Didn't know where to post this one.

First question: How do you change your forum status? Also, where can I find what these statuses mean?

Second question: Are questions posted by 'forum guests' ever get answered by your instructors?

Thank you.

Hi No Name,

A user's forum status is determined by his/her account with Manhattan GMAT. If a student has taken a course with us, that student has a different status than somebody who has not yet made any purchase with us. Questions by forum guests do get answered, but students get priority.

Best Wishes,
Caitlin Clay
Student Services Associate
Manhattan GMAT

Thanks. I don't know if it's because of summer vacations, but I've posted several posts recently, and none of them was answered by your instructor...

Hi,

I just did a quick search and it looks like a few of our instructors have replied to your posts. We do have to cater to everyone who posts on our forums, so unfortunately we cannot answer all questions by every member right away. I can let the instructors know to look out for some of your posts, but in order to get posts answered sooner, it is important to follow the forum rules, laid out in the "sticky" posts at the top of each forum thread.

Best Wishes,
Caitlin Clay
Student Services Associate
Manhattan GMAT

Caitlin, thanks for your reply. I have to say, though, that to post full passages and questions is very time consuming and not realistic as far as I am concerned.

BTW, I've waited for something like a month and virtually none of my posts (except for maybe one or two of them) were answered by your staff (although I've repeatedly asked to take a look at them)...

Hey Nonameee,

When posting, make sure to follow the below guidelines:

1) Use the first five to eight words of the problem as your Subject heading. Also, post the entire text of the question and answer choices. Do not use abbreviations.

2) Cite the source (author or company name) and question number (if applicable) for any problem you post.

3) Be very explicit about your question / problem. Don't just post the text of a question without telling us why you're struggling!

4) Post one problem per thread; if you have more than one problem to review, start a new thread for each problem.

5) Only use image files for complicated diagrams or other things that cannot easily be typed in (eg, geometric shapes or seriously complex fractions). If a question is posted as an image, it will not appear in any search results for that particular problem. Also, it takes significantly longer for us to download and view image files - the more we have to do that, the fewer problems we can get through.

6) Please be polite and respectful. Inflammatory, profane, or otherwise unacceptable posts will be deleted and the poster banned.

If one user posts 5 or more questions in a short period, it may take longer for that user to get a response to all questions because we will try to allocate our time evenly over all posters.

That said, I've sent a note to one of our Instructors to take a look at some of your earlier unanswered posts and I hope we can get your questions answered.

Best,
Matt Mapplebeck
Student Services Associate
Manhattan GMAT

Just want to add a couple of things to this. First, we do strive to answer all posts within a week or two, but at times, we have very high levels of traffic and sometimes there is a wait of a month or more. We do get to every post eventually, but we have a certain number of hours per week that we're allowed to post and that's it.

Next, the posts are answered in order from oldest first - and "oldest" is based on the date of the LAST post in the thread. If you "bump" your own posts (by, say, posting to it again to say "please answer me!"), then you change the date of the last post, and you will wait *longer* to get your question answered, because the instructors look for the oldest posts first.

I have had students in the past who have "bumped" their own posts repeatedly and waited forever for an answer because they kept putting themselves at the end of the line. Please don't "bump" your posts!

Note also that this is a free service - we do want to provide some amount of help that doesn't require someone to pay a lot of money for a class or tutoring, but it isn't a private / paid service that is "always available." Those kinds of services naturally have faster response rates.

_________________
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director of Online Community
ManhattanGMAT