Effective March 1st, 2009, Manhattan GMAT Course Prices are going to increase $50 – $100 to $1,490 in all locations (with a couple of exceptions that will be explained below). Our online course will also increase in price, to $1,090.

This is not a move we make lightly. At MGMAT, we always try to provide the best value possible to our students; this is the 1st price increase we’ve had in over two years for much the same reason.

In those same two years, we have dedicated ourselves to providing the best, most complete GMAT prep course possible. We’ve added many things to our course during this period, including:

1. Updated 3rd Edition Strategy Guides and Curriculum. We spent hundreds of hours improving and updating our curricular materials to reflect lessons from the classroom as well as recent developments with the GMAT itself.
2. Improved Post-Exam Assessment. Students now can consult with a senior Instructor after they take their GMAT to debrief and plan next steps. Hopefully, this isn’t necessary! But we know that sometimes it’s exceedingly helpful to students to have guidance for a second shot; the average increase for a 2nd-time test-taker is 31 points (from GMAC data, not just among our students) for a reason.
3. Our Test Simulation Booklet. We added this to make sure that our students could practice using the same sort of laminated booklet and marker that they’ll have to use on test day. It’s been a hit with students.
4. Manual Stopwatches. We’ve provided an online stopwatch for practice for years. However, some of our students reported that they sometimes found themselves practicing away from a computer, so we’ve now added stopwatches with lap functions to the set of materials that each student receives.
5. Essay Rating Software. We now provide our course students access to the same essay-grading software that GMAC itself uses.

We have made many other improvements large and small during this same period (e.g. we revised our online labs, etc.). We have internalized the cost of these improvements over the past 2 years, and are only now modifying our pricing to reflect some of our increased costs.

Again, this isn’t something we like to do. Still, we do take some comfort in the fact that we are yet providing what we feel is the best GMAT prep course available at a price that remains competitive with the market rate (e.g. Kaplan) while still maintaining our industry-leading Instructor compensation ($100+/hour).

If you’re reading this and were considering signing up for a course in the next few months, try to get in before March 1st. 🙂

(Our pricing is somewhat lower in Los Angeles and Austin due to pre-existing commitments we’ve made. So if you’re in one of these two areas, you not only get sunshine, you get a bargain on your GMAT course!)

Our friends at SixFigureStart, a career coaching firm, will be holding a free coaching teleclass this coming Friday, December 19th, from 12 noon – 12:45 p.m. EST. The topic, apropos for the time, will be “How to Effectively Handle a Job Layoff & Move Forward.”

SixFigureStart co-founders Connie Thanasoulis and Caroline Ceniza-Levine will co-lead:

If You’ve Been Laid Off, What To Do Next
If You Haven’t Been Laid Off, How To Recession-Proof Your Current Job
Dial-in: 712 775 7100

Participant code: 151675# (you must hit the pound key)

*The call is free but long-distance charges apply depending on where you are calling from.

Hope this is either helpful or you can ignore it!

Our 3rd Edition Strategy Guides have been out for about a month now, and the feedback has been tremendously positive. Most of the feedback has centered on the obvious additions (e.g. advanced chapters of math content, new idiom list), which have been welcome to many students.

At the same time, we’re very conscious of the balance of giving students all the resources they would need without overwhelming them. It held us back from adding certain esoteric topics that we thought would be more trouble to students than they’d be worth on the test.

Right now we’re also working on a couple more math guides (one as a Math Refresher, one for very Advanced Math Topics), and are considering how best to add them to the curriculum without swamping students.

I’m sure someone reading this is thinking “I want the stuff MGMAT decided not to print!” To which I’d respond in my best GMAT Teacher Voice, “Think depth, not breadth. You’re much better off knowing 100 problems/topics in your bones rather than kind of knowing 500.”

To this end, one change we’re already considering for the next printing of the 3rd Edition Strategy Guides is to move all Advanced Content and accompanying In Action problems to the back of each book, as opposed to the end of each chapter. This physical separation may help keep students from knocking themselves out too early on.

