Kaplan vs. Manhattan GMAT

[Icculus23]

Hi all --

I am a recent (december) graduate of an engineering undergraduate program and have some down time before starting a job in consulting in late June. I am reasonably certain that I will be attending business school within the next 5 years, and am considering spending some time now preparing for the GMAT rather than trying to cram it in my busy schedule later down the road.

Here's the dilemma -- I have a deposit down on a Kaplan classroom course that begins next week, and meets twice weekly for 9 sessions. This would give me about 5 weeks to prepare for the GMAT (fairly intensive) and take the exam to get it done with by mid-May.

I have recently learned about the self-paced Manhattan GMAT virtual course, and think this may be a more convenient option. However, I haven't spoken to anyone personally who has taken this course. If I am looking to spend the majority of my weekday time preparing for this exam, and getting it done with before the end of May, would you recommend Kaplan or Manhattan? Any advice would be much appreciate...

Thanks!

[Stuart@KaplanGMAT]

Well, of course I'm going to be biased - let's get that out of the way.

You'll have 90 days of access to all of your Kaplan resources (and a free 90 day extension if you take advantage of our Higher Score Guarantee - Readiness offer), so even though your classes will be over in 5 weeks, your study certainly doesn't have to be.

You'll also have full access to our lessons on demand, which are online presentations of the lessons. You can watch those whenever you want, as often as you want.

Further, as a registered Kaplan student, you're not limited to attending "your" classes. Of course, it depends on your location and how often courses are offered there, but as long as you're a registered Kaplan student you can sit in on as many live classes as you want. So, even if "your" course is only 5 weeks long, you can continue to attend other classes for your full enrollment period.

I could go on for weeks about other reasons why you should stick with Kaplan (our track record, Smart Reports, Higher Score Guarantee and Ultimate Practice test, to name but a few), but your main concern seems to be the length and flexibility of the course, so I'll stop there for now.

If you have any specific questions, I'm happy to chat with you on the phone. If you call 1-800-KAP-TEST you'll likely be connected with our U.S. hub (unless you live in Canada), so the best way to iniate a phone call is to email me (or send me a PM) with your phone number and I'll call you.