After deciding in January at which master programs I want to apply to, I bought the official GMAT bundle(3 books), the complete set of Manhattan strategy guides and the two Foundations(verbal & math) Manhattan books. The foundation ones and the verbal OG from the bundle, remained untouched the whole time I was studying, so I guess money not so well spent
I decided to study on my own and followed the 60-days self study guide that I found on beatthegmat.com, and I am extremely grateful because without this guide I wouldn't know how to proceed, especially the first couple weeks. My score had to be at least 650.
I have to point out that even though I was afraid of the verbal part (I am Greek) and not the Quant (I am an electrical and computing engineer),Quant was the part that I struggled more during my prep. I am also working 9-5 every day, so the gmat study on top of that, with physio sessions on the side (hip labral tear), was really hard for me, but I managed to squeeze at least 3 hours a day and 5-6 hrs at the weekends.
My main takeaways:
-Make sure that you absolutely understand the solution of the questions you got wrong! The main reason (besides day job) it took me 3 months instead of 2 is because I spent a lot of time doing so. I also used to write down methodologies I did not think of on my own at first, and reviewed them regularly.
-Do not read too much into scores from the 6 MGMAT CATs that come along with the strategy guides. I scored at the first four ones(I was too disappointed to do the last two) 580,600,610,560 respectively, when I scored 700&710 at the GMAT Prep tests. I think that the Manhattan tests were much more difficult, so even though they are a great opportunity for practice, from my experience, I really don't think that they reflect your actual score accurately. I made the mistake of googling "manhattan test score vs gmat prep score", and the majority of people was saying that the scores from their MGMAT CATs matched their final. In my opinion, if you manage to score 760 (as some people said) at the mgmat cat with the appropriate time restrictions, you should be able to score at least 750 on the real thing, while standing on your head. I also bought the two more tests from the official mba store, which were at +/- 10% of my actual performance.
-Unless you have a really weak area, the Manhattan guides and just the one GMAC OG (not the whole bundle) are more than enough. All this material comes with online resources too, and combined with the number of free tests you can find, you really don't need anything else!
Good luck to everyone!
