The Princeton Review

Regarding GRE Online Class:
I wish this company was more clear and direct that about how my online account (that has materials from my course) will expire after a certain date after the online course ends. I think the student tools material for my course should be accessable infinitely by the paying user. (If this company is afraid of customers sharing material, limit the access to one computer like Netflix streaming services).
Another alternative. if the material should expire, is that the online content should expire after the student has completed all material. (The online site has this integrated and does track which materials I have completed already). The main reasons why I think student tools class materials for the class I purchased should be extended is because there are a lot extra materials students may not have time to complete during class session. Also, the package is advertised as if the materials will be accessable long term. I emailed my local office (Berkeley) to ask if my student tools can be extended. I never got a response. Both the limitation of the online class and materials and lack response from the local office is a large disappointment to me.
Content wise Princeton Review GRE online course is good for learning key techniques for the GRE and offers many helpful class materials, drill, and practice exams, however your learning and experience may be lowered by the structure of accessibility to the materials.
I regret choosing a service that offers the material for a limited time (not based on whether the material was accessed by student). Really, customers are paying for a set time to access the online class materials, not for use of the materials themselves — that’s a huge disadvantage for princeton review students that are also full-​time students/​employees/​normal busy people!
I am not sure if the GRE Classroom Course actually passes out their materials. If so this accessibility issue will be resolved. At the time of my enrollment classroom courses were not offered because not enough people were interested at the time.

I would rate this company 100 STARS if that were an option. Check out this score improvement: My daughter took the PSAT as a sophomore and scored a 192. She took the SAT as a Junior and scored 1790. We were super concerned. We decided to look to the best. We hired PR’s best individual tutor, Krissi Taylor Leslie. We bought 10 hours of private tutoring over about two weeks. MY DAUGHTER THEN TOOK THE ACT AND SCORED A 33. Seriously now, while translating from an SAT score to an ACT score is tough, my calcs show this to be almost a 20% improvement … Can’t beat that, now can you …

Marty is an excellent tutor. He helped me improve my gmat score by 60 points. I highly recommend him.

Marty is the best. I was lucky enough to get him as my private tutor, and I can’t say enough about his professionalism, pacing, prioritization and expertise. He’s a grand master of the GRE, and in only a few sessions brought my quant score from 149 to 157, verbal from 166 to 168, and analytical writing from 4 to 5. All hail Marty.

I scheduled a GRE class and was called on the Friday before the first Tuesday class to see if two of the dates for the class could be changed as well as the location. This to me seemed very last minute. The changes did not work for my schedule. It has been extremely frustrating to be told to expect a call to discuss scheduling and not ever receive a call back. One time the person coordinating the class told me, «I really need to go so I can’t talk to you anymore but I promise I will call you tomorrow». He did not call. I had to follow up four times to finally start the process to get a refund and when I did get in touch with him he always acted like I was bothering him.
I must admit, I did have some changes in my life with my work schedule however I was willing to miss the two classes that conflicted with work. With the Princeton Review rescheduling I would have missed four classes, which didn’t seem feasible. I was very disappointed in the process.

Gordy Steil is an excellent instructor. He is very knowledgeable and just as down to earth. His ability to break down the material is very helpful. He demonstrates a genuine concern for his students and made me feel very prepared for the GRE.

I took a star off, because the room that I had class in had no AC all summer. Couldnt it have been fixed or our class could have switched to one of the many empty rooms?
I felt all the instructors (Kevin-​verbal, Neil-​gchem, Andrew-​ochem, Virgina-​bio) were all good and knew their stuff. Glad I took a class for structure.

I took the Princeton Review MCAT classroom prep class. I really appreciated the quality of all the instructors I had, since they were each very knowledgeable in their respective disciplines — Nick Montaño, Gabe Reyes, David Wright, Bethany Blackwell and Jessica Carroll.
However, the scheduling of the course and constant rescheduling/​shuffling of classes was rather strange and sometimes inconvenient. Overall, the course still helped me review a lot of the necessary material for the MCAT.

