherwise, vote please! Other Findings and Results: What books are people using to prep? What books are you using for GMAT Prep? Official Guides 87% MGMAT books 72% Kaplan books 19% Veritas Prep books 14% Other 21% Note: responders were able to pick more than one option; thus the numbers will not add up to 100% What courses are people using to prep? On Demand Course Preferences e-GMAT 54% Magoosh 25% Manhattan Prep 15% EMPOWERgmat 11% Veritas Prep 9% Economist 7% Math Revolution 7% Other 5% Sample size: 143 Live Online Course Preferences e-GMAT 59% Manhattan Prep 15% Veritas Prep 8% Kaplan 5% Other 33% Sample size: 125 In-Person Course Preferences Manhattan Prep 34% Veritas Prep 9% Kaplan 7% Other 58% Sample: 71 Looking for Prep Materials? Best GMAT Books Filter/sort all courses in Marketplace Methodology and Notes: Due to a glitch the system failed to collect satisfaction/improvement numbers for in-person courses. We have run some analysis to see if users of particular brands of books had greater satisfaction than others but that did not produce any meaningful results vs. the average figures we received from the general book users. Same is true for courses – none stood out statistically.

Books vs. Courses – which one is better? [Survey Analysis] : General GMAT Questions and Strategies