590 to 710. GMAT debrief from an average Joe

Hello everyone!

I wanted to share my GMAT story in hopes that it might encourage others who are on a similar path. I, like many others, have religiously depended on this forum for my GMAT prep. I'm extremely grateful for the community I've found here.

My GMAT preparation started about a year ago (July 2015). Based on my target schools, I set a goal to get a 710. I wrote “710” on a sticky note and put it I put on my work desk to remind me what the end goal was. After doing a little research, I purchased used copies of the following from my local Half-Price Books store:

- Manhattan GMAT prep books: All volumes. I didn't end up getting through the sentence correction one.
- OG 13

Some context on my situation: My first child was born in August of 2015. This is NOT the best time to start prepping and convince your spouse that you need to spend a serious amount of time after work every day with your head in a prep book. The first few months of my prep were very slow, as I was balancing family responsibilities. Nevertheless, I couldn't have gone through this without my wife. It's very important to not feel like your pursuit of an MBA is an unwelcome burden on your loved ones. More on that later.

So I felt like this was plenty of material to start with. I'm a fairly disciplined person, so I just started powering through the workbooks and doing practice tests every other week. I worked through the Manahattan Prep tests, as I had been told they were great practice and second only to "GMAT Prep" practice tests. Here are my practice test scores.

9/22/15-MGMAT- 620
9/27/15-MGMAT- 630

9/27-12/26 gap in practice tests- I work in the Insurance industry, and in my position, 4th quarters are mass chaos. I still studied during this time, but didn't squeeze in a single practice test for about 3 months. Big mistake.

12/26/15- GMAT Prep 650
1/5/16-MGMAT- 650
1/23/16-MGMAT- 640
2/9/16-MGMAT- 630
2/19/16-GMAT Prep- 680

Actual Test day- 2/20/16.

I know there are different recommendations for how to best prepare for test day. My test was on Saturday, and I decided to take that Friday off, and have it be an exact replica of my test day. So when I received the 680 on the day prior to the test, I was really excited as this was the highest of any of my practice scores. My confidence was high.

Actual Test day experience on 2/20/16- A NIGHTMARE. I arrived early and was ready to knock this thing out. I rocked the essay, thanks to the outline help provided chineseburned.

I found myself getting frustrated on IR, but I kept telling myself, "don't worry about it, it doesn't matter all that much, it's just a warm up!"

I'm at the end of the test, and the score pops up: 590.

My heart drops. This is worse than any practice test by 30 points. I call my wife in shock and tell her the news. Why did I spend the last 5 months studying? Filled with disappointment, I decided to take a week off before coming up with a game plan.

I knew the score wasn’t an accurate representation of my abilities. I decided to purchase the Magoosh Premium Subscription, which was $100 at the time, and comes with a 50 point score guarantee.

Deciding to buy this prep program was one of the best decision I made. I was burned out of studying books, and needed to switch up the pace. I also knew that if I could just get through the course (which is very robust), I’d have an extremely good chance of breaking 700. mikemcgarry

For 4 months I recommitted myself to the goal. I stopped watching television at night, and used my lunch breaks to study. I created a more organized error log, and wrote in big letters at the top, “DON’T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE TWICE”. I ran through questions in OG13 over and over again. OG13 is often described as the “Bible” of GMAT prep, and I couldn’t agree more. Getting used to the questions types and common traps is extremely important.

3 weeks before the test, I ran out of good prep CAT’s. I knew there were some more difficult ones out there (GMATClub’s), but I didn’t want to take a really hard CAT and hurt my confidence if I scored low. So I purchased the Test Pack 1 from GMAC. GREAT DECISION. Sure, $50 is hard to fork over when there are so many free CAT’s out there. But getting two more official CAT’s in before the test proved to be extremely important.

The 2 weeks leading up to the test (6/4/16), I started taking two CAT’s a week.

5/21/16- Test Pack 1- Test 3- GMAT Prep- 720 (HUGE CONFIDENCE BUILDER)
5/23/16- Test 2 (retake)- GMAT Prep- 710
5/28/16- Test 3(retake)- GMAT Prep- 710
5/23/16- Test Pack 1- Test 4- GMAT Prep- 680 (shook my confidence a bit)

Day before the test- I spent MAYBE a cumulative of 30 minutes studying. I really trusted my own abilities and the experts recommendations out there who say to take it extremely easy the day before the test. I spent time with my family, and relaxed.

Day of test- Terrible night of sleep before despite going to bed early and working out that day. Decided to take the test at 8:00. There was a group of about 12 of us who showed up at 7:20. I ended up being the first to get signed in and started.

AWA- felt like I rocked it.

IR- 6 questions in, I felt like I got them all right. I told myself to calm down and not stress about the last 6. This is just a warmup, and you’ve likely already gotten a good enough score for it not to be seen as a red flag on your application.

Quant- I felt like it went really well

Verbal- brain was fried 25 questions in. I kept thinking about my family and all those supporting me as an attempt to bolster up some energy to finish strong. In the moment, I felt like every question had an unclear answer, and I was split 60/40 between two answers.

Finally done. I quickly clicked through the demographics question. Score pops up:

710 (Q47 V41)!!!!!!!! 92nd percentile. IR: 6 (edit: AWA 5.5)

Can’t believe it. I quickly raised my hand to be dismissed, and grab the printout for proof of what my eyes just saw. Called my wife, thanked her for her support over the last 9 months, and rolled down the highway with windows down and music blaring. My voice was hoarse from yelling the entire ride home.

Part of me isn’t satisfied. I know with a few more months of study and diligent preparation, I could get 20-30 higher. The other part of me knows my wife would murder me if I told her that.

710 is good enough for all of my target schools. It’s time to put this season of life to rest and move on to other things.
Thank you again to everyone who contributes to this community. I’m sorry I wasn’t an active contributor, but hope my story encourages you to not give up hope. Good things come with sacrifice.