MCAT 105hr in-​class review
Basically the entire thing comes down to a single point — are your teachers worth their salt? The answer in most cases, holy jesus not even close! My Physics instructor, while intelligent, thought that the best way to teach was to speak as quickly as possible (including SPEAKING the mathematics at us) while blocking everything he wrote on the board. He would progress quickly and cover everything without truly explaining much of anything… or maybe I just don’t understand supersonic speech (+½… but we can’t show that… so 0!)
The bio teacher was quality– but that’s my strongest area so I’m not the best judge. (+1 to the overall score!)
The Gchem was taught by a ditzy confused woman who attempt to make the subject more relatable to us via analogies that were not well thought through; which resultantly confused the hell out of her and us as she blathered on about sheep and wolves while attempting to express the underlying reasoning behind atomic deshielding… Not worth $ 2k (a FAT 0 to the total score).
The Verbal Reasoning CANNOT be taught. It is seriously just about practice… and due to this fact –despite our instructor being quite good– 80% of the class stopped showing up after the 4^th lecture (+1 to our score).
Ochem was taught by a brilliant woman with TEACHING CREDENTIALS. Who knew that made the difference. She was a high school chemistry teacher who could anticipate where the student’s holdups arose and could articulate –succinctly I might add– explanations easily. She was fantastic, and seeing as I SUCK at Ochem I was very very very glad to have her in the program (+1 to the score).
So lets see… basically the bad and good were about equal (seeing as Physics is the MOST important subject)… the class overall continually had scheduling conflicts, teachers subbing in for each other, management generally with their thumbs up their asses. But other than that I am glad that I took the class because I DESPERATELY needed to see things before actually taking the test.
*** to be fair it was basically like paying 2k for a bunch of books and practice problems that are SUPER damn helpful and the only thing that really makes a difference in the end.

This review is for the 105 hour MCAT prep.
My General Chemistry and Organic Chemistry instructor Neil Lim was excellent. He simplified the material so it was easy to understand and interesting to learn. His teaching method is superb because he always starts with an outline, and as he teaches, he gives really great examples so you can apply what you’ve just learned and solidify your understanding. I did really well on the physical portion on my real MCAT largely thanks to Neil. He was the best instructor!
My verbal instructor Kevin Keogh was also really great. He teaches helpful verbal tips and as a bonus, has a great sense of humor. My verbal score improved probably at least 2 points from practicing and applying his tips. The way he explains why certain verbal choices are better than others is helpful because it allowed me to rethink the way I took verbal exams.
If all the Princeton Review teachers were as good as Neil and Kevin, I’d be happy to give PR 5 stars. Unfortunately, my biology and physics teachers were boring and unhelpful. These classes were a waste of time and basically nobody in my class showed up to them.
Overall: TPR is great for online resources, and verbal and chemistry if you get the instructors I mentioned above. I would recommend it.

I took a GRE Course and I cannot say how happy I was with it!
–Great job reinforcing math skills– from classes I had not taken in years!
–Good explanation of how the test format exactly works.
–Classroom space and time slots worked well with both easy access to public transit and my work schedule.
–Personalized help and review on essays.
–Instructor, Megan Sonya was wonderful! Both in really giving it all to being available to us, taking extra time to review our essays, offering flexible office hours.
–Princeton Review Office staff was also great! Very responsive, always willing to help and very understanding.

I hesitate to give such a high rating, as no stars might be more appropriate.
At a high school SAT class my child attended, the tutor threw another students book on the floor. The following session, only one student showed up.
To be fair, the entire program had a very good start with the initial class being taught by a motivating and engaging tutor. From session two forward, the initial tutor had been replaced with one whose articulation was difficult to understand, thus causing some confusion for the «tutorees», whom were frequently spoken to in a condescending manner. The sessions consisted of lengthy explanations of each detail of the subject matter, followed up with tremendous amounts of homework.
Simply put, it was not a positive experience.

