Viewing this website should help you to become an informed consumer of standardized testing preparation and under-/post-graduate admissions consulting in Mexico City. Note that should you need to take a TOEFL iBT or IELTS preparation course, it is unlikely that your current level of English will be sufficient to do well in these native-speaker examinations.
ORIENTATION: You should begin familiarizing yourself with the material on the official websites (start with the FAQs): GMAT mba.com; GRE ets.org/gre; SAT collegeboard.org. There is no need to search for additional material until you have completely familiarized yourself with this content. You should purchase their respective preparation material. Material that models the examinations well is available for the GMAT and the GRE; taking these tests is an excellent method for you to decide if you are likely to make reasonable progress in a group course.Those with quantitative degrees have the advantage; those with quantitative degrees from ITAM even more so.
RESEARCH: Regardless of your intended degree, you should endeavor to make yourself as fully aware as possible of your options. Visit the websites of those schools that interest you most. Consult, for example, the U.S.News Reports and the Financial Times MBA Rankings to begin to orientate yourself with respect to your suitability for any one school. Poets & Quants and the Financial Times MBA Gym are also wonderful tools with which to begin educating oneself about an MBA; Beat the GMAT, a social network, is also worth browsing through. Both Harvard Business School's website, in particular look at its Working Knowledge newsletter, and Knowledge@Wharton have material well worth reviewing.
FINANCING: Particularly in the case of those wanting an MBA, one must realize that taking out a loan will be a more likely outcome than receiving a scholarship. For other degrees scholarships will still be more often awarded for merit rather than need. An initial listing of Mexican providers is as follows: Banco de México (FIDERH); Fundación Mexicana para la Educación, la Tecnología y la Ciencia (FUNED); Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Technología (CONACYT); the British Council's Chevening scholarship; and the Fulbright - García Robles scholarship. Further financing options are listed in URWEST's An Introduction to the Admissions Process document. Finally, IIE/EducationUSA has a wealth of advice and experience to give on this matter.
REMEDIAL MATERIAL: If you feel the need to refresh basic mathematical concepts, then Purplemath and the Kahn Academy should be consulted. A careful reading of URWEST's […] Underlying Mathematical Skills […] document should also help you appreciate the level of quantitative ability needed to do well in these examinations. ManhattanGMAT is particularly generous in providing free and, more importantly, good material; its online forums are well moderated and more-often-than-not provide an answer to your questions.
OTHER COURSE PROVIDERS: Competency in instruction and mastery of the subject matter varies markedly among the local Mexican providers; of those institutions particularly prominent on Google searches the Las Velez are to be preferred. However, the local representatives of The Princeton Review and Veritas, although more expensive options and offering less hours, generally ensure well-trained teachers guiding students, in class and on the Internet, through professionally prepared material. Furthermore, ManhattanGMAT, ManhattanGRE, Kaplan GMAT, Kaplan GRE, 800score, and Knewton, for particularly interactive online study, are providers of excellent material. GMAT Hacks has a lot of sensible advice. Should you desire a listing of local providers one may be obtained by visiting IIE/EducationUSA in person.
OTHER ADMISSIONS CONSULTANTS: As with course providers competency varies among the local providers in Mexico, though 2bschool , usmba, and The MBA Image are professional and competent. Mexicans, believing that a face-to-face meeting is necessary are reluctant to use consultants from overseas; this is a mistake as consultants from the likes of Clear Admit, mbaMission, and The Admissions Advisory Group are hard to find locally. However, a list of local vetted consultants is available from visiting IIE/EducationUSA in person.
A REALISTIC TIMELINE FOR SUCCESS:
It is not unusual to have to take a standardized examination more than once. Whether it is the first or the fourth time you should look for a course that will teach you to self-study effectively when you are on your own; indeed, most of your preparation should be done without the assistance of a teacher. You should be able, for instance, to identify and compensate for your weaknesses in any subject matter. The timeline gives an indiction of how to use good material more effectively; you must resist the temptation to use everything at once. As you better understand your relationship with the test, you will find that you take less time, in general, to cover similar quantities of material. Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.