When I first started studying for the GMAT, it was clear to me that I would do the same thing that I had done in college and that I had been quite successful with; I sat down in a quiet corner with a GMAT guide and started crunching. Unfortunately, I had to learn the hard way that that was the wrong way to approach the GMAT. Even after the third try, my highest score was a 660 and the magical 700+ score seemed far from reach.

I decided that I had to radically change the way I studied and prepared for the test. I signed up for the Manhattan Prep 9-Session Online Prep Course with Jamie Nelson and already during the first course I realized that I had had some fundamental misconceptions about the test. Jamie did a great jobs explaining how the test works and what strategies you need to use to successfully master it. Moreover, she did a fantastic job explaining all the different quant and verbal topics and concepts and thanks to her enthusiastic teaching style the classes were fun and engaging. When I entered the test center for the fourth time, I felt much better prepared and I walked out with a 730!

I wish I had known about Manhattan Prep and Jamie's course from the beginning; this would have saved me a lot of time and stress. However, I hope that this review will help others avoid the mistakes I've made. Take a course for the GMAT, it makes a huge difference and is definitely worth the money. In particular Jamie's course!

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I took a classroom-style GMAT prep course in Cambridge, MA during the summer of 2018. My teacher, Josh Yardley, was fantastic! I'd recommend him in a heartbeat. He is extremely knowledgeable about all of the question types on the GMAT. He took the time to understand each student's struggles and made sure that each explanation was a learning opportunity. His explanations were clear and succinct. I gained a lot from my self-studies, but my time in the classroom with Josh was invaluable.

Manhattan Prep offered many resources for study material - paper books and eBooks, extra question banks, ability to sort questions by difficulty, video guides, etc. They are a very professional company and I highly recommend them!

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I got 730 in the GMAT after taking the 10 week course with Ryan Starr. I had taken it twice before and I wish I had done the course earlier! Ryan has a great teaching style, he really knows his stuff so you feel confident in what you're learning and the classes are fun. The course covers all aspects of the GMAT from exam content to test day strategy to how to control nerves, so all bases are covered. If you want to get your best score then this is absolutely the course you should invest in, don't waste your time with anything else!

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Great course - focused on efficiency and strategies, rather than extraneous content. Everything I learned was very useful during the actual test. Ryan, in particular, was an awesome teacher. He was very blunt, and direct; and I even found it helpful (weirdly) to approach questions with his emphatic voice/intonations, as well as his helpful analogies. There was an optimal balance of quant vs. verbal content, and the strategies were very helpful, particularly in time management/on the quant section. Additionally, the 1-on-1 assessment during the course to help focus my strengths/weaknesses did wonders for my score. There were only 2 minor negative aspects with the curriculum: 1. Limited practice tests (more personal preference – I study best through excessive repetition, so I wanted more than 6) and 2. Slightly too much IR focus in the homework assignments.

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This course was definitely helpful in learning strategies with verbal problems and cutting down my time per quant problem.

Ryan was really good at making sure we understood core concepts and then proceeded to teaching us and evaluating the best strategies to employ for different questions. We played Jeopardy with GMAT problems and that was a blast and super memorable!

I definitely did feel like the homework assigned in the course was quite imbalanced. I glossed over practically all the reading (which was far too much) and did 4x the number of problems assigned in the homeworks (which was far too little) to be able to apply the right strategies for the right problem.

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If you only have 3 months to prepare, I highly recommend this course. It helps you frame your practice and gives you techniques to approach each section. Although I have a math background, Manhattan Prep provided me with new ways to think about problems and techniques to speed up in this section. I also struggle with verbal, especially reading comprehension, and Manhattan Prep broke down the process so that I consistently improved throughout the course.

In addition to great instruction, you get access to all of the books, which are fantastic for learning and reviewing, and video lectures. I found it very helpful to go through each video lecture after class to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

Kay was a fantastic instructor. She was incredibly poised and well-prepared for each class. I was in the 600 range before taking the course and improved to a consistent 700 on practice tests.

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I participated in David Mahler’s ten-week Manhattan Prep GMAT course in Spring/Summer 2018. Following an initial practice exam score of 590, I scored a 760 on my first and only GMAT sitting in July.



Having not been acquainted with the exam format or any official GMAT resources, I selected Manhattan Prep as a familiar service with a positive reputation in New York and among my undergraduate classmates. I completed my undergraduate degree in 2014 and am applying this fall to MBA programs for matriculation in Fall 2019. I considered the GMAT to be an unpredictable and time-consuming first step in the admissions process. I knew I needed to prepare strategically, given my time constraint, which justified the course investment.



For me, the robust course materials and carefully organized curriculum were critical for achieving a high score. The strategy guides necessarily walked me through a massive variety of content I hadn’t encountered since high school. Infamously, this content represents only half the battle. The GMAT also tests strategy and decision making, and, in my experience, emotional composure. Rather than separating the content from these components, the strategy guides themselves incorporate these challenges throughout. For example: I found the importance of strategy selection during the Quant section to be remarkable. Solving a problem with even the most refined “textbook” technique is frequently penalized by way of time. As the curriculum advances through Quant subjects, the books reiterate alternative (or “shortcut”) strategies in their different applications. Only purposeful practice with several strategies and, more importantly, review of that practice, can bolster one’s ability to select efficient strategies or cut bait when necessary. Not only do the Manhattan Prep strategy guides cover content with digestible pace and organization, they immerse that content in strategy and in the context of agile decision-making. While it is impossible to benchmark, I think the strategy guides alone enabled me to score in the 700-720 range (a far cry from where I began). The books are ordered, which helps organize studying and makes them less daunting to approach. For those on a budget and/or not local to New York, the materials are a rich resource on their own and well worth the investment.



