We received an e-mail earlier this week from a happy student reporting that he’d gotten a 760. This was great news, but not particularly newsworthy, as, happily, we get good news like this very often.

However, he also mentioned that his 760 score was good for a 98th percentile. This was a surprise, as 760 has been the bar for a 99th percentile since 2007 or so (before then it was a 750). Apparently, the threshold has JUST been raised to a 770 for a 99th percentile score!

What does this mean? It means that GMAT scores continue to climb, particularly at the high end. Indeed, average GMAT scores have climbed 14 points in the last 4 years and we suspect that, as more students use Manhattan GMAT, we’ll see this trend continue. 🙂

Study hard!

P.S. Manhattan GMAT requires a 99th percentile score for its Instructors, so it looks like the bar for incoming Instructor candidates has just risen. We are looking in several markets (New York, Miami, Atlanta, San Francisco), so if you know any extraordinary teachers who fit the bill, please send them our way!

Addendum:

After reaching out to GMAC to confirm this score breakdown, we have heard that as of the latest test update (for July), a 760 is still a 99th percentile score.

We at Manhattan GMAT are happy to announce the launch of our first annual MGMAT Grant Program, designed to support organizations that prioritize the same standards and spirit as Manhattan GMAT.  Manhattan GMAT staff and instructors from around the country submitted applications to recommend worthy non-profit organizations to receive the grants. Winners were selected based on how closely the goals, standards, and values of the organizations match those of Manhattan GMAT.  We are pleased to award our 3 Instructor Grants for 2010 to the following non-profits:

2010 Instructor Silver Grant ($1,000):
Phoenix Collegiate Academy

2010 Instructor Gold Grant ($1,500):
North Oakland Community Charter School

2010 Instructor Platinum Grant ($2,500):
International Association For Human Values (Youth Empowerment Seminar)

We are excited to be supporting these impressive organizations and look forward to seeing all the great work they do this year!

We will also be awarding the first Manhattan GMAT Staff Grants “ totaling $10,000 “ to worthy organizations this year.  Stay tuned for an announcement of the recipients!

The 12th Edition of the Official Guide for GMAT Review is an awesome resource, likely the best available, and we heartily recommend it to all of our students. Indeed, the Official Guide and its supplements are included with all of our courses and form the core of our curriculum.

However, if there is one weakness that students often cite, it is that the Official Guide’s explanations are sometimes confusing and/or unhelpful, particularly on some of the math problems.

To address this need, we are very proud to announce the imminent publication of the Official Guide Companion! This book includes thorough, step-by-step explanations to every math problem in the Official Guide, using the principles of our curriculum for consistency. Problems that customarily give students headaches are flagged as part of ‘Horacio’s Hotlist,’ named after ace Instructor Horacio Quiroga. There is also an online version of the OGC for easy reference.

Note that all of the referenced questions appear in the Official Guide itself, which is necessary to make use of the Official Guide Companion (hence the name).

All of our course students will begin receiving the book May 17th, as part of their course materials free of charge. The online version will be active one week earlier, on May 10th. It’s good to be one of our students!

Thanks to Chris, Dave, Carrie, Graham, and all of the other Instructors that worked so hard to make the Official Guide Companion possible! Many students are about to have a problem solved (pun intended). 🙂

Okay, not really. But ace Instructor Jen Dziura IS appearing on the Oprah Winfrey Network giving advice to her younger self on this link on WSJ.com (it makes sense when you watch it)!

Congratulations Jen! 🙂

If you have ever downloaded our popular free GMAT flash cards, you might have been one of the many individuals who requested that we make this resource available as an iPhone/iPod Touch app. You also probably heard us tell you that we were working on developing this very app and were excited over the prospects of a mobile version of our flash cards. That apparently wasn’t good enough for you guys because you flooded our phone lines with requests to get the app out faster and with more features such as flagging cards right or wrong and shuffling the deck. We added those features to the docket, but it still didn’t prevent you from following us out of our office, clamoring over this flash cards iPhone app. “Create an interface that is enabled for gestures so you can flick the cards!” “Create an iPhone-friendly version of the Manhattan GMAT website!” “Build in functionality to cast spells, like Harry Potter!”

