GMAT Prep Courses, Manhattan GMAT vs. Veritas

Hi,

After doing my research, I have narrowed down my main GMAT prep course to either Veritas or Manhattan Prep. Reviews on both have been stellar, though it seems like Veritas slightly edges out the other when it comes to the sheer number of customer feedbacks, Veritas also seem to have better marketing as well.

I understand that both courses are great and the choice narrows down to the individual's style and preference in learning. When it comes to self knowledge, I am VERY MUCH of a learning by doing kind of guy, I do very well from practice loads and loads of questions. Lessons are great as well, but they are supplementary to comprehensive practice as a foundation.

Given my style, wondering which one of the two courses are more suitable? I heard that MGMAT's Quant and SC are great, and the former is even harder than the real thing? Is this true? If so, PERFECT. Just my style of learning. On the flip side, I have also heard that Manhattan GMAT's verbal is not as good as Veritas.

Also MGMAT only use OG questions, while Veritas has 3000 questions in a question bank??? This fact makes me lean toward Veritas.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

PS. I am deciding over the live/full prep courses of the two, not books/on-demand packages

FWIW, I am aiming for the 99%tile...

 

I did OG, MGMAT books (twice), and used gmatclub a ton. I got a 690, 700, 760 on the real thing. If I could do it all over again, I would not have even touched the OG (maybe I would have worked the last 20 problems of each section at the end. I did that before I got the 760 and they were very easy, so really useless). I feel like there are really two pieces here....what you wanna READ through to learn what you need to know, then who you wanna use for working problems. Those don't have to be the same source. Additionally, there is a question of who you wanna use for different sections. You don't have to use the same company for all sections (sc, cr, quant, etc).

I know that is a non-answer, but "learning by doing" is really gonna be a waste until you have the material down. Ex: knowing primes up to 100 will not be learned well by doing. Knowing the list of important fractions in decimal form without thinking will not be learned by doing. Just keep that in mind as you start out. I mention all this because I wasted many hours of my life at the beginning.

 

Thanks for the reply. In terms of learning the concepts, did you find the MGAMT books very useful? In spite of planning to access instructors/online classrooms, the two things at the top of my list are similar to what you said.

  1. Education materials (did you find MGMAT books useful? What about Veritas?)
  2. Practise questions, (who has the better quality practice questions)?

In addition to use either one of the two sources, I plan to get E-GMAT verbal to solidify my verbal skills (non-native speaker) and math Revolution / magoosh to edge up my quant.

 
Best Response

Let's break it down into two sections, Quant and Verbal. First I'll just explain my Quant experience and see if you have questions.

Quant: I used Veris very little, so I cannot comment on how good it is/isn't. The main thing that changed between the 700 and the 760, on my Quant, was the fact that I used the study guide on GMAT club. I had printed it off before my 2nd attempt and only got like 7 pages into it because it was too hard. I thought, "I think this is overkill." After I got the 700, I went through and made sure I understood everything in the gmat club book and I did multiple sets of the "advanced" Quant questions. I'm not going to lie, those questions took me forever, as did going through that book. I didn't have much of a life outside of work. Additionally, my confidence was at an all-time low after finishing, because I had trouble with so many of the problems. If I had to do it all over again, and had plenty of time before the test, I would have done the mgmat books, then the gmat club book.

 

im not sure about the gmat

but those of us who did the best on the SAT tended to spend the most time with the $20 book rather than spending thousands to sit in a class

I think just doing as many timed practice test as possible helps you the most

 
southernstunna:
Are you really that lazy that you feel the need to drop a grand on a class when you could just study yourself and get the same score? Really?

Taking a Good class saves time, time is money. As simple as that. I would argue each hour in a Good class has same effect as 1.5-3 hours on your own, depending on your situation.

As for the original question, if I had to choose I would say Veritas has a very slight edge over Manhattan, and a big edge over everyone else. Also, WSO discount helps, as Patrick mentioned.

 

I am currently in the Veritas Prep live online course. They are excellent and very responsive. I would say that they are both very good. The deciding points for me where these: 1) Veritas is refundable based on score (like/dont like) 2) Veritas can be taken twice

MGMAT: I use the books for quant and SC. I am also using their online test. OG: i read the books and do some of the questions Magoosh: I use for more questions and magoosh has videos that explain things differently than the rest which could be helpful in the future if you dont understand the other methods

 

I scored 770 using Manhattan Prep and I highly recommend their services, especially if you're solid on quant and are struggling with verbal. Manhattan's quant questions and IR questions are way more difficult than actual GMAT questions; not sure why they use such approach but my guess is so that you really have your math abilities on lockdown. That being said, whatever you score on Manhattan prep CAT's, you could expect your actual gmat score to be 20-30 higher, since the quant is much more difficult. As for Veritas, I've heard great things about them too- they have a free phone app that contains hundreds of questions and they range from very easy to very hard. I recommend trying out the Veritas free app, as I used it early on to get a feel for GMAT style questions. The verbal questions on the free app are crazy hard, and some of the math questions are similar to Manhattan in that they're much harder than any question you'd ever see on the real exam. Here is an example of a very tough DS question from the Veritas free app:

In the former Soviet Union, rubles came in denominations of 1, 3, 5, 10, 25, 50, and 100. Boris and Natasha are at the bank to change an enormous pile of 50 and 100 ruble notes, but the teller is out of 10s and is forced to give them their change in nothing but 1, 3, 5, and 25 ruble notes. Did the teller give Boris and Natasha the correct change?

(1) The teller gave Boris and Natasha 2013 notes.

(2) The teller did not give Boris and Natasha any 3 ruble notes.

 

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