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The services provided by Manhattan Prep GMAT prepared me very well for the GMAT. It is the most comprehensive set of materials you will find anywhere. You definitely need to put in the time, but the MP GMAT team is a great resource. The team was happy to analyze my CAT data in order to find my areas of focus. Mark Sullivan and Joshua Braslow are really genuine people and were extremely willing to work with my accelerated schedule. They provided a lot of encouragement throughout the process and ups and downs. I thought the online class would be useless, but it turned out to be super engaging and helpful.
I took a 9 session, live online course with Elaine Loh at Manhattan Prep. I couldn't speak more highly of her and the overall experience. I got a 580 on my first practice test at the start of class. My score slowly went up throughout class and peaked on test day at a 730 about 5 months after the start of class. Elaine brought a ton of enthusiasm and motivation to every single class. She also was extremely responsive and helpful after the class ended. She gave me multiple suggestions and strategy tips in the weeks leading up to my exam. I was able to increase my verbal score 3 points thanks to her last minute advice. I recommend Manhattan and Elaine especially to all GMAT takers.
Improvement 110 Points
Course Manhattan Prep GMAT Private Tutoring
Instructor Josh Braslow
Location New York (Manhattan), NY USA
Prior to starting private on-line tutoring with Joshua, I took a Manhattan Prep review course with Isaac. The review course helped me re-learn a majority of the quant material, but I needed additional help preparing for the sentence correction and critical reasoning parts of the exam. After the course and prior to starting with Joshua, I was consistently scoring around a 600 on practice tests, with low verbal scores (31/32).
My sessions with Joshua were challenging and often focused on sentence correction. He assigned thoughtful homework after each session that truly helped me finally understand the material. Joshua completely transformed the way I approached sentence correction, allowing me to bring up my verbal score to a 40.
Joshua also taught me a number of test taking strategies that helped with my quant timing and data sufficiency, helping me improve my quant score from 43 to a 47.
Overall, Joshua is an extremely patient and knowledgeable tutor. I believe he is the reason why I was able to surpass the 700 mark. I strongly recommend working with Joshua if you are looking to achieve your goal score on the GMAT.
I took a 9-session, live online course with Stacey Koprince and Brian Birdwell at Manhattan Prep. They are FANTASTIC. Not only are they subject matter experts, but they are engaging and bring the material to life. Moreover, they made themselves available to answer my questions and always responded promptly, day or night.
While there are many GMAT instructors out there, one of the things that really differentiates Stacey and Brian is their ability to provide tailored guidance to people in all score ranges. When I started out my scores were in the mid-600s. By the end of my preparation, I was scoring in the high-700s. They were able to provide me with foundational tools and guidance that were vital to breaking the 700-barrier and test strategy that helped me reach the upper-700s. Without their guidance, I never would have reached these milestones.
The bottom line is Manhattan is a great test prep company and Stacey and Brian are two of the best. If you are serious about test prep (and you wouldn’t be reading this if you weren’t) I HIGHLY recommend using their services. If is one the best investments you can make.
Improvement 70 Points
Course Manhattan Prep GMAT Private Tutoring
Instructor Avi Gutman
Location Toronto, Canada
Avi was a phenomenal instructor. I had 4 sessions of private tutoring with him and within those sessions he diagnosed why my score wasn't improving and gave me tips on how to increase my overall score. I ended up seeing an improvement that I didn't think was possible in the short amount of time I had to prepare. My score went up 70 points since my last test attempt, and 100 points overall since the first time I attempted the test.
Avi convinced me that I had the skills necessary to get the score I wanted on the test, and that I just had to get my confidence up to match my skills. Without his guidance and belief in me it would have been a much longer and more painful road to the GMAT score that I wanted.
Improvement 150 Points
Course Manhattan Prep Manhattan GMAT 9-Session In-Person Prep Course
Location New York (Lower Manhattan), NY USA
I had a great experience with Manhattan Prep! My starting practice GMAT score was 560 and my final official score was 710. A 150 point increase!! I took the class in NYC with Reed Arnold, and I highly recommend taking the course especially with him. Reed made the classes very enjoyable and effective, and he scheduled weekly "study groups" at a nearby coffee shop for students to get extra help from him and other classmates. I went to a couple of the study groups and was able to ask him about specific problems, and get detailed explanations for them. The Manhattan Prep guide books were a great resource, too. I studied about 25-30 hours per week outside of class for about 8 weeks, so you can't expect the course to raise your score without your own self-guided study. Manhattan Prep was the an awesome resource, along with the Wiley guides.