While we were baffled by the spell request, we implemented the other two suggestions and produced a flaggable, gesture-realistic, and self-contained version of our flash cards that is now available in the iTunes app store for free!

We hope this is finally enough for you guys because our email server is about to explode from all your flash cards requests. However, we know this isn’t the case and in a few months from now, you’ll probably be asking us to make a new version for the iPad. Well, we hope that these flash cards keep you busy for at least a little while.

Also, please remember to rate the cards in the app store!

Here at Manhattan GMAT, we spend a fair amount of time introducing our students to the ins and outs of the GMAT (e.g.  How are the essays weighed and scored?  What are the practical implications of the test being computer adaptive?).  The GMAT is a unique test that raises its own distinctive issues and challenges, and learning about the test (as opposed to simply practicing test questions) is itself a valuable component to achieving a high score.

In response to popular demand, we have compiled answers to many of the questions that most students have about the GMAT in this FREE guide – the GMAT Uncovered.  This guide is available electronically via download at our site.  We are confident that the GMAT Uncovered will address many of the questions you may have about the GMAT, including questions you didn’t even know you had!  It was written by Stacey Koprince, one of our extraordinary Instructors, so you know it’s good.  🙂

Happy reading!

In August, Manhattan GMAT declared that it would donate 10% of its revenue to TEP, a charter school in Washington Heights (a neighborhood in NYC) started by Manhattan GMAT Chairman Zeke Vanderhoek. Manhattan GMAT has finally made good on its pledge and donated over $100,000 to the school.

Manhattan GMAT believes the teaching profession should attract the most talented candidates to the field, and we are proud to support the students at teachers at TEP as they pursue this goal.

If you would like to learn more about TEP, please visit them at www.tepcharter.org.

Manhattan GMAT was featured prominently in a Forbes story on growing companies this past week.  The article focuses on how picky we are about Instructors, which is certainly true!  The article did, however, mistakenly confer credit to Andrew for founding the Company, which we all know properly goes to Zeke Vanderhoek.  It also mistakes a ‘700’ for a ‘760’ as our score requirement, which is a pretty big gap/typo.  All in all though, it’s great to get some recognition!  🙂

Our 8 Strategy Guides, organized by topic, have been around for several years.  However, we were seeing some students who hadn’t looked at math in a LONG time and wanted a refresher.

So, after months of development, we are very happy and proud to announce the publication of our brand new Strategy Supplement, the Foundations of GMAT Math!  This book starts from the basics to give students those “Oh yeah, NOW I remember how to FOIL” moments.  We start with Order of Operations/PEMDAS and algebra, and go from there to fractions, geometry, exponents, divisibility and other flashback-inducing topics.  If you’re confident in your math skills, you may not need this book at all.  But otherwise, you may like it a great deal.  You know who you are . . .

All Manhattan GMAT Course Students will receive this book for free as part of their course materials.  If you’ve already started your course and want this book, contact studentservices@manhattanprep.com/gmat/ and they’ll hook you up (you may have to pay shipping depending on your location, but the book will be free).

Kudos to our curriculum wizards for their latest contribution to the best in GMAT Prep!

GMAC, the publishers and administrators of the GMAT, are hosting their bi-annual summit here in New York on Thursday.   The purpose of the summit is to let those in the GMAT ecosystem know about research, trends, and upcoming changes to the test (if any).  We’re very privileged to be invited again this year!  It’s always a fascinating day when you get to hear from and speak to the minds behind the GMAT.  We’ll post an update here after the summit regarding items of interest.

Update – Well, the GMAC Summit 2009 is now in the books.  In all frankness, there wasn’t much revealed to interest the average GMAT test-taker, aside from an affirmation of points made earlier (e.g. the early items are not worth expending extra time on).

Some of the items discussed include:

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