difference in MGMAT class vs just using the material?

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scoutkb: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 53; Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2007 4:26 am

by scoutkb » Mon Mar 19, 2007 7:53 am

Hi,

I have been using your 7 guides to study along with the OG 11 books. What type of instruction do you provide in your class that would be different than using the listed material? In another words, if i have been studying using your material for several months, is there any value added to taking the actual course? Thanks!

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Source: Beat The GMAT — GMAT Strategy | Mon Mar 19, 2007 7:53 am

GCHall840: Community Manager; Posts: 111; Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 5:57 pmFollowed by: 2 members; Location: San Jose CA

The Manhattan GMAT virtual online course

by GCHall840 » Mon Mar 19, 2007 7:34 pm

I did purchase all of the 7 strategy guides last year from Manhattan GMAT.
My intention was to study the material all on my own. I have to say that their strategy guides and online resources are by far the best on the market. However, studying for the GMAT without some sort of structure, has not worked well for me. So, I enrolled in the Manhattan GMAT virtual online course that started on March 11. I knew right away that I had made the right decision by signing up for that course because the instructors teaching that course, had a certain agenda during class, that gave me the structure that I had not been able to find anywhere else.

I think that the course is really great for someone who is looking for the kind of structure that Manhattan GMAT offers their students. It is one thing to try to study that kind of material on your own, but it is another thing to be able to get what you are looking for, in a class like that.

Greg

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Stacey Koprince: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 2228; Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:28 pmFollowed by: 694 members; Location: Montreal, Canada; Thanked: 639 times; GMAT Score:780

by Stacey Koprince » Mon Mar 19, 2007 8:35 pm

During the course, the 7 study guides are almost entirely used for homework - you don't even bring the books to class. You study the upcoming topics before a certain class, and then we spend class time learning how to apply the principles in the books to actual GMAT questions under timing constraints. So, for instance, I don't spend much class time teaching people how to solve equations or factor quadratics, or that kind of stuff - it isn't a traditional math class.

The most common thing we do is actually work through OG questions - I give my students a certain amount of time to try a question first, then we go through and pick it apart until my students know exactly what's going on, how to do this problem in 2 minutes, how to recognize a problem of this type in the future, what the shortcuts are, how to make an educated guess if necessary, where the traps are and how to avoid them, and so on. Throughout this process, my students are learning strategies for how to tackle the test overall and each individual question - and that's everything from content strategies to question type strategies to timing strategies to test-taking strategies.

The books will give you a lot of great info, but the instruction is what allows our students to earn phenomenal scores on the test. Not to go too infomercial on you, but our students' median score on the official test is a 710.

We don't, of course, track scores for people who just buy our materials and study on their own... but I would be extremely surprised if the median for that group was in the 700s.

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Stacey Koprince
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Manhattan GMAT

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scoutkb: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 53; Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2007 4:26 am

by scoutkb » Tue Mar 20, 2007 6:24 am

Stacey,

Since i am working through the OG and 7 guides on my own now. Would it be worth it to take the course in addition to going through this material on my own? At what level do your students come into the course? I think i am past the "beginner" phase. And when do you recommend students take the GMAT upon completion of the course? I have been studying for the past 2.5 months and i will make my first attempt in May. If it does not go well, i will possibly take your 2 week bootcamp if it is value added.

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Stacey Koprince: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 2228; Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:28 pmFollowed by: 694 members; Location: Montreal, Canada; Thanked: 639 times; GMAT Score:780

by Stacey Koprince » Tue Mar 20, 2007 10:47 am

I don't have an official starting score, but my sense is that most of my students are scoring in the 550-630 range when class starts. I do have people higher and lower than that, but most seem to fall into that range.

If you're already at the 650+ level and are looking to push your score higher, then you might consider our Quest for 750 workshops instead of a full class. There are three: Sentence Correction Slam, Advanced Data Sufficiency, and Advanced Quant. (See our web site for full detail on the workshops.)

Just a note of caution: if you aren't already at a 650+ level in the respective areas, then the Quests will likely be at too high a level for you. The instructors assume that attendees have already learned everything necessary to get to that point, and the class takes off from there. The vast majority of the questions covered are 700+.

If you're not yet at that level through self-study, then you would still get a ton out of the classes even if you have already gone through our study guides and OG - in fact, with the instruction, you'll probably need and want to go back through a lot of that material in order to get everything out of it that you could be getting out of it - which is tough to do without the instruction. (I don't mean that you can't study from our materials without the instruction - you obviously can - but to get close to 100% usage out of the material, you also need the instruction.)

FYI: the bootcamp is the same curriculum as the regular class, just compressed into 2 weeks. Even if you literally have nothing else to do during that two weeks, it's still tough (in my opinion) to absorb the material well in such a compressed timeframe. I know I'm talking about my own company's offer, but I still wouldn't recommend bootcamp to anyone unless they had to take the test in two weeks and this was the only way. If you have the time to take a regular course and work through the material more fully, then do it that way.

Let me know if you have any more questions!

