Kaplan or BBP?

Potts

I am going on to study CIMA (if i pass my AAT). Does any one have prefences to either BBP or Kaplan to study with?

messedup89

i currently study with kaplan for aat and will move onto them for ACCA. I really like kaplan, its a good college. Very friendly, helpful staff as are the materials you recieve. I'd suggest kaplan. Although i have heard bbp are good aswell

anniem

I'm not sure about either of the training colleges.

I do know that my training provider has switched from BPP books to Kaplan books.

Having used both I would say that there were always lots of mistakes in the BPP books which makes it VERY CONFUSING when you're trying to learn something. Ambiguity, questions and answers that don't make sense, that sort of thing. Doesn't sound like much of a problem, but it is very annoying if you are studying at home on your own!

Anna

nade1989

I would go for Kaplan they get better results than BBP or wt eva its called look on both their websites and compare.

jpooley1988

I have studied at both BPP and Kaplan, I didn't leave BPP because they were bad, I just moved to Glasgow and my new firm used Kaplan. I can honestly say that there isnt that much difference between the two, they all have the same teaching experience, just the materials are slightly different.
I do think that I have got more help and I feel a lot more comfortable with Kaplan though!

taskey

i am home study for AAT with BPP and i find them fantastic. they are really helpful and if you have any queries, although you do not have a dedicated tutor, you can ring and ask to speak to a tutor who will talk you through things.

Not sure what they are like for CIMA, any replies to your question will help me as i am looking to do that next.


Tracy

Bookworm55

They both seem to say that they're the best and have statistics to back it up...

I'm going to be doing CIMA with BPP in Cambridge in the new year. I decided to take a few months off studying as, apart from six months in 2004, I hadn't been out of at least part-time education since 1988!

I went to their place in Cambridge the other week, seems good. I know my uni lecturers had little or no preference between Kaplan or BPP for professional courses. Also, one of the recruitment agencies I'm using (Pure Resourcing Solutions) said lots of people they place are doing their CIMA there and are getting on well.

I've seen the written materials you get and they're pretty impressive. Having said that, I didn't look with enough scrutiny to spot the mistakes AnnieM is suggesting.

Dorset Student

I agree with AnnieM. BPP have loads of mistakes in their AAT books which do make it very confusing. Also, because of the numerous mistakes, even when it looked like I had a question right, I would doubt myself, as I knew the book could be wrong. When I queried all the mistakes with BPP, the anser I got was "that you can't expect the books to be 100% correct" !!!

I stopped using AAT after Intermediate, and would never go back to them for this, and other reasons. I would also never recommend them. Having said that, I can appreciate that the probelms I had my only be at the office that I was studying with, other BPP centres may be fine - although it would still be the same books with all those mistakes !

Tracy

NeilH

Hi

Some of it can be down to personal preference (which I know isn't much help if your currently deciding which to use). Also, since every centre of Kaplan and BPP have their own set of tutors you could find you prefer one BPP centre to another!

Anyway, I did the majority of my CIMA study with BPP Bristol, a little with Kaplan Bristol and a little with Reed Business School and out of the three BPP came out on top. True some their texts can have "holes" but on the taught courses you mainly use their classroom notes (which alone make the courses worthwhile!) and the text books are almost superfluous. I'm not sure what Kaplan's class notes are like now, but they never used to be as good as BPP's.

For me BPP just ran courses better in terms of presentation, pace etc. I also found their facilities were better.

Neil

Yestin

If you do home study with BPP for cima do you get the classroom notes?

reddwarf

On the subject of text books, I had a discussion with a tutor last night and she agreed with me that BPP have significant amount of mistakes. Kaplan go in to too much depth (can be useful but off putting when you have a tight schedule) and Osborne were the out and out leader!

messedup89

reddwarf wrote: »

On the subject of text books, I had a discussion with a tutor last night and she agreed with me that BPP have significant amount of mistakes. Kaplan go in to too much depth (can be useful but off putting when you have a tight schedule) and Osborne were the out and out leader!

i prefer the kaplan books :thumbup:

reddwarf

Less is more for me!!! It's a personal thing I think. I did find Kaplan useful when I wanted more explanation of some things...