Got destroyed today - 670 Q48 V35 - last 20 days of my prep

Hey Akhilesh
All the best man
brother i pray that you come out with flying colors...
waiting for your score eagerly

bhai mera score tujhse achha nahin hai
but ek cheej yaad rakhna ki you have atleast 1.5 min for each question
so please read the question
and dont fall pray for over confidence buddy
god bless you

good luck for you! You will do this tomorrow! Waiting for the score

Good luck....
Will pray for you bro....

Aki Bro,

All the best and i'm sure you will hit 750.
Just relax and keep control during the exam. God is with you.!!

Cheers,
Aj.
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Hey Akhilesh,

I'm sorry to hear that you didn't get your target score. Sure its not 700+ but 670 isn't a bad score nonetheless.

Good luck with your apps. Considering a GMAT Retake?

I am extremely sorry to hear that bro - but glad to see your positive intent. Wish you good luck in your future endeavor. Since your goal is MS, I think this GMAT score will give you more than just an edge - as hardly anybody gives GMAT for MS (non-MBA) programs.

I know that this might NOT be the right time to comment on some of my following queries, BUT if you feel like doing so and helping us, please do let us know what went wrong?
* Could it be that your extensive preparation gave you lot of repeats in the last few tests, giving a bit of inflated mock scores?
* Could it be that NOT giving any test in last 3 days lead to mental block during the test?
* Could it be too much preparation towards the end?
* Could it be the anxiety, stress and nervousness on the test day?
* Was the GMAT just too hard compared to other tests your gave?
* Verbal seemed to have hit you more than Quant. What is your take on the level of questions in GMAT as compared to that of the ones that appear in GMATPrep/Kaplan/MGMAT? The reason I ask is because the GMAT question pool keeps changing every month, and I am curious if you identified any discrepancies in the kind of questions you practiced (FROM OLD PAPERS and OGs) and what you saw in the GMAT.
* If there were few things that you could have done differently in last 2-3 weeks, what would that be?

Sorry for a lot questions, but I am curious as to what happened, as I heartily believed that you will get pass 750.

I never expected a 750+ that was my target so at least I could reach a 720-730. Its difficult man, for a non-engineer like me. In Quant I moved from a Q22 to Q48-50 and I have never done topics such as inequality, etc in my life. Verbal score shocks me because I thought I was going well. But never mind. Let me know if you need any more help

I don't know. According to the website, my score is above the median/average gmat score. My undergrad scores are very high. But I cannot trust the website 100% because the only one who knows the weightage of GMAT scores and the other things is the adcom. I don't want to be in the illusion that the score is enough and realize later that I have been dinged.

So, I will take a break for a week or two because I am heavily burned out; then I will decide whether I should retake or live with it. I do not think that the content was an issue with me but stress was. Anyway I have exhausted all the material, so I don't know where to even start. Only time will tell.

Aki Bro,

I got up this morning and was very positve about your result. I understand 670 is not a true reflection of your effort and you should consider a retake. I'm sorry about to hear your score and just want to advice that dont get disheartened.

Take rest and Be positive.

Cheers,
Aj.
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your story has scared me...i have 10 days to go for my GMAT..scored just 650(48,32) in gmatprep after scoring 700(49,35) in MGMAT CAT...i am not at all confident about my verbal and have been doing pretty badly in all the 3 sections of verbal...you said that you found verbal pretty easy except for CR questions,which were a bit convoluted...my take is there might have been some twist that you couldn't identify while answering the Q's...
is there something u feel you missed out during your help..i want to score atleast 700 and to do so would have to scale up really fast in verbal...what do u think i should study in these 10 days...just a gut feeling that i can still improve in verbal in these 10 days....and Sorry to bother u when u nt in high spirits..

Don't worry I am fine

But I doubt I might be the best person to advice you right now, because I don't even trust my own prep.

Nevertheless, I would have to give you a cold hard fact that it will be very difficult for you to get to that 700 if you are doing so poorly in gmatprep. Questions are very much similar, though quant in the test was more difficult.