I took the Manhattan Prep Live Online Course because I had read great reviews of the company and also saw that they offered a 25% student discount (I am currently a college student, so this was very appealing to me). Manhattan Prep doesn't hold any in-person classes near me, so I had to take the online course. I was a little nervous about it at first because I thought I would get distracted if I wasn't in a classroom. However, I think the online course was a great decision for me. The Manhattan Prep instructors are extremely helpful and willing to give you one-on-one attention. There were ~10 people in my class and 2 instructors. The class met for 3 hours every week. The instructors engaged everyone in the classroom by calling on students and making an effort to understand everyone’s thought process. The instructors solved practice problems with us, thoroughly explained common mistakes or misunderstandings, and walked through ways to approach problems that I found extremely useful on the test. I felt comfortable asking questions in class and reaching out to the instructors outside of class as well. Manhattan Prep also offers several practice exams with full, worked-out solutions and performance analytics capabilities. In addition to the 9-week online class, the plethora of resources available to me during through Manhattan Prep (GMAT Official Guide, Manhattan Prep books, practice exams, etc.) were invaluable to my success on the exam.
Improvement 120 Points
Course Manhattan Prep Manhattan GMAT 9-Session In-Person Prep Course
Instructor Chris Gentry
Location Atlanta (South), GA USA
After hearing good things about Manhattan Prep's GMAT class from a friend, I decided to attend the free introductory class. I was considering just buying a few GMAT strategy books and doing some practice problems. However, I was impressed with the class's teacher Chris Gentry, and decided to sign up for the full course. Chris showed up each week prepared and excited to teach. My test score had improved significantly by the time I finished Chris's course and completed all of the practice material. I could not have made such huge improvements if not for Chris's help. Along with a great teacher, Manhattan Prep's strategy guides, practice tests, and example problems are all tip notch. The online account allows you to organize and track your preparation.
Such a helpful class! Both instructors were very knowledgeable, and had great insight and tips that helped me dramatically improve my score! I thought having the ability to discuss problems and issues I was having with the group of students was a great way to work through the struggles and improve! Each class focused really well on set topics, while also leaving time to go over specific issues anyone was having, and the instructors did a great job making everyone feel comfortable enough to share and speak up. WH=hat was most helpful was when we went over test strategies. Afterwards, I immediately saw an improvement in my scores and approach! Overall, a great experience, and I highly recommend!
Improvement 130 Points
Course Manhattan Prep GMAT Private Tutoring
Instructor David Mahler
Location New York (Manhattan), NY USA
Got my target 720 score after approx 4 months that comprised self study, Manhattan Prep's 9-week course on Wall street Manhattan (David Mahler was our instructor), and private tutoring (also with Dave Mahler). I started with a 590 Manhattan Prep GMAT practice test. Quite frankly, I could not have managed the 720 without Manhattan Prep.
1. The 9-week course: This was a great start for me as my math skills were very rusty (haven't touched math since high school and my day-to-day work doesn't require the use of any meaningful quant skill - I'm a lawyer). The math foundations and GMAT test strategies explored in class were concise and immediately helpful. Dave Mahler was our instructor - I highly recommend him for the clarity with which he explains tough concepts (particularly Data Sufficiency and Critical Reasoning). FYI the 9-week course comes with the full suite of Manhattan Prep Books, which were all great - concise, clear, and effective - no verbiage which is good for busy professionals.
2. Private tutoring: After the 9 week course, I spent a couple of weeks wrapping up the GMAT OG and then I took a real GMAT test. Bombed it. I decided I needed more targetted tutoring, so I splurged on the private tutoring (8 lessons in total). This was worth every penny. Dave diagnosed my flawed test-taking strategies, and his private lessons sharpened my quant and verbal reasoning skills. These lessons were challenging but crucial to my success on the test - he would often ask me to explain my thought processes WHILE I solved tough problems (DS, PS, SC, CR), and this invariably forces you to think critically about every single step in your own problem-solving process. Every step in my problem-solving process was critiqued and improved upon. As important, Dave was extremely optimistic and encouraging throughout this whole process. He was a firm supporter and you feel that he's invested in your success.
TL DR: Manhattan Prep's 9 week course and private tutoring are both very strongly recommended. Manhattan Prep's books are very strongly recommended. Dave Mahler is very strongly recommended.