Manhattan Prep GMAT Review

If you’re reading this page, you probably know what the GMAT is. You’ve probably also heard of Manhattan Prep through their GMAT books, which I would bet are the most popular GMAT books on the market. Perhaps you’ve already taken a Manhattan Prep course. And you’re almost certainly confused as to why I would recommend against taking a class or tutoring lesson from them.

“Aha,” you think to yourself, “he’s going to warn me about the cost. While he’s right that the $3000 I will spend with Manhattan Prep could feed a village of children in Africa, it will be a pittance compared to the mound of cash I will make once I graduate from Harvard Business School. Then I will be able to feed every village in Africa, and still have enough for a garage full of Lamborghinis.”

Incorrect. Also, you may be overestimating your salary coming out of business school, even HBS.

No, the reason I recommend against taking a class from them is far more practical:

Instead of teaching you how to take the GMAT, they teach you ALL the material on the GMAT

By this, I mean that their strategy for the classes is that they overwhelm you with information, homework, and incredibly specific tactics. Their idea is that once you’ve memorized all the material that’s appeared on the GMAT for the past 50 years, you will be ready to take the GMAT.

This structure is okay for a book, but it’s not great. It makes for more of an encyclopedia than a course book. But, for a course? That’s just awful. Imagine an American History course where they required you to know the first and maiden names of every president’s wife.

Now, that wouldn’t be a bad thing, if you could actually remember them. It could come in handy for the important wives, like Edith Wilson (born as Edith Bolling, in case you were wondering). But, by learning just the names of the first ladies, you wouldn’t be learning the structure and the flow of American history. More importantly, you could be incredibly knowledgeable about American History without knowing that information. You could literally be a professor of American History without knowing that information.

So what’s the alternative?

I’m glad you asked. The alternative is to take matters into your own hands, and do it for free. Save time, save money, get a better score. Let me get you started.

Here’s how you should be studying for the GMAT:

1. Check out this link here. This link includes every GMAT Quant question categorized (so you’ll have lots of practice material) and links to about 400 real GMAT questions.
2. Download the first guide here, which is free, and tells you exactly how to study for the GMAT. Also included with that link are paid guides, made by yours truly, which contain all the strategies you need to master tricky questions, the same ones I used to get a 750 on the GMAT.
3. Finally, if you need help with motivation or specific questions, you can contact me here, or you can check out my qualifications for GMAT tutoring here.