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Manhattan Prep was a great program and got me the results that I wanted. I was really nervous about the GMAT because it had been several years since I had taken a college level math or writing course -- even in college I did not go very in depth on mathematics because I was a history major. However, Manhattan Prep's superb program prepared me faster and better than I had expected. The course is very well-organized and builds you up to reach your full potential. The instructors are very intelligent and are talented at keeping the course work engaging. They are also very responsive to questions. I would recommend their program to anyone.
Elaine helped me quickly identify my biggest areas of opportunity and helped me design a study plan to address these areas. During classes, she was not afraid to call on each member of the class so that everyone participated. And when my classmates or I answered questions incorrectly, Elaine walked us through the correct answers without judgement. Over the course of the class, Elaine helped us all participate more, which ultimately boosted our confidence as we covered the toughest materials. She also covered a variety of clever test-taking strategies, which really came in handy on exam day.
When I didn't score as high as I wanted to on my first official exam, Elaine had a follow up meeting with me and designed a re-studying plan that kept the material fresh and helped me strengthen my weak areas. On my second official exam, I was able to achieve my target score. I can't thank Elaine enough for her guidance through this process.
Highly recommend the Manhattan Prep 9-Session GMAT Prep Course with Jamie Nelson and Mark Sullivan. The instructor support outside of class is worth every penny.
I signed up for the February - May 2017 session with zero GMAT experience, a ~50th percentile score on a diagnostic exam taken earlier in the year, and low confidence that I could hit my lofty ~95th percentile goal in time for application season. Manhattan Prep's GMAT curriculum is comprehensive and easy to understand, and Jamie/Mark's tailored instruction made the class of 15 students feel more like a 1-on-1 setting. What really stood out about Manhattan's offering is the unexpected benefit of having 2 GMAT pros at your side through the whole journey.
Jamie, in particular, went above and beyond to support me outside of class, taking extra time to explain concepts I struggled with and build my confidence. By the end of the 9 week course, I really felt as though I had an ally and friend personally invested in my success and rooting for me to reach my goal. Jamie sent me additional problem sets and took time to ensure all my questions were addressed, even beyond the course's last session. She also sat down with me for a Post Course Assessment, which, beyond yielding a tailored study plan, really built my confidence going into my first exam in early June. I ultimately scored ~90th percentile - a bit short of my goal but a vast improvement.
Following the first exam, Jamie stewarded me through the Post Exam Assessment (PEA) process, and regularly checked in to see how things were going as I prepped for round 2 in early July. During this time, GMAC announced Order Selection - naturally Mark and Jamie weighed in on what my best approach might be and were always available to answer content related questions. With their continued support and the PEA study plan, I ultimately returned to the exam with even greater confidence and hit my 95th percentile goal.
Although a significant investment of time and money, the course materials, supportive instructors, and confidence build that this class affords will position you for success. Couldn't have done it without Manhattan - thanks, Jamie and Mark!
I took the Manhattan Prep Bootcamp with Dmitry and Liz. The course offers a quick way to improve performance on the gmat. Both Liz and Dmitry are great teachers, explaining the most straightforward and effective way to understand gmat questions, especially higher level questions. The course particularly helps students work on their development areas; Manhattan Gmat offers many practice exams, the results of which can be used to guide further study plans.
Manhattan Gmat offers the two one-on-one 30 minute sessions with the instructor, where the instructor looks at your practice test results and identifies what you need to work on. Liz reviewed my practice test results, and she told me that I needed to focus on my verbal section, and that I needed in particular to look at critical reasoning inference questions. This advice helped me properly prepare and perform my best on test day.
The materials offers by manhattan gmat are also very helpful. I particularly liked their sentence correction guide, but there are many guides available for every area of the test. These materials are invaluable for self-study, and they're available for many months after you take the course. I am very satisfied with my performance on the gmat, and I am sure that the class helped significantly.
Improvement 120 Points
Course Manhattan Prep Live Online
Instructor Ceilidh Erickson
Location Online
I recently wrapped up my GMAT experience after having taken a Manhattan Prep full online course with instructors Sergio & Ceilidh. From the very beginning, the GMAT posed as a serious obstacle to my business school plans. Before I got into the course I had attempted to self-study, picking up various second-hand study resources. This route just wasn't going to work for me: the complexity of the exam and the body of work was just too overwhelming. I finally decided to pay the money and get into the full online course. I'm so glad I did!
Right from the get-go it was evident that both Sergio and Ceilidh not only knew their stuff but also possessed the sort of teaching style that can only come from rigorous training and much time spent in a classroom. They were organized, insightful, thorough, and (perhaps most important) fun instructors. The structure of the weekly class and intense but manageable homework assignments helped to keep me on track. It was definitely a lot of work but it was well worth it. I'm perhaps most appreciative of the individual attention that Ceilidh and Sergio would give me, via out-of-class emails and the follow-up PCA/PEA. They definitely encouraged me to push myself further than I would have had I gone it alone!
If you're looking for a GMAT prep course, I'd highly recommend going with Manhattan Prep. If you can get in a course with Ceilidh and Sergio, all the better!
