MGMAT Provided Every Conceivable Resource. Fantastic Offering! 770 (50/47), 6 AWA, 8 IR First Go

I got the Manhattan Prep Private Tutoring session because I had heard Manhattan Prep was the best from a friend (books, Interact courses, 6 CATs, and the Navigator question analysis were free with 10 hours of tutoring), and that a shared classroom could sometimes progress slowly (or conversely, move on before one is ready to). While I can't speak to the shared classrooms firsthand, I can say it is hard to imagine a set of resources that would be more conducive to success than the set Manhattan Prep provides. My work schedule made regularity a challenge, but Jayson Beatty (my tutor for 10 hours) was extremely flexible and helpful. Deeply learning the content is ultimately up to yourself, but I could take any questions on hard concepts or test strategy to Jayson to get an expert opinion. He was also excellent at identifying my areas of opportunity, i.e. I was taking too long on trigonometric PS problems, or whatever, and providing a smart person's perspective on how to overcome it.

Ultimately, it was up to me to motivate myself to do the work and make sure I deeply understood all the content and concepts that are tested. Solely knowing how to execute the solving process (how to do prime factoring, combinatorics, etc.) will get you a fine score, but being conceptually fluent--understanding the "why" and "how" to each topic--is what helped me the most, and Manhattan Prep's books, CATs, and tutor gave me the resources most helpful at getting there.

Comparing Manhattan Prep versus the real GMAT and the Official GMAT CATs, Manhattan Prep was more difficult on Quant. This is a good thing. They are great at blending concepts from across the GMAT spectrum into a single problem. I also was always pressed for time during the MGMAT CATs, and finished Quant on the official CATs and the real test ~7 minutes early, giving me extra time to be certain on the last ~1/3 of the test.