It depends. If you take it early, the drawback is that you won't know the topics that give you trouble, so you won't know the proper questions to ask. If you take it late, you don't give yourself enough time to use their books (which are very good imo). I would say takei it in the middle. Try to have gone through as much as you can and identify your weaknesses and use your instructor as a resource to help you overcome those weaknesses. Good luck.

Thanks for your insight and recommendations. Good luck to you as well.

I'm a Veritas instructor, and my PERSONAL opinion is it depends on whether you are taking the two-weekend course or the seven-week course.

If you're taking the weekend course:

I'd definitely at least skim through the books before hand and take at least one practice exam before you begin the course. You probably want to brush up on your math. You can still learn from the course without brushing up on your math skills, but I think you'll be able to take in the problem solving strategies much easier if you have.

If you're taking the seven week course:

I'd still recommend taking a practice exam before you start the course, so you are familiar with the general format of the exam. Studying prior to beginning the course is fine, but I don't think that it is necessary. (I also think studying beforehand is fine).

Either way, I'd plan on spending the 2-3 weeks following either course focusing on using your test strategies on the OG problem books.

Again these are my recommendations. Other instructors may hold different opinions.

Best of luck!

Hey Joseph,

One other note to add to the great advice on here - we allow all of our students to retake our entire course once again for free, so I'd say that it's never "too early" to take a course if you know that you'll end up taking one eventually.

If during your first trip through the course you realize that you'd have liked to be a bit more prepared, you can always take it again. However, the advantage to taking a course from the beginning is that you'll go through your entire study regimen practicing the skills and strategies that you'll ultimately want to use on test day; if you've done extensive preparation before you take a class, you may either build some bad habits or be in a situation where you have to decide whether to embrace the new strategy or stick with the way you've been doing things.

Since it was one of your questions (I'm always leery of simply "advertising" on here), I should also add that one of our primary goals in class is to teach all of the skills that are necessary to perform well on the exam, so I've always felt that we're a great starting point. We'll also provide plenty of technique and strategy (and often the content and strategy go nicely hand-in-hand when learned together), so ideally you'll find that a seven-week class and then about three weeks of study and practice afterward (assuming you've been keeping up with homework, etc. during the class) should give you about all you need for a successful GMAT performance.

We look forward to the opportunity to work with you toward success on the GMAT! Let me know if I can personally be of any help along the way.