Here’s the latest in our Content Series, by Chris Ryan, Director of Instructor and Product Development, ManhattanGMAT:

GMAT Strategies for the Verbally-Concerned

Last time we talked about strategies for the math-challenged. But what if you have the opposite issue?

Maybe you can solve equations just fine; it’s this fuzzy language stuff that gets you down. Maybe your teachers never gave you a good solid foundation in grammar.

Maybe English isn’t your first language, in which case I sincerely admire you.

Or maybe you’re not so bad at English, but you want to do great on the verbal because you’re actually really worried about the math “ and you want to get all the points you can.

Whatever the cause is, you are concerned about the verbal side of the exam.

Fear not! Here are five strategies to guide you.

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GMAT Strategies for the Math-Challenged

by Chris Ryan, Director of Instructor and Product Development, ManhattanGMAT

The thought of algebra gives you hives. You’d rather discuss any topic but prime numbers. And you bitterly wonder why geometry is tested on the GMAT “ the Graduate Management Admissions Test, after all. It’s not like you want to be an architect.

Well, the GMAT is what it is: a hoop to jump through for business school. Whether knowing rate times time equals distance translates to academic and financial victory (or not!) is a moot question. You want to get an MBA. And crouching between you and that degree is the giant spider of middle- and high-school math.

You’re not alone. Many other b-school candidates share your apprehension. But in order to beat the GMAT, you’re going to have to revisit some math skills that you likely haven’t had to use in 5 “ 10 years.

What are math skills? There are three types, all tied together:

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A front-page article featuring the founder of ManhattanGMAT in Today’s New York Times:

Would six-figure salaries attract better teachers?

A New York City charter school set to open in 2009 in Washington Heights will test one of the most fundamental questions in education: Whether significantly higher pay for teachers is the key to improving schools.

The school, which will run from fifth to eighth grades, is promising to pay teachers $125,000, plus a potential bonus based on schoolwide performance. That is nearly twice as much as the average New York City public school teacher earns, roughly two and a half times the national average teacher salary and higher than the base salary of all but the most senior teachers in the most generous districts nationwide.

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Presented from our friends at Accepted.com.
Where Should You Apply?You know you want an MBA. And you know you want to go to a top school. That’s why you have invested in Manhattan GMAT’s top GMAT program. But once you earn that excellent score, what’s next? You have to decide where to apply, and there are at least fifteen schools in the top 10! How to choose?

You have a major decision to make: Where do you want to spend two years and roughly $100,000 while earning your MBA, accelerating your career progression, and hooking into a professional network that will last a lifetime. How should you choose? What criteria should guide you?

Since the MBA is a professional degree, first look at career opportunities and recruiting. How is recruiting in your area of interest at your target schools? What percentage of graduates entered the field you want to go into? How strong are the schools’ ties to the region you would like to live in, if you have a geographic preference? Do the companies you would like to work for recruit at these schools? Is the student body happy with the Career Services Center? What do recruiters think of your school? Study the schools’ web sites, review data (not the raw ranking) at US News, BusinessWeek and the Wall St. Journal, attend school receptions and MBA tours, and contact students and recent alumni to obtain answers to these questions.

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The primary difference between ManhattanGMAT and Kaplan/Princeton Review is the nature of the Instructors employed by each Company.

ManhattanGMAT was founded by a Teach for America teacher, Zeke Vanderhoek, who believed that the teacher is the most important component of any educational experience. Accordingly, Zeke sought to attract and retain the best possible teachers when he started MGMAT.

To represent this commitment to superior teachers, MGMAT pays $100/hr plus yearly bonuses plus a $1,000 signing bonus. This is approximately 3 – 4 times the rate paid by Kaplan or Princeton Review (approx. $25 – $40, depending upon a number of variables).

In order to be considered for employment with MGMAT, Instructors need to have scored a 99th percentile on an official exam, now a 760+ out of 800. For reference, the average score for students at Harvard Business School is a 720, and the score requirement for Kaplan is a 90th percentile, a 680 (Princeton Review does not have a score requirement). Candidates also need to have prior teaching experience in order to be considered for a position with us.

Applicants who have both the score and teaching experience must go through an audition process here in New York; approximately 1 in 5 candidates makes it through the audition round, based upon personality and teaching skill. After receiving an offer, Instructors still must undergo 100+ hours of training before seeing any students.

