As I talk to students, it’s clear that the vast majority have not yet heard of GMAC’s new GMAT Focus math preparation tests.

As these tests are likely to help many students, and our write-up has been pushed off the front page, here it is again. Check out the write-up, as any students that are studying for the GMAT and concerned about the math portion of the test should consider using this new resource from GMAC.

We get frequent questions about ManhattanGMAT offering classes in areas where we’re not currently available. Questions vary from various major metropolitan areas here in the U.S. all the way to India. This is even taking into account our online course offerings, as some people (understandably) are eager for an in-person class in the vicinity

There is some good news – we’ve been fortunate enough to find some truly remarkable teachers in some areas where we haven’t been available before. Keep an eye out in Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston, for starters. Plus, one of our top Instructors is moving to Charlotte this summer. Another is moving to Montreal in the Fall. So we’re getting there.

Of course, we would like to be everywhere our students want us to be. But for us the issue is, and always has been, Instructors. Can we find an Instructor that knocks students’ socks off? Of course, the candidate in question has to have scored a 99th percentile on the GMAT (currently a 760+), and have teaching experience. If her or she sounds good on the phone, we then fly him or her to New York for a multi-part teaching audition. Of candidates that are flown in, we extend an offer to 1 in 5.

You can see why expansion is painstaking and deliberate. There have been candidates that have been tougher calls than others, but if anything, we’re rougher on candidates in new markets because we know what they’re inheriting – they have to be the Instructor that people have been waiting for.

We’re so eager to find Instructors that meet our standards, and our students’ lofty expectations, that we offer a $1,000 finder’s fee for anyone that refers us to an Instructor (in addition to the $1,000 signing bonus for the Instructor him or herself). So if you’d like MGMAT to come to your area, maybe you can even help by spreading the word! People in your neighborhood will thank you, and you may wind up the richer for it (literally and figuratively).

For Instructor application info, click here.

With all of the terrible headlines out there, conventional wisdom would hold that many more people (e.g. displaced individuals from the financial sector) would be applying to business schools this year.

A quick check of GMAT testing volume data for 2008 shows an 11.19% increase over the same period in 2007 – up to 101,039. So that would seem to agree with the overall picture.

However, the majority of that increase is actually accounted for by non-U.S. test-takers, as the growth rate among this group was 19.34% over the period. U.S. test-takers grew a more modest 7.01% in the first 5 months of the year, pretty consistent with the 6% year-over-year growth in the U.S. between 2006 and 2007.

So what’s the takeaway? Though it certainly seems competitive out there, the numbers don’t show a tidal wave of new U.S. B-school applicants in 2008, at least not yet.

If you’re curious, this data is taken straight from the GMAC website.

I had a conversation today with an Instructor for another company who was interested in joining ManhattanGMAT (not uncommon). This candidate had received a 99th percentile on the GMAT in the early 90’s with a 720.

Yes, a 720 was a 99th percentile at a certain point in time. But this score was generated before the GMAT became computer-adaptive, in 1998. So the question is, is it fair to represent that this person is a 99th percentile Instructor? It’s literally true, but we don’t think that current students would appreciate the distinction. A student trying to learn how to tackle today’s computer-adaptive test would expect the Instructor to have gotten a 99th percentile on the same test, not yesteryear’s paper version.

Here at ManhattanGMAT, our standard is 99th percentile on the current computer-adaptive version of the GMAT. So this particular candidate was told to re-take the test and get the score in order to be considered.

The candidate’s current company is apparently okay with billing this individual as a 99th percentile Instructor, and perhaps it is open to interpretation. But we’d prefer to err on what we’d see as the students’ side on this one.

Note: Jeremy is now fully booked for July 12th and 13th. However, you can set up a phone consultation with him by visiting www.mbamission.com.

We are proud to welcome to New York’s ManhattanGMAT Center, for at least one weekend in July, Jeremy Shinewald, founder of MBA Mission! MBA Mission is one of the leading admissions consulting firms in the industry, and we’re very fortunate to have Jeremy in to speak with our students here in New York.

Jeremy has agreed to conduct one-on-one FREE consultations with up to 24 of our students on the weekend of July 12th – 13th, between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Sign-ups are on a first-come-first-serve basis, and we expect that slots will quickly fill up, so if you’re here in New York contact Dan McElroy (operations@manhattanprep.com/gmat/) to get your name on the list.

If you make the list, you’ll then submit your resume and other info so that Jeremy can review them ahead of time before meeting with you.

We’ll post an update here when the slots fill up. So if you’re reading this and you’re a student here in New York, you may be in luck!

As you gear up to apply for business school in the Fall, MGMAT is proud to provide you with some of the biggest experts in the field in the month of June.

First, in Chicago on Thursday, June 19th, we are very proud to host Graham Richmond, co-founder of Clear Admit. Graham is a Wharton MBA himself and worked in the Admissions Office at Wharton, so people are always excited to hear from him. Graham is going to let our students know what they need to have in mind when applying this Fall, in one of the most competitive seasons in recent history. To sign-up to meet Graham, click here.

The very next week, on Thursday June 26th, we will be hosting Linda Abraham, founder of Accepted.com in our Santa Monica center. Linda is an MBA from UCLA, and is one of the founding figures of Admissions Consulting. Attendees will have the opportunity to sit down with Linda and her staff to get personalized input concerning your individual applicant profile. To sign-up, click here.

If you live in Chicago or LA, we’ll see you soon! We’re also going to be putting together an event in New York in the coming weeks as well, come back to this space later in the summer for more info.