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scoutkb: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 53; Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2007 4:26 am

by scoutkb » Tue Mar 20, 2007 11:33 am

I wish i could take the regular course, but my problem is i live in Germany. And with the time difference of the classes (i am 6 hours ahead of eastern), coupled with work, i dont think its a viable option to take the regular class via the internet. Do you think i should work on my own till i reach the 650 level and then take your subject focused classes? I think i am performing at the high 500 level right now. I will take a GMATprep test at the end of this month to see how I am doing.

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Stacey Koprince: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 2228; Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:28 pmFollowed by: 694 members; Location: Montreal, Canada; Thanked: 639 times; GMAT Score:780

by Stacey Koprince » Tue Mar 20, 2007 11:51 am

I don't know if this will work with your schedule, but there is a Saturday class starting at the end of this month and it meets from 11 - 1:30 Eastern time. Perhaps that would work with your schedule? It's also the case that we can do private tutoring via the online platform - though this is of course a lot more expensive than taking a course.

I don't know how far into your study you are. If you have already gone through all or most of the materials and are currently in the high 500s, then you probably need a class or tutoring to get yourself significantly higher. If you haven't done as much, then you have more room for upside on your own.

Re: taking the test, I tell my students to take it about 2-3 weeks after the class ends. This gives time for review but you don't want to wait so long that you start to forget stuff.

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scoutkb: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 53; Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2007 4:26 am

by scoutkb » Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:44 am

Stacey,

Who can i talk to on the phone to discuss the upcoming class?

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Stacey Koprince: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 2228; Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:28 pmFollowed by: 694 members; Location: Montreal, Canada; Thanked: 639 times; GMAT Score:780

by Stacey Koprince » Wed Mar 21, 2007 11:48 am

Just call our office and whoever answers the phone will direct your call.

if you can make 800 calls, then it's 800.576.GMAT
Otherwise, international calls: 001.212.721.7400

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scoutkb: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 53; Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2007 4:26 am

by scoutkb » Thu Mar 22, 2007 6:10 am

Thanks for the help Stacey...i signed up for the 31st class. Do you think its a good idea to sign up for the 750 level classes right after this one is finished, or make an attempt and then decide to sign up or not?

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Stacey Koprince: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 2228; Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:28 pmFollowed by: 694 members; Location: Montreal, Canada; Thanked: 639 times; GMAT Score:780

by Stacey Koprince » Thu Mar 22, 2007 10:33 am

I would wait until about halfway or two-thirds of the way through the class to decide. If you aren't at least at the 650 level (and really more like 670-680), you won't get much out of the 750 classes b/c the questions presented are only given to you on the test if you're scoring that high - if you're not scoring at that level, you won't even see those types of very difficult questions on the test.

I hope you enjoy the class! Let me know how it goes!

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scoutkb: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 53; Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2007 4:26 am

by scoutkb » Thu Mar 22, 2007 11:22 am

Great advice...thanks. I would be ecstatic to score a 670 so 1 step at a time i suppose.

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Mission700+: Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts; Posts: 5; Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2007 4:41 pm; Location: California

by Mission700+ » Thu Mar 22, 2007 1:06 pm

Hi Stacey. I had a quick question regarding the online versus the actual class. Do you recommend taking the online class if the actual classes are too far out of the way geographically? Also, is the learning experience diminished at all by taking the online class?

Thanks

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Stacey Koprince: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 2228; Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:28 pmFollowed by: 694 members; Location: Montreal, Canada; Thanked: 639 times; GMAT Score:780

by Stacey Koprince » Thu Mar 22, 2007 1:48 pm

I personally prefer in-person to online, just in general, because I like to make eye contact with whoever's teaching me (or whoever I'm teaching) - but I'm something of a Luddite in this respect.

We actually ask our online students in after-course surveys how effective they thought the online platform was compared to an in-person class. They consistently tell us they think the online course is as effective as the in-person course and there are always at least a few write-in comments that say they were skeptical at the start but at the end they feel it really was just as effective as an in-person class would have been.

One of the big reasons I think we can make the on-line course as effective is that we use two instructors for the on-line courses - they are both there the entire time. So as one teacher is talking, the other one is answering questions or adding additional info in the text box - which makes the whole experience MUCH more effective. In some ways, that's even better than an in-person class b/c you get multiple points of view / approaches on everything.

If it were me, I'd go for an in-person class IF and only if I could make it work (both distance and schedule-wise). If that wasn't practical, I also wouldn't hesitate to do the on-line class, given that I know (from actual student data) that students do find it just as effective as the in-person class.

A couple of times in the past, I have had students drive 2 hours each way to attend one of my in-person classes. Don't do that. That's a lot of studying you could be doing if you weren't in the car. For a situation like that, I'd do on-line instead.

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GCHall840: Community Manager; Posts: 111; Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 5:57 pmFollowed by: 2 members; Location: San Jose CA

The Manhattan GMAT virtual online course

by GCHall840 » Thu Mar 22, 2007 2:43 pm

Hi,
I made the decision to sign up for the Manhattan GMAT virtual online course because I wanted to see what it would be like to "attend" a class from my own computer. Honestly, I already liked the Manhattan GMAT material, but I was looking for a certain kind of external structure to guide me. Once I started that virtual online course, I was really pleased that I found the structure that I was looking for. The class is taught in a very free flowing, interactive manner. I really like this approach to teaching me the important kinds of things that they are teaching me. I am very satisfied and motivated all at the same time.
Greg

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