{"id":17749,"date":"2013-04-04T12:31:51","date_gmt":"2013-04-04T19:31:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=17749"},"modified":"2013-04-09T15:25:29","modified_gmt":"2013-04-09T22:25:29","slug":"does-a-bad-score-make-you-dumb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/does-a-bad-score-make-you-dumb\/","title":{"rendered":"Does a Bad Score Make You Dumb?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There it is, staring you in the face. A low score. Not just any low score, but a soul-sucking, dream-crushing, never-gonna-get-out-of-this-dead-end-job score. I can think of more than a few four letter words that are probably rolling across your tongue now. It hurts. Then the fun part comes where you berate yourself over this failure, wondering just how strongly the GMAT compares to your IQ<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m so dumb!\u201d you conclude. You don\u2019t just reassess your immediate plans, but you start evaluating your self worth.<\/p>\n

But wait! Quit your moping and take action! Brace yourselves, guys, I\u2019m about to get a little corny (the best coaches are). The answer to the question is a sold \u201cno\u201d - a bad GMAT does not make you an idiot, just as a good GMAT score<\/a> doesn\u2019t make you a genius. So instead of sitting on your lazy tush and complaining that you were given a bowl of old spaghetti for a brain, why not do something to change the situation? Remember the old Thomas Edison quote: \u201cGenius is one percent inspiration, ninety nine percent perspiration.\u201d Ask any budding entrepreneur or promising young executive after their MBA program and he or she will point you to a closet full of sweat-stained shirts. Success is a lot more than brain power. If you\u2019re not willing to perspire then maybe an MBA is not for you?<\/p>\n

Now that you\u2019re off that couch, it\u2019s time to make some decisions. The first is deciding on retaking the GMAT or not<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trying it again<\/h2>\n

Maybe you had an off day or you weren\u2019t prepared? Maybe nobody told you there\u2019s a pretty big difference between the best GMAT books<\/a> and the worst (read the book reviews<\/a> people!)? Or perhaps you thought grammar<\/a> was best left to the GRE? Well whatever your excuses are, reflect on them, grow from them, and then forget about them. Use this site and our own\u00a0GMAT blog<\/a>\u00a0to build your skills and comfort with the format of the GMAT<\/a>. You\u2019ve got the skills to gather the resources to do well, so I\u2019ll stay off that soapbox.<\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

The less desirous route<\/h2>\n

Giving up on the dream. It\u2019s hard to let go, that\u2019s for sure, but let go you must sometimes! Maybe quant is not your thing. Maybe if you convert your GMAT scores to GRE<\/a>, you\u2019ll see that you might be be able to stretch your math mileage percentage-wise. Sure your fluffed up GRE scores still might not be good enough to get you into Harvard<\/a>, but you\u2019re reasonable. Or heck, maybe you\u2019re downright awful at math, but your brain pumps out eloquent and thorough arguments to the most basic of impasses (that\u2019s how you convinced yourself that business school was for you, right?) and the LSAT<\/a> is up your alley? Or even still, maybe now is not the time for grad school. Maybe never<\/em> is the time for grad school? Really reflect on these thoughts.<\/p>\n

The truth is none of these routes make you any dumber or smarter than another, and you shouldn\u2019t base your self worth on a silly little score flashing on your computer screen. It\u2019s not worth the angst. Instead find your strengths and interests and then build on them. Alright, I'll get off my soapbox now.<\/p>\n

This post was written by Chris Swimmer\u00a0an analyst at Magoosh<\/a> who spends his time helping folks out with their math hang ups while studying for the GRE and the GMAT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There it is, staring you in the face. A low score. Not just any low score, but a soul-sucking, dream-crushing, never-gonna-get-out-of-this-dead-end-job score. I can think of more than a few…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,1,783,940],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gmat","category-uncategorized","category-magoosh-blog","category-gmat-prep-gmat","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17749"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17814,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17749\/revisions\/17814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}