760 with 49q/45p - Is Quant score low for top schools?
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13 Aug 2014, 08:25
Expectations/Prep
I expected a good score, on my first CAT I scored 750, 84th percentile quant and 97th verbal, absolutely no prep. For a couple of weeks I then focused my studies on quant while neglecting verbal, the end result of which was I managed to lower the section I studied for and increase the one I ignored. How's that for bad prep? LOL
Experience
Had a really wild emotional ride during the test... Essay went fine, felt I had strong arguments, then IR was waaay harder than I expected. I've always aced every single IR question I've taken, this time I was stumped on a few... ended up scoring 8 anyway, either I made several lucky guesses, or the other test takers also didn't expect the IR challenge. In the quant section I started getting really worried, wasted a long time on questions I knew were easy, had to guess several times, and was especially frustrated I reached the last three quant questions with like 9 minutes remaining. meaning I had guessed too quickly on a few of the hard ones. To cap it all off, with time to spare, I was stupid enough to actually run out of time and leave the last question blank. At the end of this section I was very very nervous. During verbal I calmed down a little, no major challenges, realized I was doing well, but must confess I was positively surprised with the 760 overall score, I thought I had really tanked on quant.
The overall lesson: don't neglect the psychological aspects, and do lots of timed tests! My bad time management on quant really messed with my emotions at the time.
Questions
Here's my question: I know the overall score is great, but should I be worried about the 79th percentile in Quant? I only plan to apply for very competitive schools (Columbia J-Term #1 choice, also applying H/S/W regular programs), and I've heard people say you need to be 80 quant or above to have a good shot there. I know it's a measly 1pc, but still... My GPA is fine, top 5% of the class in the best Brazilian business school, and my work experience and plans for the future are to work in value equity hedge fund strategies, little to no quant required.