ManhattanGMAT is proud to be sponsoring the Beat the GMAT Scholarship!  It’s an opportunity to be awarded the best GMAT Prep AND top-notch admissions consulting, just by demonstrating your personal merit.

//www.beatthegmat.com/scholarship.html

Deadline is in 2 short days, so hurry!

As promised, from the mind of Instructor Josh Braslow, here’s a review of GMAC’s newest preparation product, GMAT Focus:

MBA.com’s new GMAT Focus provides a unique bank of retired GMAT quantitative questions in an adaptive GMAT-like format. The material is organized in mini 24-question quant sections, which are available for purchase through the mba.com website by following the tab on the home page for Take the GMAT. Each diagnostic costs $25, unless you buy a pack of three for $65. According to GMAC, There is no limit to the number of exams you can purchase. However, if you take the GMAT Focusâ„¢ exam more than four times you may see questions repeated. The following review summarizes my initial impressions of the software after test-running two diagnostic sections. I took the diagnostic once at full-speed (i.e. best effort), and then a second time at what felt to me around a mid-650 ability level. I also culled some statistics from 6 diagnostics taken from 2 advanced private students.

The Advantages:

1. The questions are top-notch and all of them are unique to any of the questions from other sources (Official Guides, GMAT Prep Software). In other words, you can see excellent REAL GMAT math questions that you can’t find anywhere else.

2. The questions have solution explanations, not just answers (in contrast with the free tests at www.mba.com). When you review questions, you can click on individual questions to see the solution. You can also review only missed questions or the whole set.

3. The interface provides the test-taker with an analysis of his/her performance. Performance is gauged across three criteria, Item Type (DS vs. PS), Content (Algebra vs. Arithmetic Operations), and Application (Real/Applied vs Pure/Formula Based).

Based on your performance in these areas, a probability (as a %) of scoring below average/average/above average/excellent in each area is forecasted. From these percentages, a final most likely rating is posited. I will speak more about the Content and Application criteria below.

4. The diagnostic provides statistics (correct/incorrect and average time) for the set of 24 questions. These statistics are also shown across the 3 criteria (Item Type, Content, and Application). The interface provides the student with an active link to review only questions which were INCORRECT or on which the student GUESSED.

5. A per item breakdown is displayed so that the student can click on specific missed questions or see results across a specific criterion by filtering with one of the buttons. You can select only questions from a particular category to review (e.g. algebra). You can also flag only questions that you guessed on and see what the average time was, which can be very useful.

Some potential drawbacks:

1. The Accuracy of the Prediction is not established. The software scores you by giving you a predicted range for your raw quant score based on your performance on the 24 questions (assuming that there are no experimental questions). The raw score is a range: i.e. 49-51, 37-45, etc. Besides the fact that they assert only an 80% confidence in the interval, the size of the range can vary quite a bit. In the eight diagnostics I have looked at thus far, I have seen ranges from 2 points to 8 points. The general trend, as expected, seems to be that as the performance goes down, the size of the range gets bigger. When I scored perfect 24/24, I received a 49-51 prediction. When I answered 13/24 correctly, I received a 37-45 prediction.

I can report that for one of my students, the diagnostic proved to be rather predictive. He scored 46-50, 47-51, 43-49 on his 3 diagnostics and last week scored a 48 on the actual GMAT.

2. The explanations are not stellar (in a typical Official Guide kind-of-way). The explanations leave something to be desired. In many cases, they are very algebra-heavy and unintuitive. They are highly reminiscent of the Official Guide explanations, which many students haven’t found entirely helpful.

3. The criteria of Content and Application don’t appear to be that helpful. The Content criterion will not be immediately useful to many students, as the categories are taxonomically too broad (e.g. Arithmetic Operations) to recommend concrete steps. The same is true for the Application criterion, as it’s not very helpful to know if a problem is practical or theoretical.

Final Note – Overall I would recommend the GMAT Focus product to my students. The appropriate time for its use seems to be after one has done ALL Official Guide problems, and during the final weeks before one’s exam.

GMAC has decided to supplement their GMAT Prep tests at www.mba.com (excellent resources by the way, if you haven’t downloaded them, though you may want to conserve them for later in your preparation) with a new math-only set of diagnostic tests.

The new diagnostic is located at www.gmatfocus.com. A couple of our Instructors are going to be going through this resource and evaluating it in the next number of days – we should have a ‘review’ of it in the next week or so.

However, early returns are that it’s VERY useful and instructive. It’s also fairly cost-effective, as GMAC is charging $25 for single use, $65 for a Bundle of 3 Math Diagnostic Tests. So if you’re looking to evaluate your math skills, this is a great way to do it.

Below please find an article by Chris Ryan about how to study for the GMAT in a hurry in a structured way.  Some of the tips may be useful even to those who have a little bit more of a runway .

How to Prepare for the GMAT in 14 Days (If You Absolutely Must)

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

You are under the gun. Maybe you’re on a waitlist, and the school wants a retake. Or you really need to apply this round, and you’ve been putting off the GMAT “ but now you’re facing the music.

How do you prepare to take the GMAT in just 2 weeks?

Let me clearly state that more time would be better. You can’t just cram for the GMAT, because you’re not just learning facts; you’re learning skills, and skills take time. I do believe that you can quickly cram in a lot of material, but ideally, you’d have substantial recovery time (just as your muscles need, after a workout) to absorb and to practice, so that the material becomes your own.

Read more