As you can imagine, it takes a pretty distinctive individual to get through this process. You can read the bios of all of our Instructors here.

Perhaps the most important part of having such strong Instructors is that it enables us to offer a curriculum that focuses on the actual academic content tested by the GMAT. In other words, instead of teaching methods, tips and approaches (e.g. backsolving, trial and error, guessing strategies), we can teach the actual math, grammar, and analytical principles tested on the GMAT (e.g. prime numbers, subject-verb agreement, finding assumptions). We have found that mastery of the content underlying the GMAT is the only path to consistent high scores on the test.

Last, we teach and research only the GMAT. This is in stark contrast with Kaplan and Princeton Review, which offer test prep services for every major standardized test. The GMAT is, in our experience, unique and complex. We believe that our singular focus enables us to provide a much stronger offering than the course provided by the larger, all-in-one test prep companies.

For more information regarding ManhattanGMAT, click here.

Here is the latest in our latest Strategy Series, by Chris Ryan, Director of Instructor and Product Development.

You’ve just accepted your fate. I have to take the GMAT, you admit to yourself. And now you admit one more thing: No, I can’t walk in and take it cold.

So you contemplate all the research you have to do. Tomorrow you’ll start trolling the online forums, talking to friends about their GMAT-prep experiences, and haunting the Study Aids aisle of your local Barnes & Noble. But right now, you don’t want to buy anything. You want general principles. Whichever books you pick up, whatever course you take (or not) “ how should you think about preparing for the GMAT?

Here are five tips to guide you.

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It’s conventional wisdom that, in a weak economy, more people will apply to business school to wait out the bad times in a productive manner.

Well, it appears that conventional wisdom is correct, as we’re seeing a bit of a rush to apply, including people trying to make 3rd round deadlines for Fall, 2008, just as the economy hits a rough patch.

Anecdotally, business schools have caught on that there may be a late rush of qualified applicants – they seem to be employing their Waitlists more than in past years, presumably to keep their options open in terms of filling their final slots.

What does all this mean? Well, it likely means that 3rd round applicants for this Fall are going to face even steeper odds than in past years. Most admissions officers will tell you that you’re better off applying for the 1st round rather than the 3rd round in any given year. So if you’re on the fence, you may want to consider trying to sharpen your application for next Fall rather than rush to get it in now.

The following article was provided to us by our friends at Accepted.com. Accepted is hosting a number of telethons in mid-2008 that allow MBA applicants to call in for a free 15-minute consultation. Click here for more details.

Recipe for Acceptance

Take a few buzzwords like synergy, global village, sustainability, social responsibility, leverage, empower, diversity. Season with acronyms B2B, B2C, ETF, M&A,CDO, TLA, and PE. Stir in generous platitudes about forces that molded you into the person you are today and the top-notch faculty, diverse student body, and outstanding alumni network at the schools to which you are applying. Cook on your smart phone while seeking feedback from a bevy of your fifty closest colleagues, friends, and relatives. And voila! You have an MBA application essay.

No, you may have a recipe for rejection.

All too often MBA applicants grope for a recipe for success, a one-size-fits-all approach to writing the essays. Push the right buttons, stir in the tried-and-true ingredients, and you’ll have it made. Right? Wrong!

That recipe doesn’t exist. You aren’t making pancakes here; you’re trying to portray yourself as a multi-faceted, one-of-a kind gem. How do you do that? Use the Ten Tools for Terrific MBA Essays below to focus on your uniqueness, accomplishments, and strengths as you refine your essays.

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by Chris Ryan, Director of Instructor and Product Development, ManhattanGMAT

You’ve studied all the content, you’ve done hundreds of problems, you’ve taken practice test after practice test.  And now, it’s GMAT game day.  You’re following all the logistics tips: you got enough sleep last night, you’ve shown up early, you haven’t eaten anything funny, you plan to take the breaks while giving yourself enough time to check back in with the proctors.  But what about actually taking the test?  What do you have to remember while you’re in the thick of battle?

Here are five strategies to guide you:

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The best resource around for MBA-related podcasts is the aptly named MBAPodcaster, which includes Admissions tips and discussions with admissions officers from various institutions.  Their library is deep enough for you to constructively fill many a morning commute or jog on the treadmill.  Something else to do when you’re not prepping for the GMAT!  🙂