660 (48 Q and 33 V)
After years of contemplation, one cancellation and one re-schedule, I finally gave my GMAT on July 20. I was aiming for 700 + but received only 660. My biggest hurdle was not getting enough time to practice Verbal. I hardly practiced 30 verbal questions.
To give you a background, I am an Indian female with a Bachelors of Engineering degree and 8 years of IT experience . I am a proud mother of a 20 month old kid. I have excellent acads and always finished in the top 3 % of the class. Was recruited to my first company straight from campus.I have been living and working in the US for the past 6 years .
Giving GMAT after marriage and a kid is not simple.I had immense support from my loving hubby which helped a lot. So a piece of advise for any females out there thinking of giving GMAT or going to a b-school - get done with this before starting a family.
I have not been quite active in these forums. However, I liked reading all the debriefs which motivated me a lot. Also visited for few GMATPRep solutions. I think I owe this forum and need to give
back to this community by giving a gist of my study prep -
Sentence Correction - Manhattan SC, GMAT PREP Now free videos,
e-gmat videos . I went over all the rules atleast twice.
Quant - Manhattan guides
I briefly followed the 60-day study plan from beatthegmat but due to limited time had to devise my own plan.
I didn't do much prep for CR and RC as I mentioned I had limited time. I watched all the free tutorials on GMATPrepNow and
e-gmat.
Went through all the free 90 question set from the GMAT prep software. Took GMAT prep exams thrice but was never able to review them due to my tight schedule (another mistake)
For IR, I went through the solutions of all the GMAT Prep questions and videos from
e-gmat and gmatprepnow.
Timing strategy - I followed gmatprepnow and I think it helped me a lot.
I studied for 2-2.5 hours daily and 5 hours weekends. Also took 1 day off from work on teh last day. I studied till last day (contrary to many advises I see here) and in the morning (after 8 hours of sound sleep) had a light breakfast, did few quant and verbal questions ( I read this in some debriefs that this helps, not sure how much though) and set off for the test center. My exam for scheduled for 12 PM.
Took both breaks. Started with a rough AWA section (gradings still pending), moderate IR and quant was good. Verbal was always a weak area for me.
I would suggest to practice, practice and practice. I didn't have much time for verbal practice which affected my score.
I have done some volunteering activities, participated in local dance, volunteered in cultural and tech fests in college, recipient of scholarships in my 2nd and 3rd year in college, received an award in 2012 from my previous company and received few appreciation certificates from clients. I am scheduled to run half marathon this fall (a long time dream)
I am planning to apply for part-time programs like Kelley, Fisher. What do you guys think about my prospects in getting into these programs ? Do I stand a chance in these programs or do you think I need to re-take GMAT ?
Currently preparing for TOEFL.
Thank you for help !