Nat
Improvement 130 Points
Course Manhattan Prep Live Online
Instructor Jonathan Schneider
Location Online
As an older student, returning to academia after a 19 year absence, where I wasn’t the most engaged student as a young man, to say that I was rusty would have been a significant understatement. Though the EMBA program that I chose did not necessarily require the GMAT, they encouraged it for students who, in their words, "believe [their] academic records do not accurately reflect [their] current knowledge of quantitative methods.” Manhattan Prep was absolutely crucial not only to taking the GMAT, but to relaunching my academic pursuits. The online live courses were a fantastic way to reintroduce me to the classroom. The weekly class was highly interactive. At any moment, I could be called upon to answer a question or explain a concept. I quickly learned that I needed to be engaged, focused, and come to class prepared. The homework was voluminous, in a great way. As I mastered each concept, my confidence increased. With each week, I felt more ready for the GMAT and more ready for an MBA program. The instructors were enthusiastic, knowledgable, and great encouragers. Manhattan Prep’s live online courses include the physical books, e-books, practice exams, and access to all of their recorded online content. That’s a tremendous value. At the conclusion of the course, I chose to start all the way over at the beginning with the recorded online material to reinforce what I learned in the live course. If you have the time to do that, I highly recommend it. The material is very high quality, and very engaging. It solidified my learnings and allowed me to go at my own pace when I got hung up. The impact was clear. The score of my initial practice exam was abysmal. I saw progressive improvement with each practice exam. The actual exam was very consistent with what I had learned and practiced. I felt confident and prepared during the test. I walked out with a good score, but almost more importantly, I felt prepared to continue my academic pursuits beyond the GMAT.
I took the online class with Manhattan Prep and thought it was great. Because it was a live online class, you could still ask questions, interact with the instructor, and practice timed sets. However, if you happened to be busy during the scheduled time, all the lessons were recorded.
Overall I thought Manhattan Prep was extremely helpful in learning how to be strategic about the GMAT. On the first diagnostic test I took, I received a 680. My final GMAT score was a 760. I believe the main reason I was able to get this score is because of the class I took with J.R. Tomkinson. While I felt confident in my verbal abilities, I still was able to improve my verbal score by practicing the strategies we went over in the class for trickier critical reasoning questions. In addition, the quant section seemed to be an insurmountable obstacle before I started using the tips and tricks I learned through Manhattan Prep.
Overall, I would highly recommend this program for anyone trying to boost their score on the GMAT. This class really helped me wrap my head around how best to attack the GMAT
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I'd highly recommend Manhattan Prep, and specifically Josh Braslow as an instructor. When I was initially looking up who to take the course with, there were many highly rated instructors. Josh's name obviously came up, given how long he's been at MGMAT and his consistently strong track record. Despite the fact that there were some younger instructors who were highly rated, I figured that Josh's experience with the test for many years would be helpful. And boy, was I right! Josh really understands the test inside out, and will help you understand how the test writers think about questions. This goes a long way in terms of understanding guessing and elimination strategies. Josh also has a great sense of humor, which make the classes very enjoyable - making it a lot easier to sit through classes starting at 7am!
I also had a post-course assessment with Josh, which I would HIGHLY recommend signing up for ASAP after the course ends, provided that you were able to keep up with all the classroom requirements. I had one month between when the class ended and when I was taking my exam, and spending about 45 minutes with Josh on the phone really helped me develop a plan to elevate my performance in the last 4 weeks before my exam. We analyzed my prior performances on practice exams, focused on key areas, and made sure I was spending my last few weeks efficiently.
The first time I looked at anything GMAT-related was in February 2017. I improved 140 points from my first practice test in February 2017 (620) to my actual test in May 2017 (760) - all in the span of 3 months
It's not about working hard and doing as many practice questions / tests as you physically can, it's about working smart and using your time efficiently. Josh and MGMAT do a fantastic job of reinforcing these principles.
Took Avi Gutman's class - great teacher and very engaging. You have to be fully involved in the classroom discussion to make the most of the course, but if you do so, your score will definitely improve.
MGMAT's quant strategy guides are super helpful; in my opinion, the Number Properties guide really is the best of them all. Put simply, I would not have obtained my quant score of 50 without this guide. The GMAT is all about thinking logically and using quick tricks wherever possible - MGMAT's Number Properties guide really knocks it out of the park in this regard.
The verbal strategy guides are also very useful; I have found the CR strategy guide to best most effective in raising my verbal score. While I am no expert at CR, MGMAT's CR guide lays out an extremely effective framework for approaching each CR question type. It took a lot of practice to get used to this framework, but the extra boost to my verbal score (42) was worth all the trouble.
MGMAT also helped me tremendously with my timing issues, a very important part of this test.
Advice for prospective students: Take your MGMAT CAT scores with a grain of salt. I will note that the MGMAT quant section is much tougher than that in the actual exam (this is why I am giving Quant 4 stars). While over-preparation is obviously better than under-preparation, MGMAT runs the risk of demoralizing students into not taking the test. I recommend MGMAT re-calibrate the difficulty level of its CAT quant questions.
Thank you MGMAT for getting me to my dream score!
REVIEWER IDENTITY VERIFIED by score report [?]
I'm really happy that I signed up for Manhattan GMAT Prep. I only allowed myself ~7-8 weeks to study (which is less than recommended), so I needed the course to keep me on track and make sure my studying was efficient.
I ended up completing the homework before each class and used the class as a review. The homework plan, resources, and pacing was the most helpful part of the course. The live-online format was really nice because I could take the class from home (I was working full-time while studying) and also ask questions of the instructor when needed. My class was really small (3-4 people total), and I really liked that because we were able to keep a quick pace.
My score improved 80 points from my diagnostic exam and 60 points from my last practice test (I only took 3) to a 700+ score. If I had given myself more time, I may have been able to score even higher (but there is a chance I might have also burned out as I was studying ~20+ hours each week in addition to working full time).
The resources and questions were very helpful. I did find the IR section on the Manhattan Prep practice tests to be significantly more difficult than the actual tests, and there were fewer prep resources for IR. I scored between a 0-2 on each IR practice test and ended up with a 7 on my actual IR.