If you are looking for endless amounts of pain, frustration, and overall expression of «WTF» then i encourage you, by all means, to sign up for Princeton Review. I helped my sister, who is currently in high school and preparing to take the SAT, sign up for a prep course. We had a couple of options to look at but due to a recommendation from one of my mom’s friends we decided on Princeton Review. I wish that we hadn’t. We signed up for a course and had the materials delivered to us and everything was fine and dandy. However, after a couple of weeks before my sister’s course was about to start we got a call from them saying that there was low enrollment. So the only option that they gave us was to switch to a different course, that was supposedly an «upgrade.» When i called the people there they gave off this attitude of superiority, long and unnecessary moments of «ummmmm» and silence, but alas we switched to the «upgraded» course. Then after a couple days, this time, we get ANOTHER call say that once again due to the low turn out, the course was cancelled. Dude, i haven’t even taking the course with this facility and i am already getting a headache and very tired of all these useless mind games! The ever old faithful expression of «we can always upgrade and switch you to a different course,» was in use. But there are so many course that we actually can sign up for that it was getting a little ridiculous. So in the end, we decided to just get our money back. When i called again the person on the phone was slow, unhelpful, and kept on asking «if i understood.» OF COURSE I UNDERSTAND what bad service you people provide!!! Then they told me to return the materials they mailed out to me within 10 days, for inventory purposes, to actually get a full refund. How dare you cause me all this frustration and pain to in the end give me a deadline to return the materials that didn’t even help my sister!
Bottom line: DO NOT sign up for Princeton Review and save yourselves from all this useless headaches. In the end my sister signed up for Kaplan and the service there was much easier and we made sure that their course would not be cancelled.

Stay away! My son signed up for a GMAT prep class and specifically picked Princeton Review because they offered small group instruction. He took BART to San Francisco, only to wander around and find that the class he signed up for didn’t even exist. No one ever informed him of this. He called their 1 – 800 # waited on hold for 20 minutes and spoke with a guy that ended up saying he’d get a call back the next day. Thinking he might have the wrong venue, he took Bart back to Berkeley and went to their office. No class there either. So, no class, but they had charged my credit card.
Getting our money back was just a total headache. We made 2 months worth of phone calls. At first they said full refund. Then we found they kept a significant portion saying we’d have to return class materials. But there was never a class! On the 3^rd call, they said, oh these are materials we mailed to him. Well, we got them like 3 weeks later. We were told over and over the rest would be refunded, but it took a long time.
These folks are completely unorganized an offer classes on their website and they don’t even exist!

This company is very disorganized and misleading. My daughter signed up for a free SAT prep class which we then learned from another student has been cancelled (but we got no word from the company directly) — and then signed up for a free mock SAT test and actually went all the way across town, only to be refused entry because she isn’t a student at that high school. I had called to verify that she was registered, and the two different people I spoke with did not bother to tell me about the limitation. I would never pay for any of their services.

Dealing with the Princeton Review has been so frustrating. I registered and paid, and then nothing worked thereafter. My login stopped working on their website after 2 days. The online demo test never worked even though I had a brand new computer and the correct browser. I called and emailed periodically over 2 weeks with no responses. When I called I was put on hold for 20 minutes, then transferred to a voicemail stating they will be out of the office. I was not allowed to get a refund because I needed to return my course materials first. I never received the course materials via UPS, and I was blamed for that even though it was not my fault the UPS guy never showed up. This company is clearly out to take your money and not provide the services they provide. Save your money and your study time, and go elsewhere.

Took the MCAT course here. It was great for providing structure to your studies. Instructor quality was mixed, but overall helpful. Two were actual medical students, and all instructors were required to score well in their subject. The administrative staff however were rather uncoordinated so don’t expect to easily make up classes that you miss.

Took LSAT course here back in 2006, and thought it was great. The course improved my score 10+ which makes a huge difference.