Take 5-Hour Course Review (2026)

Never more than three days between English classes

Take 5-Hour Course runs the same weekly pattern as 5 Hour Class NYC and NY 5-Hour Course, and the pattern is what makes it quick to join. On the current schedule it looks like this:

The longest gap between two English classes runs from Saturday afternoon to Tuesday evening: three days and four hours. If the date you wanted falls through, the next English class is never much further away than that.

Drive Rite and Image Driving School offer more start times per week. The trade-off is price: they list $50 and $45 against Take 5-Hour Course’s $40.

Reserving a seat takes one short form

On take5hourcourse.com you pick the nearest date that suits you and reserve a seat with a form that asks for your name and phone number. The team then confirms the details with you. Keep your learner permit close, because DMV rules require a live-class school to identify you by that permit.

One point is worth stating plainly, because “done soon” is easy to misread: the class is five hours. Speed here means a nearer date, not a shorter class, and no live class in our ranking is shorter.

$40 flat, then the optional extras

The class costs $40, with no extra charge for the certificate. The MV-278 is issued after you complete the class. Road test help is sold separately:

• Standard appointment booking: $25, usually 5 to 9 weeks out.
• Rush appointment booking: $75, usually 1 to 3 weeks out.
• Car for the road test: $115.

The rush option costs $50 more than standard. Whether that is worth paying depends on how soon you will be ready to take the test. Class, standard booking and car come to $180 in total; swap in the rush booking and the total is $230.

The class is the short wait; the road test is the long one

If your goal is to be licensed sooner, the class date is rarely the bottleneck. The MV-278 you receive is valid for one year, and it must be valid on the day you book the road test. The DMV road test page lists what you must bring on the day, including the original certificate.

Learners under 18 face a hard limit: the DMV requires a wait of at least six months after receiving the permit, plus a signed MV-262 recording supervised driving hours. No class date shortens that, so a teen with a fresh permit gains little from rushing the course. An adult with a permit in hand is the learner for whom a nearby class date, and possibly the rush booking, makes a real difference.

For an adult in a hurry, the sequence is simple: reserve the nearest class date, attend the full five hours, receive the MV-278, then book the road test. Each step has its own wait, and only the first is in the school’s hands.

Who it suits, and who should look elsewhere

Take 5-Hour Course suits learners who want the next available evening or weekend date at a flat price, in English or, on select Sundays, in Spanish. It covers all five boroughs, since the class is online.

It is a weaker fit if you need a weekday daytime class. Drive Rite lists Zoom sessions starting at 10 AM, noon, 3 PM and 5 PM on most days, and Image Driving School runs classes on six days of the week. If you prefer a school that spells out mail and pickup options for the paper certificate, Coreway does. Everything side by side is in our comparison table and the full ranking.