Well, this is my opnion on the matter.
I took Kaplan last year and I really didn't enjoy what they had to offer now that I can compare it to Princeton.
With Kaplan we had 3 lectures per subject (or something close to that). Everything was crammed into a 3 hour block from 6 to 9 pm. We were not aloud to run over on time, especially if we had questions because they HAD to close the center at 9:15pm the latest. We ran into that problem often because the majority of us still had questions about the material.
With princeton we have 3 times as many lessons per subject. We just finished physics lesson 4. And from what I can remember is that what took us 9-10 hours todo (kaplan material didn't go as far as we did in lesson 4), we were forced todo in 3 hours at kaplan and with my kaplan instructor it sometimes was less than that and asking him questions was worthless because the only response we ever got was "just because".
I just feel that we are able to discuss things with princeton and have the time to spend extra time on things that we have a harder time grasping.
As for materials, I dont see much of a difference. Kaplan has the whole library but, at least for me, is that many of the items we could checked out with the plastic sheeves were marked up with pen and you could always see the work someone had done before. Additionally you have the instruction videos which weren't that great to make up for the deficiences of the class room instruction. Plus the equipment for watching them seemed run down as some of them lacked forward or reverse buttons if you wanted to rewatch something. And it became very busy and hard to get signed up for a tv/video to watch the video. They allowed people to bring their own TV/VCR combos to the center but it made the study room very distracting and annoying when you hear the voices of each video in your area speaking because the user always has the volume up too high and the whine of the tapes as they are being rewound. It got to me quickly.
The one good thing about the Kaplan library is that you had access to all the AAMC tests and all the kaplan tests. But again unless they gave you a copy of the test to keep, the test was always marked up with ink.
I dont believe that Princeton gives you less or inferior materials. What they do give you is all the practice materials so you can do them wherever you are comfortable. The kaplan books I had just had a few discrete questions at the end of each chapter. With Kaplan you have to go to the center to get access to the passage based questions.
Finally, I think the princeton books are better than the Kaplan books. Kaplan basically throws everything at you and tells you to memorize it. But overall I think the Examkracker books are probably the best. I haven't seen any other prep books to comment on those.
I think the verbal strategy that both companies preach are crap. But if it works for some people then who am I to argue about it. It hasn't felt well with me and I sometimes clash over it with my verbal instructor in class. I adhere more towards the EK strategy as I understand it is success through simplicity, generally speaking.
This is just the experience I had. On the whole Ive been much happier with Princeton than I ever was with Kaplan. The quality of teaching seems to be better with them too, but that is more of a regional thing than a knock against the program.
I can't recommend which is better for you. Im happy with the choice I made and I believe I will see it pay off in April.
