quesarasara wrote:Mike, your post was quite useful and the review of the book seemed quite useful. However I am questioning it's fairness. Is it even ethical for one test prep company to review the product(s) of another test prep company. Isn't it like saying - I work for Google and I don't like the new video chat feature by Facebook because it limits the participants to 10. I am not sure why would you do that.
Just my 2 cents.
Dear
quesarasara,
You raise an excellent point, and I'd like to respond. First of all, Magoosh is an online company --- we have lesson videos (including some on
Youtube), a free
blog, and a few eBooks, including a
recent IR eBook, but we do not sell any print material, so any print GMAT guide is not a direct competitor. Furthermore, we encourage the folks using our product also to use a print guide for further practice, and we want to make recommendations to guide them in their selection --- hence, our book recommendations --- they are primarily designed to assist our own customers. Our "grades" of these books run the gamut from A to F ---- if we were failing everything else, admittedly, that would be basely self-serving, but in fact, the grades vary considerably. I realize that, at the moment, we only have one book recent book review up on the GMAT blog ---- more are coming in the next couple weeks --- you will find many more analogous book reviews on our
GRE blog. You'll also notice: in my response to you, I didn't have positive things to say about Kaplan, but gave unstinting praise to MGMAT --- I and my colleagues are unanimous in our high appraisal of MGMAT, and you'll find that reflected in the "grade" we give MGMAT on our blog. As disingenuous as this may sound, we really are striving to be as fair as possible in these reviews --- we want to be as honest as possible to answer our own clients' queries about these materials.
Finally, GMAT test prep is a funny field --- most of the folks who know the most about it are the folks at companies like Magoosh, MGMAT, etc --- the folks who have worked for years to prepare people to take the GMAT. There are few people as qualified to give a review of the print material outside the folks in these companies. Yet, at the same time, a prospective GMAT test taker faces a bewildering array of options, and I would argue, is in dire need of some sage advice about which materials are best. I believe this was your situation at the head of this thread. Therefore, it is almost inevitable that the valuable service of providing comparative book reviews would fall to someone in the business. Given that, at least our reviews of print material are coming from a company that doesn't make print material, and a company that has a vested interest in presenting fair assessments of these materials --- because this fairness directly benefits our own clients.
Yes, I agree, our book recommendations are not as pristine and unambiguously free of bias as if a neutral third party expert reviewed all the books, but I am not aware of anyone with considerable GMAT expertise who comments on the available materials but who is not in the employ of any GMAT test prep company. There's money in GMAT test prep, but there's not really money in standing on the side, assiduously avoiding all test prep, and just neutrally commenting on the materials, if you see what I mean. Given that, I would argue the book reviews we offer are probably about as good as you are going to find.
My friend, I will say, I deeply admire your profound ethical sensibilities, and for your sake, I hope you are able to retain a vital connection with that inner "moral gyroscope" throughout your MBA and beyond. As I am sure you are aware, the modern business world is not a place of uniformly high ethical standards, and I think precisely what it needs is more thoughtful and high-principled people like you.
With tremendous respect,
Mike McGarry
