MGMAT Online -- very pleased, will recommend to anyone

I took the GMAT for the first time two weeks ago. I took the Manhattan GMAT course with Tom Rose and Mike Kim. The course was great, and MGMAT was my main (basically my only) source of study material and practice exams.

I completed the exam on June 14th and received 750 - 98% overall (47V - 99%, 47Q - 78%), 5.5 writing. I gained about 5 points in my verbal score and 25 points in quant compared to the early practice exams (not only MGMATs). I took an online course beginning in January (with Tom Rose and Mike Kim), and the Live Online Advanced Workshop more recently. I worked through the MGMAT math books extensively, and that made all the difference.

In the MGMAT course, Tom and Mike were able to thoroughly explain every question we faced. What I loved about MGMAT was that they taught us the actual concepts, in a simple, easy-to-digest manner. No tricks to "beat the exam". I am now much more capable of doing basic math in my head. I can do quick calculations and estimations with no calculator, and I've found that helpful in other area of life as well. The online format is great and easy to get used to. I really liked that I could ask question to one instructor via text and not hold up the rest of the class. I was definitely more willing to ask "stupid" questions, and this ensured I didn't miss anything.

The test went pretty well. I got a bit nervous and made some timing mistakes. I could have used an extra minute for my second essay, and mistakenly thought I had one quant question left when I actually had two. I took too long on the second to last one and ended up completely missing the last. I didn't even have time to put in a random guess. I think that is what made me miss the 80% percentile in quant. Rookie mistake. Verbal was fine, though a bit harder than MGMAT practice exams. I remember very clearly more questions where I was stuck on one of two choices, than I do with most MGMAT exams. This is especially true for the questions regarding the purpose of a passage. Usually I finish the verbal section with 15 minutes to spare, and this time I had only 3 or 4 minutes.

Day of the exam I felt really well prepared. The questions I faced were extremely similar to the MGMAT practice exams. Much more so than the Knewton or Kaplan tests (both of which I tried once). My scores were even closer by MGMAT then by GMAT Prep, which is the official practice exam; however, I think this is partially because I was getting nervous the two days before my exam, when I took the GMAP Prep tests. My course ended in March, but I wasn't able to study from then until after May, due to work and finishing school. Access to all the online materials closes after three months, but I emailed MGMAT, and they extended it for free. I then spent the first two weeks of June in focused prep, every night. Ended up working for me, though I probably could have done better timing-wise (and with much less stress) if I did the work as MGMAT recommended.

All in all, great course. Worth every penny.

Now let's see about getting into a decent business school...

MGMAT - thanks for everything. I will certainly be recommending you guys in the future.