<p>So I am trying to debate... to Kaplan or not to Kaplan for the GRE prep. </p>
<p>I need some feedback with anyone's experience using Kaplan to prep for the GRE's. </p>
<p>Let me give you some background on me:
I graduated 2 years ago and now im getting ready to reapply. This is my 1st attempt at the GRE's and i'm strapped for time. I've been trying the "study on my own" thing but it's not working. What is it like going through Kaplan? </p>
<p>any advice? obviously i'll be paying a pretty penny for the program so i want to be confident that the program will be of you. </p>
<p>you could self prep. i just started my princeton review gre prep a few weeks ago. i can honestly say so far im very impressed. i wasnt sure i was gonna take a prep class, since i had a bad experience with blueprint for the lsat, but my princeton review gre class has been excellent so far. my teacher is very good and the classes are small, my class has only 5 people in it and i believe they cap gre classes at 8 people. so far its been worth the money for me. but if you think you could self prep it could save you a thousand bucks. for me, it is money well spent.</p>
<p>I personally just bought a couple of GRE prep books. For the GRE general test you might find that some of the course time will focus too much on stuff that you already know.</p>
<p>yea. i'm strapped for time. my vocab is weak. and i am a poor test taker. give me an essay any day over a multiple choice exam. having said this... i want to still take the GRE's in October at the latest. is anyone else in my shoes? i graduated UCLA with a 3.07 gpa in psych (not the best i know) but i transferred in with a 3.50 gpa from community college, so i believe the average will be higher (i dont know how each school will weigh the gpa). but i have some solid research experience, work experience, community service, internships, leadership positions and on top of that at 25 i'm the sole provider for my family so i've been working part time or full time throughout my entire educational career. </p>
<p>having said that, i'm applying to several masters programs and three PhD programs. i know i can get by with a soso GRE score for the MA programs but the PhD admissions is another story. i'm stuck and i still dont know if i should just cough up th 1200$ for Kaplan course or not seeing that 1200$ is a lot of money</p>
<p>Well, $1200 is a bit expensive for what may or may not be a large gain. Do you NEED to apply this year, or do you think you can spend a year maybe getting good work experience and testing the GRE waters?</p>
<p>I have a friend who teaches the GRE for Kaplan, according to her the only requirements to be a teacher were to have a decent score in a diagnostic exam and then to have teaching skills. The sketchy part of the whole thing, is that for the math part, she doesn't have any expertise, but Kaplan advised her just to memorize the answer and why it is right, they provided her with classic student examples of objections to the questions so she can fend them off, but actually she is not teaching something that she knows a lot more about than her students. So if you are disciplined on your own to figure out test format, the actual Kaplan classes might not do much for you. I have not personally taken a class and I much prefer to study independently so maybe I'm slightly biased against courses that only teach what you can get through independent study.</p>