Also, we plan on fixing some of the typos sharp-eyed students have found. 🙂

If you are applying for Round 2 or later for Fall 2009 (or thereafter) and have questions about applying, we’ve got some good news: our friends at Accepted.com are holding a telethon during which you can talk to an admissions consultant for FREE.

Go to the telethon page on Accepted.com for more info and to sign up. You’ll submit a resume and fill out a questionnaire in order to make your conversation more specific and productive. Sign up now, as the slots will likely fill up before the 19th!

A recent Washington Post article heavily referenced ManhattanGMAT, and even included a snippet of video from our Washington D.C. location. If you squint, you can see a couple of ManhattanGMAT Instructors, and our Strategy Guides make a star turn. 🙂

The article itself discusses more generally how it’s a very competitive landscape out there as people seek shelter from the recession in the oasis of business school.

We are very proud to announce that ManhattanGMAT’s New York office will host an Admissions Panel next week consisting of Admissions officers from 3 of the world’s top business schools. Ainsley Parker, Associate Director of MBA Admissions at Wharton, Yhana Chavis, Assistant Director of Admissions at Kellogg, and Heather Daly, Senior Associate Director of MBA Admissions at Stern will be participating. Our very own Chris Ryan will be the moderator.

This event is free on Thursday night, November 6th at 7 p.m. – click here for more info or to sign up. Space is limited, so first-come-first-edified!

After months of work, the 3rd Edition Strategy Guides have landed! The new guides include 200+ new pages of material spread over 8 books. We’re always trying to offer the most sophisticated and thorough preparation materials around, and these books reflect hundreds of hours of development work by some of our best Instructors.

If you want an inside look, go to the MGMAT Store and click on the individual books to look at .pdfs of the first chapter of each book. There’s a lot of new advanced content (not in the .pdfs so much, but in the books themselves!).

There’s no rest for us though, as we’re hard at work on a GMAT math refresher (working title “Foundations of GMAT Math”) as well as something for the really hardcore math types.  There’s also a rumor that the 12th Edition of the Official Guide for GMAT Review comes in March, so it could be that Strategy Guides 3.1/4.0 will be on the way early next year.

ManhattanGMAT is proud to welcome Katie Malachuk, of Stacy Blackman Consulting , on Thursday night, October 16th, at 6:30 p.m. here at our New York Center!

Some of the topics to be presented include:

– What the top schools are looking for

– Answers to practical questions such as who to ask to write your recommendations, which schools to apply to and whether to plan a school visit

– Common application mistakes to avoid

– Dispelling business school application myths

– Real life applicant case studies

– Practical advice to help you get started

The speaker, Katie Malachuk, has a BA in Women’s Studies from Harvard University and an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. Prior to attending business school, Katie was the Director of Admissions for Teach For America where she created the selection model and oversaw the admissions decisions for over 4,000 applicants annually.

Space is limited, so sign up now!

This past weekend, I attended a barbecue and wound up in a conversation with a current Wharton student. We talked about Scoretop for a little bit, as she had just received an e-mail from the administration about the 3 students at Wharton whose scores had been canceled due to confirmed usage of the Scoretop site.

One interesting point that this student shared with me that I was surprised by was that, prior to her showing up at Wharton, she went through the equivalent of a background check, with people calling her past employers and confirming various details. She said that one of her supervisors at Ebay had since left the company, and she had to scramble to track the person down so that her information could be verified.

Businessweek also reported recently on steps B-schools are taking to catch resume-puffers. It seems there’s a growing trend of ‘trust, but verify’ in the MBA application landscape. Something to be aware of as you’re filling out your applications.

The Wall Street Journal has the number of applicants who have had their score canceled at 84, with 12 having supplied testing items and 72 having confirmed seeing live items when they took the GMAT. The 84 includes 2 University of Chicago students, and one graduate from Stanford. The article seems to suggest at least one Wharton student has been identified too, as Wharton didn’t say “None of our students were involved,” which was the preferred response of most other schools.

Update – the Wall Street Journal updates that three current and past Wharton students have had their scores canceled.

It will be interesting to see what becomes of the more visible of the 84 in the coming weeks. Be glad it’s not you, and study hard (legitimately)!