Long story of a 760 in 1 attempt; If I can, you can too

Hey everyone,

I’ve been a member of this board for a few months and have thoroughly enjoyed – and benefited from – spending some time here during my GMAT preparations (mainly as a lurker). Some of my favorite items on the site have been the debriefs from people’s GMAT experiences, so I felt that it was only proper for me to return the favor and write one myself. I’ll go ahead and apologize for the lengthy post and extreme rambling, but my hope is that some of the information from my story will help a future test taker out there.

So, a brief background about me: I’m a native US citizen living and working in the SE United States. I come from a somewhat unique professional background for a top business school (a plus, I believe and hope), but am in a very competitive demographic group. My goal is a highest tier school (HBS, GSB, Tuck, etc.), so I knew I needed my GMAT score to be a net-neutral for my candidacy at the absolute worst.

This brings me to my first takeaway – Know your goal and fully own it. This took a little bit of soul searching for me. . . it took me some time to finalize my true goal, and even longer to come to terms with the realities of it. Spend some time really thinking what your goal is, and why. Understand how your GMAT result will play into that goal. Understand too what commitment your specific goal will take, and decide if you’re willing to make that commitment. And ultimately, be honest with yourself. . . For example, you can’t say that your goal is a 780 or something like that if you think you’re going to spend 5 hours a week on your own for preparation and just wing it (unless you’re several orders of magnitude more intelligent than I am!).

I initially set a goal of 730. . . it was an arbitrary number so to speak, but I picked it because it was the score just above the HBS admitted avg. score for the 2013 intake (always want to be above the average, right?). After a month or so of spinning my wheels on prep (really only studying when convenient, doing all the same social activities as before, etc.), a confidant and mentor to my application process gave me advice that changed my whole approach: “Many people say they want to go to a truly elite business school, but in reality many less want to do what is necessary to gain admittance. Which of these are you?” This hit home with me, and I spent several days asking myself what I really wanted to do and why. For the purpose of brevity, suffice it to say that I have resolved that a highest-echelon MBA program is my true goal. From the day I decided this, my approach changed – beginning with my GMAT standard.

I researched, and my demographic group averages well above the avg. score at HBS & GSB, so I decided on a 760 for my goal score (once again, want to be above the average, right?), and told myself I would accept nothing less.

Takeaway 2 – Once you’ve bought in to your goal, be realistic about the best way to get there.

I knew I would need a serious and efficient preparation regimen. So, I took the advice of the same confidant and hired a personal tutor for the GMAT. Tutors are expensive, but once again look at your goal. If you’re truly committed to a top tier school, and have determined that you need a top tier GMAT score to achieve this goal, then the ROI on a tutor is a no brainer. My tutoring experience was great and the personalized attention to my needs was invaluable. (I had a great tutor through TPR that I would recommend to anyone. PM me if you’re interested in his contact). Could I have gotten the same score without the tutor? Maybe – but it would have taken probably 2-3 months more of studying. My time (like each of yours) is valuable; he was worth every penny to me.

My next takeaway: The GMAT is a process. You have to understand the rules of the process and embrace them. I now believe there are 4 key parts to a successful GMAT process:

1) Make a plan. You have to go about the GMAT in an organized way. Look at your application dates for target schools. Understand when you need to take the GMAT to make those dates (if possible, it’s nice to leave time for a retake – I understand that might not be possible for R1 applicants this year). From there, back into a study regiment that makes sense for you. Be firm, but realistic. For example, if you think you can manage 20 hours of studying a week, back that number to 15 but then make yourself hit that mark, no matter what. Challenge yourself, but don’t burn out – because it’s a long road.

2) Crawl before you walk. We all love instant gratification. It feels great to take a CAT to see where you stand right now. Resist this urge! Learn the proper techniques for answering correctly, develop your preferred approach for each type question, and perfect this portion of the process before doing CATs (besides maybe first dry run). It’s so easy to build bad habits under the time-crunch of the clock if you haven’t built your discipline, and those habits are hard to break. I know from experience! (Disclosure – I think CATs are great and important; I took 9 in total. . . just wait till you have the basics down before making them a significant part of your plan.)

3) Study, Study, Study! – There’s no replacement for this time. Go back to your goal. . . do you really want it? Your life is probably busy as hell – but if this is what you truly want, make time! I started getting up at 5:00 AM to study an hour before work. I also basically became a hermit for 2 months so that I could study as much as possible after work. I would average from 10-15 hours M-F and then another 10 or so on the weekends. It sucks, but do what it takes to meet your goal (this is when it’s key to know in your heart that this is what you want). I’d guess I had about 120-140 hours of hard prep before test day.

