SOMEONE had to have taken this review course

I didn't take a review course and scored a 680. I studied for 3 weeks or so before writing.

My goal was to score a 550.

I personally don't think courses are necessary. I understand and accept that there is a market for them, but the cost of them is comparable to an undergraduate credit. I think they are good if you need the structure and motivation, but I feel anyone can do well on the GMAT if they purchase inexpensive books and use beatthegmat.com

Best of luck with whatever you decide!

I don't know if you're still deciding, but I can tell you from my experience that the course was great and the strategies helped me a lot. I took it in Manhattan and my teacher was absolutely awesome.

Where do you live?

I agree with cmf1202. I was an extremely motivated self-study person but Veritas helped me bump my score about 60 points.

cmf1202 wrote:I don't know if you're still deciding, but I can tell you from my experience that the course was great and the strategies helped me a lot. I took it in Manhattan and my teacher was absolutely awesome.

Where do you live?

I live in North Jersey, not far from Manhattan, but it's a hassle to get into and out of the city. There's a church about 10 minutes from me that the Princeton Review uses to teach the course.

I would say that either Veritas On-Demand or Manhattan Online trumps Princeton Review in-person.

You have to ask yourself whether you want to learn all of the necessary groundwork and fundamentals (VP/MHAT) or whether you just want to become a guessing expert (Kaplan/PR).

If your decision is truly between PR or self-study then I would go with self-study. It's cheaper and you won't have to bother with dumb guessing strategies. The Joe Bloggs approach might get you to about 650 but it won't get you a whole lot more.