Mike Diamond, head of instruction, and Jaymes Kine, one of the lead instructors are here to talk to you about some of the questions that we have gotten on our social media platforms.
Why in God’s name is preparing for the GMAT soo expensive? Can’t I just you know muscle through this with sheer will, determination, self-prep, and free resources? And for some small portion of the population you totally can, but, by in large, learning to absolutely master the GMAT is like starting from scratch and building a car. You need to at the very least have other people help you make parts, give you schematics, all that, even if you are putting it together yourself. This is not something most people want to do or more importantly have time to do. So why is the cost of GMAT prep soo high?
The GMAT Is An Investment
You need to take the GMAT so that you can go to business school. You want to go to business school so you can become an executive of some sort, somewhere, right? I mean, most of the people, and listen there are those of you out there that are going to B-school to make the world a better place and that’s absolutely awesome and for anyone, whether you are going for profit or for the love of humanity, if you have got a need, we have a scholarship program.
So somewhere below here you can find a link to our scholarship application. Let’s be clear, the scholarship we are discussing is an Apex scholarship!
10 Points on the GMAT is worth $80 000!
So, when it comes down to it, the GMAT is an investment and doing well on the GMAT has a significant measurable impact on the amount of money that you are going to make throughout your life. And it might be more than you think.
We have actually done some analysis internally and when you compare the salaries coming out of schools, from top schools to very good schools and you adjust for everything else, and just look at admissions chances and financial aid and GMAT, every 10 points on the GMAT is worth.
Yeah. Guess! Every 10-point increment on the GMAT, how much is it worth? In annual income? In net present value. Lifetime! 10 points? 10K? Keep Going! 30K? 50? About 50 thousand Pounds, 80 thousand US Dollars in lifetime earnings. And that sounds sort of ridiculous until you think about …. Wait, that’s every 10 points? Every 10 points? Well think about it, if you get a 720 and get into Stanford versus a 620, do a great school like, Fox, your lifetime earnings for those 100 points, the difference is going to be more than 800 000 dollars. That’s a lot of dollars!
The Apex Instructor Difference
And so it’s an investment, but from the other side, for us, for what we do. We love what we do! And we are not really in it for the money. I think every GMAT instructor here started out helping friends, helping family, helping friends of friends, and at some point sort of rolled in and said, well this is something that I enjoy. This is really fun! And it can help me have a fulfilling career.
Why is GMAT Prep so expensive?
But there is opportunity cost, for you Economics majors out there. Ooh, talking to you! Why is GMAT preparation soo expensive?
Well if you go to a test prep factory and they hire someone who scored a 680 or a 700, just got out of school, doesn’t have teaching experience, they are not paying them very much, they’re actually probably paying them less than they are worth because that’s how big corporations work. Not to get too political. But, you know, they are getting paid $20/hour.
That’s why earlier on in my career I didn’t know this existed. Being a real GMAT tutor. It’s also why many of them don’t do it full-time. I mean you can see when you go on any of those other websites, and you look for courses available by this specific teacher, they’ve got like 1 or 2 nights a week maybe. Because they are moonlighting, doing something else to pay the bills. Still, a lot of excellent teachers, but, we don’t want them, because they’re doing something else and it’s just a financial thing for them.
That’s actually one of the things that I’ve been happiest with. Going from just teaching on the side and moonlighting and doing that full-time because I didn’t like my other job and I always liked the few hours a week I was teaching and now I like all the hours that I am teaching.
Apex instructors have scored 770+ on the GMAT
For a GMAT score of, well we all have 770’s and above, we can go to top business schools and work at, I used to be at a hedge fund. Oh, we fancy! We can go do all sorts of stuff. We totally fancy!
So hiring a GMAT tutor is like hiring a professional whether it is an attorney, an accountant, a psychiatrist. Looking for that budget doctor? Yeah, exactly! You wouldn’t get your knee operated on by someone who was like “I can do it a little cheaper but I went to a worse medical school”. Right, Zoology is medicine, in a way! I’ve done plenty giraffe knee replacements! That’s actually a pretty big deal!
If you enjoyed this video about the cost of GMAT prep, watch our GMAT Confidence video.