If you have the liberty of time - postpone it and work on your verbal.
If you don't - dive into the the gmatprep documents and see the solution to every single question on MGMAT forum.

Don't risk stressing yourself too much before the test, perhaps that led to my fall. All the best

Here is my $0.02:

1) 670 is 85th percentile -- something to be very proud of. The GMAT is a self-selective group -- top 15% is not a joke or something to be ashamed about. It's an excellent score!

2) 670 is competitive for most schools, especially for a masters program. BUT if you are applying for a PhD program in management, organizational behavior, finance etc at a top school -- then your GMAT score might be slightly on the lower side but you can make up for it with other things. You need to show good research abilities and hopefully you have some journal articles or other publications to help support your application -- but this is only for the highly competitive PhD programs.

3) A word of caution if you are applying to the highly competitive Masters in Financial Engineering programs at places like Hass, Columbia, Princeton, CMU etc -- take their *stats* with a grain of salt. These programs are as competitive, if not more, than a lot of top MBA programs.

Hmm.

Well I ain't applying to phd or ms in finance programs. I am applying to duke mms and lbs mim and what you said is exactly my worry.

According to their websites, my score is above their Median GMAT score. But I don't know how much can I trust them, since a very credible admission consultant told me
that if the websites can be trusted so much she wouldn't have been consulting for the past 20 Years! So I am little concerned.

Posted from GMAT ToolKit

I don't know much about Duke's MMS program -- But I have lived in NC all my life and can tell you that Fuqua is a very good school and they are very friendly as well (high praise coming from someone who went to its rival school). You can contact duke and they are generally helpful with stuff. You can even contact some of their alumni and have them take a crack at your application or point you in the right direction.

Not sure if this helps -- but just based on your GMAT score -- you will be competitive with Duke's MBA program. Of course assuming comparable work experience and GPA and stuff. So I would think that your score should be *very* competitive for their MMS program.

Dude,
even if I did not directly "interact" with you on the forum I was following your story/suggestions...
In this case, I would like to quote Randy Pausch (very inspirational professor/figure for me)...hope it might help you as well,

Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted...

On the other hand, If 670 is on the avg score of yr target school..you can start working on your application... if you feel you can do more...and you have the time to do it... why not try it?,..what do you have to lose? 30 days and few $...there are several stories on the forum about people retaking it....

Btw ....THANK YOU for all your suggestions..I believe you have the full support of this forum (and mine) for sure..

All the Best,
FT


https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Randy_Pausch

Hey, Akhil, not to throw cold water, but correct me if I'm wrong, but I got a distinct impression that MMS programs that allow uni-grads with no experience to interact with MBA students are highly competitive no? Especially in the current environment?

The read I got from Duke's info session was that MMS applicants are held to a higher academic and gmat standard in order to compensate for their lack of work experience.

Akhil, why not get a few years work experience under your belt first?

Well, they are competitive, no doubt. But according to the admission ambassador, my score is good enough.

Plus, according to the website, my score is well above the median/average GMAT score of the class.

The only weak point in my application is the GMAT score, which is unfortunately low, but otherwise my application seems strong as I have a very high undergrad score - top 1% of class. Also, I am not an engineer or anywhere close to being one, so I do not fall into the cluttered category. Perhaps that could give me some advantage.

Nevertheless, I have already written to the adcom of the school. The people out there have been very helpful till now; I expect a reply from them regarding my GMAT score. I will, perhaps, retake.

But the biggest issue here is that I don't know what is the issue. I was going smooth. I do remember seeing some extremely simple questions in the middle all of a sudden, but those must have been experimental.

I realize I screwed up Quant because now I seem to remember some questions that I marked incorrect. But Verbal is still very doubtful. If I knew where I had gone wrong, I could have worked harder and retaken. Lets see.

Though I am wondering that I saw some score 680 with Q48 V35 and a 690 with Q48 V35. Though they were a year back.

Thank you so much for the kind words.

I have no issues in retaking the exam, but I am not sure where I went wrong. I don't see any noticeable weak area that I could work on. I would not want to retake to end up with more or less the same score again.