520->690, took time, no consulting, but a fellowship holder at UCLA

There are plenty of stories and very useful materials shared by similar achievers here at GMATClub. Probably, I had/have the least resources to tell you what I used to study - I would skip that part. However, I might have something useful to share. My time, writing this post, I consider it well spent, if it made some of you think or got some take-away messages from it.

I'm a commoner, no better talented than any of you. I don't even come from a family where someone nurtured me to succeed in academics. I have made it this far from a small town in India, a town nobody in India might have heard of. Yet, I'm a proud student at UCLA Anderson for the class of 2020. To place a cheery on top - a fellowship holder. Can there be any better? Of course, no matter which school you go, unless society is benefitted by you, even graduating from Harvard makes no sense. In short, it was an amazing journey, but a long way to go before I'm happy and feel content in what I do.

I will leave some key points for you to take a moment and think about them:

• Less is more - Don't kill yourself searching for materials and listing to many people. Each person has a story to tell, good, but a couple of stories should give you enough understanding of whatever you are looking for. I only referred to Kaplan, Official GMAT and online 800 and took mock exams from Official GMAT and VeritasPrep. There are tons of other materials that you might get attracted to because a top scorer had recommended it. Short-list a few really good resources and stick to it.
  
• At the end of day, you know NOTHING expect how to approach a problem - Yes, know your fundamentals, denial tests, exceptions, rule of thumb, and others but above all, you should know how to tackle the problem. If you observe all the problems in GMAT, you will notice that they nicely fit into a handful of techniques to solve them, so identifying what problems belong to what technique is half-the-battle won.
  
• Practice: Never give-up - Unless, you have a really good memory and a good hash map to retrieve information from your brain, practice and practice. I was broken and felt doomed after the first two attempts. It's a matter of career, $100K+ money, time and old-age regrets. It took me 2years to get into a good school. Keep your moral high, and keep coming back until you achieve something.
  
• Think strategically - Everyone likes to ace 700+, everyone likes to get into top 5. I never got either but I'm a fellowship holder at Anderson. It's one of the best full-time and the very best part-time schools in the country. I could have given another shot to get 700+, instead I spent my time enhancing my career and portfolio. I'm a typical software engineer, but I think I sold myself pretty well to get that. No matter what, "fellowship" looks good on paper!
  
• Expect nothing - This is really hard to do, but learn something new/useful not to get a high score or to get into a top school, but just to better yourself. Once I was blind to believe, what English/American wrote set the standard for english writing, but after learning verbal, I could notice errors in emails that people send. If not anything, I improved my detective skills.
  
• Brisk walk a marathon, don't run a sprint - What good is it to work as a consultant graduating from Berkeley but had ambitions to become a successful entrepreneur. It's better to graduate from USC and be a well-know social entrepreneur in LA. Don't burn yourself down trying to be at the best place, rather spend it wisely to become the best you can. If it means, you had to settle down to the second best, be it. At some point, your friends will slow down after being at best, you keep walking and you should be able to over-take them.

Finally, this post was suppose to be my MBA journey, but unless it gives the reader some insights, it doesn't what I write as my journey. So, to end my post, there is a very well thought out reasoning behind it. I myself said above, never to give up, and Berkeley, the only other university I applied besides UCLA, rejected me. So, I could try again. All in all, I will leave it, as an exercise, for you folks to reason it out. It may help you, in situations, you may face down the line. Try and try to get to the top OR spread the energy over a longer period of time. Give it a try. If you like, write to me, and I can share my insights.

Good luck!
Adarsh