Kaplan GRE Prep Course Review (2024's Online Curriculum)

The Kaplan test prep course offers full-length practice tests, prep books, practice questions, and additional course materials. Kaplan offers live online sessions, self-paced online courses, private tutoring, and in-person courses. They also offer financing options for students who qualify.

You can pay for 6 months of access to the self-paced option. The live online and in-person sessions vary in duration and price. The private tutoring sessions range from 10, 20, 30, or 40 hours of one on one instruction.

1. Self-Paced Prep Courses

This GRE prep course is ideal for busy GRE test takers who want online access to GRE prep materials at any time and in any place. With your purchase, you’ll have access to the materials for 6 months. They offer a Self-Guided Course and a Self-Guided Course Plus. Each course offers online resources, but the latter offers additional test-taking score boosters.

The Kaplan self-paced course offers expert guidance and over 180+ hours of instructional videos. This GRE prep course has 40+ hours for students to tune in to live, computer-based, and instructor-led lessons on the GRE Channel. You can also keep these videos for review later.

Kaplan’s GRE Channel has live online video lessons 6 days a week. If you need more help with certain GRE areas, such as analytical writing or math, you can hone in by watching additional videos targeting those areas.

The self-paced GRE prep course includes 7 practice exams that simulate real test-day conditions. Kaplan maintains 2,500 practice questions in a Qbank that students can customize for their study plan. You also get the most recent Kaplan prep books.

The Self-Paced Prep Course Plus offers everything that we mentioned above, plus two additional on-demand prep courses to help you master math. The first course is the GRE Math Foundations, and the second one is GRE Advanced Math. These courses might be best for students who haven’t had any math review since high school or early college.

Recommended Article: How Long Does it Take to Study for the GRE?

2. Live Online Course

Similar to the self-guided course, Kaplan offers a live online version and a plus version. This GRE prep class is ideal for people who want to experience live, instructor-led courses at a set time per week. This GRE course type helps keep students accountable by assigning homework and due dates.

It is an ideal combination of structure with some flexibility. Most of these GRE prep courses meet once a week for 7 weeks. Each session is 3 hours long for a total of 21 live instruction hours. Each class is taught by one on-screen teacher and several teachers answering questions in the private chat boxes.

This GRE course comes with 40+ hours of targeted videos on the GRE Channel. It also comes with unlimited access to GRE practice tests and questions from the bank. You will receive an official practice test day run by sitting at an actual test center for a full-length computer-based test.

The online plus advantage includes an additional 3 hours of one on one tutoring with an expert instructor, the GRE Quantitative Foundations course, and the GRE Advanced Quant course. You will also get access to a customized study plan, practice exams, and GRE prep books.

One potential downside to Kaplan GRE test prep is that their one on one tutoring is overpriced. If this is something you are looking for to help with grad school admissions exams, you might want to look elsewhere.

Another possible downside is that they don’t offer a shorter, cheaper access time for the online self-guided course. The 6-month option is the only choice.

We wanted to find out whether students who took the Kaplan GRE prep course saw a real improvement in their GRE test scores.

Accordingly, we had students take a GRE prep test before and after taking the Kaplan GRE prep course. We obtained each student’s Quantitative Reasoning and Verbal Reasoning results from each test and compared them to determine a percentage improvement.

Although students saw their GRE test scores increase after completing the Kaplan GRE prep course, their percentage improvement in test scores was small. For example, one student achieved only a 16.5% improvement in score, while another saw only a 6.3% improvement.

There is a rumor that the Kaplan prep test is actually harder than the official GRE.

It may sound that it is a good thing, but if you had a lower score practicing, it could negatively affect your confidence in the real exam. So, we decided to do an experiment.

Four of our students studied only with the Kaplan GRE prep course and, as a final preparation, took the Kaplan prep test. After a few days, they took the real GRE, so we could see what was exactly going on.

Here is the comparison of their results:

Although one of our test subjects had a significantly lower score on the Kaplan verbal test than on the GRE, we can’t say it is harder in general.

On the contrary, some students had better scores on the prep test than on the real one.

The conclusion is that the Kaplan prep practice test just isn’t that accurate when compared to other GRE prep courses on the market.

We found many positive customer reviews that spoke very highly of the practice tests, test review methods, and test prep strategy. Many students seemed to think that they achieved their best GRE score because of Kaplan test prep.

I had a great experience with Kaplan. All the instructors were excellent, you can tell they all really want you to succeed and do well. 10/10 recommend, I couldn’t have done it without them. [1].

After our review of the Kaplan GRE Prep Class, we think that it is a good option compared to some of the more expensive competition. We like their approach to catering to all the practice questions for each student. One thing we also liked is the review options.

However, we think there is a cheaper and better alternative out there. We still trust Magoosh as the best GRE prep course, and here you can read our detailed Magoosh GRE course review.

They offer lower prices and more free practice questions to help students who might not afford a full one on one session. Magoosh offers the best options for people preparing for the GRE.