4) Don’t give up – there are highs and lows during prep. I plateaued off significantly for a stretch, and you might too. Even when you don’t see the results of your studying on practice problems or CAT scores, know that with each hour of prep you are becoming more qualified to excel on the test. Also, don’t discount the effect of mental fatigue and your natural tendency to slack on practice CATs when compared to the real test. Don’t get discouraged if you aren’t scoring where you want. I always hear people say that you don’t do better on the real test than practices (and I wouldn’t just bank on that), but at the same time I know many people – the majority of GMAT takers I know personally – including myself, who scored their personal best on the real thing.

My Prep:
In addition to my tutoring time (strategy first, then working through my “problem” areas together), I used the OG, TPR Quant and Verbal books, eGMAT webinars, and this website.

In the OG, I focused on the most difficult areas for me. I did all the DS problems and then every one that I missed again. I did 90% of the SC and RC problems (including all the hardest ones) and studied my misses. I did only the hard CR problems because I always did really well on them and I didn’t do a single MC quant problem.

In the TPR books, I read them word for word, then made notecards of anything I felt was pertinent. I ended up with ~300 cards and read through them in bed 4 nights a week. This helped me to know many rules backwards and forwards. This was especially key for idioms and subjunctive pairs.

I would highly recommend the SC “Meaning” webinar from eGMAT in particular. After doing this webinar, I consistently averaged only 1 SC miss on practice tests, and I think I got them all correct on the real test.

Last but certainly not least, I did many practice problems on this website. These are great, particularly with the timer so that you can track your time and with the practical explanations. If you’re on this site, use this resource! You can easily do 20 or 30 of these a day in addition to prep – likely even at work.

My Studying Tips/Takeaways:
When I started, my 2 biggest weaknesses were SC and DS. By the end, they were my greatest strengths. I studied them the most and it paid off – I would do the same with your biggest weaknesses. If you want a top score, you can’t bomb any of the questions on a categorical basis.

My breakthroughs for each of these were:
In DS Yes/No problems – when you are analyzing each statement and can get a no (or a yes) – you must actively try to get the opposite to determine validity. Don’t rely on what you “think,” plug it in. Remember zero, one, negatives, “extremes” and fractions – they’re the weird ones that a problem usually hinges on.
In SC – know the 7 main sentence problems. When you read the stem, for A to be wrong you must know what is wrong with it and be able to identify it. If you can’t clearly identify the issue, it likely isn’t wrong. From there, use the answers to help distinguish differences to hopefully identify the problem and correct answer (hint – look for the same 7 issues in the answers to eliminate).

These two things are so elementary, but they probably alone accounted for 50 points on my score.

My Practice Test Scores:
4/9 – 570
4/17 – 590
4/27 – 650
5/14 – 720
5/31 – 670
6/2 – 670
6/11 – 650
6/14 – 690
6/19 – 660

Real Test – 760 (48 Q, 47 V), 7 IR, 6 AWA.

All of these were personal bests. Keys/Takeaways from my test day: I went in very confident; even though I wasn’t scoring well overall, I had scored a Q47 (720 CAT) and a V46 (last practice 2 days before) – I knew if I put together those type performances I could do well.

I’m a big believer in the power of confidence. You can only achieve things as great as what your mind will allow you to believe. Go to sleep before the test dreaming about the 770, 780 or 800 that is possible, no matter where you’ve been practicing. Wake up on test day morning and think about how you’re going to kill the exam. Imagine how a student at your dream school would handle the test and walk into the test center just like that person would – calm, alert, and highly confident.

Final thoughts . . . I’m very pleased with the 760. It was my goal score, but I knew it was a lofty one. I probably wouldn’t have retaken with a 740 or 750. When I finished the test, I had no idea what I’d made, so what a relief when I got the result. Before I saw the score, however, I was at peace knowing that I’d given it my all. Similarly, I slept like a rock the night before the test. I had no anxiety, because I knew I’d prepared and worked harder for this test than any other academic pursuit of my life. I’d done everything I could, so my score would just be what it was. I say this again to remind you – know your goal, and fully own it: if you do the prep, the test score will come. It might take a few attempts, but if you want it hard enough you can do it – we’re all smart enough here to get a 760 or above. But, if I can do it in one attempt, you can too. Believe in yourself and go do it.

Cheers – and I look forward to some good dialogue as we all go through the application process the next few months. All the best.

-Webster