Why not take a live course? Live courses are better than on-demand prep in many ways:
(1) They're more engaging
(2) You can ask questions
(3) It creates an anchor in your schedule

Here are the reasons I can think of to NOT take an in-person class
(1) You can not afford it.
(2) They are no classes in your area.
(3) You hate learning with other people.

If one of those reasons doesn't apply to you, then I would go for the in-person class. I personally recommend ManhattanGMAT (I'm biased.) You can also get access to recordings of ManhattanGMAT online classes for less than the live course if money is an issue.

Tom is right, for many people the live courses do work better. Veritas has courses in cities around the world as well as the full course on-line that meet a variety of schedules.

I believed you mentioned Geometry, Veritas has an entire 3 hour session on Geometry and a well-reviewed book devoted to the topic.

By now you have probably made your decision of what to do but I thought that some additional information might be helpful to you or others in your position.

If you are thinking of taking a course Veritas has a program where you can attend a session of any course for free to see if you like.

Hope it helps! Good luck

therealtomrose wrote:Why not take a live course? Live courses are better than on-demand prep in many ways:
(1) They're more engaging
(2) You can ask questions
(3) It creates an anchor in your schedule

All of the above are non-issues if you have self-dicipline. If you really want to beat a test you can do it with on-demand resources.

Here is a perfect example of why self studies can be as good as live.
I took a Knewton prep course, and to be honest the quality of the pre-recorded classes were higher than the live ones. The pre-recorded didn't have to rush as much as live because there were no questions during the class. Most of the quality difference depended on the instructors in pre-recorded lessons. Those teachers were perfect!

Knewton has excellent e-mail help.

And as already mentioned, the price difference for a online or IRL class is sometimes simply too much.

I can get back to you concerning the Veritas.

Thanks, bkw - and your reply brings up a decent lesson relevant to Critical Reasoning. The three reasons listed above to not take a live class are not "the only reasons to not take a live class". They're just the only reasons that The Real Tom Rose could think of. Get a few Tom Rose imposters in a room and they could probably come up with a few more to add on to yours, like:

4) You have a hectic schedule and prefer the flexibility to learn at your own pace.
5) You could afford a live class but don't think it offers the return-on-investment of a less expensive self-study program, and you're willing to put the onus on yourself to take advantage of the self-study-support resources offered by companies like Veritas and Knewton.
6) You know others who have had success with a self-study program and trust that you can follow the same path.
7) You know that companies like Veritas Prep will typically let you upgrade from a self-study program to a full-blown class just by paying the difference in price, so you see the self-study as a good starting point from which you can defer the additional payments until you've determined you really need to do so.

There are plenty of other reasons we've heard from students who have chosen the On Demand service in the past, so I at least wanted to throw in another few items to consider. And since my primary job here is to teach, let me reiterate - on Critical Reasoning (and Data Sufficiency) questions, especially, never mistake the given evidence for a particular conclusion to be "the only" evidence that exists! Sure, 2, 3, 7, and 19 may be potential values of x...but that doesn't necessarily mean that x is a prime number.

Here are a few more opinions on the Veritas Prep On Demand course: https://reviews.beatthegmat.com/veritas- ... and-course

Hope this helps!

Brian@VeritasPrep wrote:Thanks, bkw - and your reply brings up a decent lesson relevant to Critical Reasoning. The three reasons listed above to not take a live class are not "the only reasons to not take a live class". They're just the only reasons that The Real Tom Rose could think of. Get a few Tom Rose imposters in a room and they could probably come up with a few more to add on to yours, like:

Hello Brian!

I totally agree. I just wanted to emphasize that online/IRL courses sometimes are overrated. Especially when fantastic online, on-demand, and technology advances now permit one to prepare on your own as well as in class room.

Now, to the facts. Can you share any trends you experience form you student pool such as the average improvement for students who have taken the live-online compared to on-demand? I would not be surprised if those who have taken the on-demand test do as well on the real test as those who have taken in class courses. But I use to be wrong..

Hey bkw,

Regarding "the facts"...I don't personally have any real data on how people perform between formats and even if I did I don't know how telling it would be, since it's hard to control for so many other factors (homework dedication, starting point, etc.). For example, that GMAC-produced graph of study-hours-per-score shows that those scoring above 700 actually study a little less than do those scoring 600-690 (https://www.mba.com/mbacommunity/MBA_com ... -exam.aspx). Certain people just "click", so I wouldn't be too surprised if, counter-intuitively, self-study programs have a higher average score than do classes, given that a lot of people who score extremely high on their first practice test may just do some quick polish with a self-study program while those who need the work almost always tend toward a class.


From what I've found, people do a pretty good job of selecting class schedules or formats that work well for themselves. Live classrooms - both in-person and online - do add a lot of value to a lot of studiers because of the accountability to a schedule and to an instructor; the ability to ask questions; the kind of knowledge "discovery" that you get from back-and-forth with an instructor and a group. But the flexibility of a self-study or online program adds its own value, too. And ultimately the real responsibility lies with the student to ensure that he does the work, asks the questions, understands the test, etc.

Brian@VeritasPrep wrote: Regarding "the facts"...I don't personally have any real data on how people perform between formats and even if I did I don't know how telling it would be, since it's hard to control for so many other factors (homework dedication, starting point, etc.). For example, that GMAC-produced graph of study-hours-per-score shows that those scoring above 700 actually study a little less than do those scoring 600-690 (https://www.mba.com/mbacommunity/MBA_com ... -exam.aspx). Certain people just "click", so I wouldn't be too surprised if, counter-intuitively, self-study programs have a higher average score than do classes, given that a lot of people who score extremely high on their first practice test may just do some quick polish with a self-study program while those who need the work almost always tend toward a class.

From what I've found, people do a pretty good job of selecting class schedules or formats that work well for themselves. Live classrooms - both in-person and online - do add a lot of value to a lot of studiers because of the accountability to a schedule and to an instructor; the ability to ask questions; the kind of knowledge "discovery" that you get from back-and-forth with an instructor and a group. But the flexibility of a self-study or online program adds its own value, too. And ultimately the real responsibility lies with the student to ensure that he does the work, asks the questions, understands the test, etc.

Thanks a lot!