I believe that the content of this course is incredible. However, throughout the 9 weeks I constantly felt like I was drowning in the material. Homework took over 20 hours week after week (sometimes even 30 hours or more). Having said that, if you take homework seriously you should see a great score increase. In my case the increase was 50 points from CAT1 to CAT3.


My instructor was not stellar, he knew the material but it was apparent that he was new and has not found his groove for teaching the class. I took a make up class with another instructor and it was a night and day difference. So I decided to use up all of my make up classes with this man. I think I saw a huge improvement in my quant score because of this instructor. He was INCREDIBLE!

Couple of areas of improvement:
1) bring back office hours! students should have time to ask specific questions. the classroom is not a good platform for that as time is stretched there as is.
2) Have us take one CAT exam during week 5. Currently as is we end up taking 2 CATs within 2 weeks... kind of silly if you ask me.
3) Consider giving an extra week for students to catch up.

Some great things about the class:
1) It is very structured... the content is great and if you follow their study plan you will do great.
2) The Online Labs are priceless... make sure you take the time to do them
3) DS strategy has helped me a great deal.
4) Some instructors are truly gifted when it comes to teaching

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I'm currently enrolled in the full in-person 9-week MGMAT course and all I can say is that the course is very demanding. As you may already know, your GMAT score will inevitably reflect what you put in.

As far as the two courses go, I feel as if Knewton and MGMAT use different teaching methodologies; albeit, both are highly structured ways of prepping. MGMAT is more old-school: here's 10 books, study organizer, stopwatch, now it's up to you. Knewton claims of it's "smarter and revolutionary" way of prepping: adaptive without any traditional resources i.e. books)

So it's ultimately up to what your study habits are. If you're like me who find it hard to self-motivate and self-study, then either prep is ideal. I would suggest that if you're going to spend $1000 then you should aim to get the best of both worlds. Get all the Manhattan guides, OG, OG Quant, OG Verbal (they offer the package on the MGMAT site for like $280?) and also sign up for Knewton $690. Yes, there will be a lot of overlap but I think it's a smart way to reinforce concepts :-D

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I think the perceptions will vary from one person to another in choosing a course - live online course, classroom teaching ..etc. On the other hand, there are quite a few who will NOT prefer a course at all.

I took the Manhattan live online course (don't ask me why -:)). So my comments

1. You must have already heard this - Some of the Manhattan study guides are exceptional - Sentence Correction, Number properties, Word translations Equations, Inequalities & VICs. Even if you don't take the course, you may need these guides (if you weak in certain areas such as Sentence Correction).

2. The main purpose of any online course or classroom coaching in general is to make any person preparing for the GMAT systematic. There is some homework given, you know what you need to do each week. Manhattan mainly focuses on completing the official guide. Study Guides
separate question types of OG according to each topic, which makes it easy to understand our weakness, clear, our basics etc.

3. There are other things given along with the course.
Math Challenge set
Official Guide general, OG Verbal, OG math,
Labs
Practice exams - Cambridge review - 3, Manhattan GMAT - 3

4. Instructors are good, polite and patient.

I think I have said more than required -:). Any course is another good helper aid in getting us closer to our target score. Bottom-line, it depends a lot on how you prepare and how much you practice if you want to reach a score of 700+ or 750+.

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I took the MGMAT 9 week class prep course and all the online classroom recordings are available to me as part of the package I purchased. They are great but not as great as in class instructors.

In my opinion, unless you really need tips and strategies, one can do just fine with MGMAT + OG books. I mean, MGMAT class really was all about forcing me to study 30-40 hrs every week on homework. Most of the stuff they went over in class was strategy and tips. If you think these in class prep classes are going to teach you everything, including fundamentals, you are mistaken.I found this hard fact after spending $1400 in the course.

So to elaborate on MGMAT - my personal opinions:

* What did I expect from MGMAT 9 week course and was I satisfied with the program?
I thought for $1400 or whatever they charged me, I expected the course to teach me EVERYTHING, including the fundamentals in both math and verbal. However, this wasn't the case. The 9 week course is more about teaching you strategy for GMAT and also to provide overview of each section. You are expected to do all the studying on your own based on their syllabus. BTW - the syllabus is so unrealistic. No way in hell I can work FT and get all the stuff done.

You also get those online classes ($900 or so) as part of the 9 week course. Those recordings are boring and not as effective as class lectures. However, learning the GMAT strategy alone can increase your score by 70 to 100 pts in my opinion. So if that's worth it for you, then take either the online course or in class course. Otherwise, just buy MGMAT books and study by yourself. that's what their syllubus makes you do anyway.

* What's the quality of the lecturer in classes?
My lecturer was top notch. She had Stanford UG and Harvard MBA. She knew what she was teaching and her lectures were vivid and fun most of the time.

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