In order to score those additional 40-60 points (it’s all relative), I believe the in-person class to be worth the incremental investment. Research the instructors and consult the online reviews. I had an exceptional and memorable experience with David Mahler, whose instruction was as effective as any college professor I can remember. While I chose Dave because we shared an Alma Mater and he recorded a 790 GMAT, I believe online reviews such as this one testify to his talent and led many of my classmates to choose his course. I’ll begin there: my section was fully booked with ~12 students as opposed to a section with four or five students that I addended as a make-up. All things equal, the smaller section was surprisingly less productive than the larger. The smaller headcount did not come closer to resembling a tutored course—if there is even one other student the curriculum cannot be tailored to you. The increased individual attention only caused the instructor to check in with each student before proceeding to the next practice question or topic. Class is not about solving individual problems—there are too many to address. Rather, as Dave emphasized, a class succeeds if it can polish your study and review process. You must prepare mostly on your own. As a person that struggles with self-regimen, I needed Dave’s guidance to “work smarter” and accomplish as much as possible with the little time I had. Dave held us accountable in our coursework. There was no passing his class, as his objective was to nudge us as close to our potential as was possible in ten weeks… you are not evaluated by your instructor. I performed well on the problems in class, but this was not a barometer of my ability relative to my classmates. It was an opportunity, each time, to recognize areas of improvement and consider better strategies. I got careless and made silly mistakes. Dave did not hesitate to knock me down a peg and I never once felt like I “passed the test”. There was always a critique to be made and a weakness to recognize in future problems, when exams don’t break for discussion, when there are 20 problems ahead, when review is no longer a luxury. Dave was able to challenge every person in the room at once, facilitating discussion and holding attention. It was masterful instruction and it was a blast.



The GMAT is a terrific test. I don’t believe it can be conquered, but I know that it can be whittled down to a more manageable feat. Believe it or not, that process can be fun. No exam, including the GMAT, can print an objective assessment of your intelligence. The GMAT doesn’t try to do this. It anchors itself in 30-60-90 right triangles and comma splices and proceeds to test your decision-making and composure. But it doesn’t do this mysteriously—there’s tape on its schemes that you mustn’t break down yourself. Manhattan Prep has done it for you. I can’t imagine approaching the GMAT without being coached on its tricks. It is my enthusiastic recommendation that any prospective MBA student prepare for the GMAT with David Mahler and Manhattan Prep. The cost was a large investment for me, and provided an overwhelming return, which feels pretty good.

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The instructor was great but the true value of this course is that the materials are comprehensive (there's a book for everything) and the class forces you to study at a healthy pace and really set daily, weekly and monthly goals. We only went over a few problems in class, which I thought was too few, but the instructor was engaging and funny. Great anecdotes and made you remember some important tricks that came in handy on the test. Overall, I would say the depth and quality of the materials is top notch and the benefit of the class lies in forcing you to study on a timeline.

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To say I know what you're all going through is an understatement. Try this: I went to acting conservatory for undergrad and held low-level administrative jobs that required almost no quantitative skills whatsoever. I literally had not taken a math class in over 10 years, and when I did, I was a C student. With this background, I was very intimidated to broach data sufficiency and rate problems. Proud and poor, I resented having to invest in a prep course, but had I not, I honestly can say I would've given up on the MBA.

Enter Ryan McGorman's Manhattan Prep GMAT course. This guy gets it. He's the smart & trenchant older brother you never had, and displayed a real knack for phrasing material in a way that was conducive to my difficult learning style. He doesn't just deeply understand the material, but has a skill I rarely see in teachers: the ability to simultaneously package lessons as both useful and expansive. In other words, I never felt like I was "just" learning test-taking technique for concepts I didn't get, nor did I feel I was finally grasping a concept in a way I could never spit back in 2 minutes on the GMAT. I was learning both sides of the spectrum, slowly but surely. Ryan's got that balance down pat. He was born to teach the GMAT.

Practice Test: 570
Actual Test: 710

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I took the 9 week GMAT course with Reed Arnold at Manhattan Prep's Chelsea location. I highly recommend the course and highly recommend Reed specifically! I improved by over 100 points and got accepted into both of the schools I applied for. The course is great if you are busy and working because they essentially lay out the study plan for you and force you to dedicate to it. Before I took the course, I found myself too busy to be efficient in my studying. The course also comes with the Official Guide (the OG) which is great and a must have for studying. I frankly did not use the foundation books or the other smaller study books the course provides you with. I know most of the class did, however. I was on a fast track and taking the test one week after the course ended though so I cut to the chase and just used the OG and the practice tests. The homework from the course is great as well, they select questions from the OG for you to do - keeps you on track. Reed was my instructor and I think he really made the difference. He's very energetic and surprisingly funny. This is wildly helpful when you haven't studied in years and need to be forced to pay attention. Highly recommend!

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