Has anyone ever taken the Princeton or Kaplan Review Classes for the GRE or GMAT. Which one is better?

I took a LSAT Princeton Review Course. Its been a pretty long time ago but I found it helpful.

I took the LSAT course from Kaplan. I was not impressed.

If you need these courses you probably arent cut out to go to the grad program you want to go into.

Honestly... if you need motivation, do you think you will be really motivated when you are in the program? If you need "help" what makes you think that you belong in the first place?

Kaplan is crap, however their test drives are gold to give you a baseline. I went in completely cold and didnt even know what was on the LSAT and scored a 165. After that I was able to get it up the other 7 points that I wanted using the 180 kaplan book along with stuff from LSAC.

For you, if you want to take the GRE, get the Barron's book from Barnes and Noble in CS. Study the math and make yourself familiar with that stuff, its kindergarten stuff, so just refresh on it because its not hard, you just wont have a lot of time to get it done.

The best part about the Barrons book however is the most common words list. I suggest you study this heavily if you plan to take the GRE. Dont worry about the other words, make flash cards of the 200 or so most common words and nail those, they will be 80% of what is on the test and honestly you might know some of the other 20%, but if you nail the 80% you will be in the top 5% on verbal like me.

Yes there was some horn tooting in there, but dont pay for a course, people who need a course dont need to go to grad school, go work. If you can study and do well by yourself, you have the drive and ambition to go to grad school.

Oh yeah, at least 1 practice test under real conditions per week. I know that you cant do the computer adaptive one, but do the practice tests in the barrons book, or if you take the GMAT whatever book they have, in Barrons I trust.

Make time, like 3 hours a week to seriously sit down and take one of the tests under timed circumstances where you cant see anything else and you have no ability to get up and pee or anything. Id say that maybe 20-30% of test taking is being a person who believes they will do well on the test, has a good feeling about time limits and uses their time wisely. Usually the questions arent the hard part, I mean sure there will be words that no one knows except the OED, but the real issue is knowing how to limit your time on questions that you dont know, cutting down the choices to what is plausible and moving on in a timely manner if you dont just straight up know.

As well, best of luck with that. But almost everyone Ive met that took a course was eligible for the refund because they didnt improve their score.

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But almost everyone Ive met that took a course was eligible for the refund because they didnt improve their score.

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yet these companies stay in bus.

As far as a class goes, the most important thing will be your instructor. A great teacher will get results regardless of what name is on the books, they just need test questions and a willing, committed student. Both companies track score improvement by teacher, and the secret is that there is a wide variation in results. The best teachers are very concerned with their students improving. Intelligence/test score isn't the factor - they are all very smart.

In general, the Princeton Review has better classes and gets better results. In general, Princeton focuses more (spends more $) on improving course quality and Kaplan focuses more on Marketing. In general, they both copy each others good ideas (eventually).

I taught & tutored for Princeton for several years and I also trained teachers (LSAT & GMAT & GRE) and wrote some of their material. Some people say it is a scam, I can tell you with certainty that it is not. I have seen the numbers and I have personally helped hundreds of students improve. But I will readily admit that it does not work for everyone, and it does not work well if you have a bad instructor.

Randy03 is absolutely right - if you already have a high score. You can probably prep yourself and do well. When you score a 165 cold on the LSAT, a class is a waste of money. The only thing you should consider is tutoring to help you get up above a 175. If you have a score near average, or you are not a natural test taker, then a class can be very helpful.

Good Luck in your research and decision!

I never took a course, but I did score high on the GRE and used Kaplan's books to study. I studied the "100 Math Concepts to Know" and the most commonly used words extensively. I also bought a GRE vocab book, and studied those words too. The Kaplan book came with a CD-Rom that had at least 3 practice tests on it.

Whichever book or course you choose, make sure you take some computerized practice tests, because the paper version just isn't the same. I'm not sure about the GMAT, but on the GRE, the computer adjusts the level of difficulty of the questions depending on your answers, which a paper test can't do for you.

In addition to the teaching you will receive, a course is also helpful in keeping you on track - even the most highly motivated can get off track from our goals. When I started falling behind in my personal studying for the GRE, I took a week off work to focus on studying before I took the test. Not everyone has the luxury of taking a week off whenever they like, so consistent preparation (whether it's on your own, or with a course), is probably the best way.

Good luck in improving your scores and applying to programs!

In case you are in the DFW area, TCU is offering a GMAT prep course.

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The Neeley School is offering a free GMAT Prep Class for candidates interested in pursuing an MBA at TCU. The class will be held in Smith Hall on the TCU campus Saturdays, 1-5:00 pm, February 9, 16 and 25. Different topics will be covered each of the class meetings. The only cost for the class is $25 for the required text.


To register for the class, prospective students must first create a Neeley VIP account. They may do so by clicking on the "Neeley VIP" link on our website or using the URL: http://emt.askadmissions.net/tcugrad/vip/ . Once they create an account, they can login to a VIP page to register for the GMAT prep class, upcoming Information Sessions, etc.

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[This message has been edited by yellowrose (edited 1/29/2008 9:16p).]