Hello Fellas,
(My journey from 540-680)
Choosing a right GMAT institute is always a tough task. Because every institute says they are the best. Isn't it? What makes it worse is that you will find at least one guy from the institute has scored more than 720. And that makes us act like a confused sperm. Choosing the right institute was a headache for me as well however, I realized that it is not the institute but the faculties who make the difference. So I talked to few of my seniors, friends and zeroed down to
PRINCETON REVIEW JAYANAGR They offered me some discounts and it costed me roughly 25-28K (I don't remember the exact figure). The price includes the online PR's portal service where you can take test and prepare for different topics with videos. It also includes the PR's practice books and Official Guide. The classes were scheduled twice a week (on weekends) for 3 month followed by an assessment test and orientation session.
Dr. Ramya was my
QUANT teacher and
Ms. Bodhana was my
VERBAL teacher. As I said, the faculties makes all the difference in your preparation. Both my faculties were very much supportive from the first day itself. In my batch of 10 people, most of us were working professional and for us it was difficult to take out time to do the home assignments. The faculties were well versed with this nature and always pursued us to finish our work for our own improvement, which is very unlikely in other places. And trust me it works.
The PR's portal comes with multiple number of test and the best part is you can discuss and analyse your performance with your trainer. Most of the time they are just a MAIL away.

It helps in tracking your performance and gives your trainer your current status, and based on that they give you advice and additional practice materials.
Verbal was/is always a weak zone for me. In my first attempt I ended up with a score of 640. I wasn't happy. (Due to my lack of seriousness in practice, i would say). And by then my course was over at PR. However,
Ms. Bodhana was always in touch with me. Even after the course completion, she helped us with additional classes and workshop on Sentence Correction, Critical Reasoning which were very helpful. And the PR's BOOSTER MATERIAL was/is the best to prepare from. In the mean time I also subscribed the
EGMAT SENTENCE CORRECTION and upon suggestion of her, practiced from Manhattan's SC book. Both the additional materials were helpful.
Well, I know 680 is not a sufficient score to settle with but I know that the 140 points of improvement couldn't have been a possibility without the faculties' advice and teaching methods. I owe my success to them. I may give another shot to GMAT with an aim of scoring 700+.
PS: I am not saying join PR blindly. But if you are looking for a GMAT coaching in Bangalore, do consider Princeton Review (and ask if Ms. Bodhana and Dr Ramya will be taking classes). Cheers (Y)