700 and INSEAD after a much-needed reality check!

Hi,
I’ve been reading through people’s posts about difficulty with their GMAT prep on the portal and thought maybe I could share my experience too; in case it helps someone.

Once I decided that an MBA was how I wanted to move forward in my career, the first step in my head was to get the standardized tests out of the way. I went to the GMAC website and decided to look at a mock test (which wasn’t timed) to get a feel of what the exam is like. After taking an hour more than the exam gives, I decided to buy the OG and practice for a couple of weeks and then take the exam.

For some reason it lulled me into a false sense of security about my own abilities, thinking it wasn’t so difficult after all, and I should be able to score well. Soon after, I signed up to take the GMAT, and did badly enough that I was jolted awake – my score was 570 (Q45, V24) and I saw my dreams of a top b-school sinking before my eyes. I always knew that quant wasn’t my strong suit and did not expect a stellar quant score. The bigger shock was that my verbal score was abysmal, for someone who thought I was great at verbal skills and did not need guidance.

That was April 2021. I started looking at ways to prepare for the GMAT, signed up on GMAT Club, and was met with a plethora of prep agencies. The sheer number of services available and the difficulty of the exam began to overwhelm me enough to start reconsidering whether I was really cut out for an MBA. A friend from ISB then recommended Experts’ Global and I signed up for their comprehensive GMAT course and test series. The EG test series is well known for being representative of the actual GMAT exam, and I started with those, scoring terribly at first. I needed a strategy, which EG helped with. It took 3 months of prep and several breakdowns before I finally took the GMAT again.

There were days I wanted to give up, and instances when I felt I wasn’t smart enough to do this. EG were a great help during this time. My favourite part about the Experts’ Global course was a video solution to each question I got wrong which made it much easier to understand, as well as bite-sized videos I could use to revise concepts while on my commute or on a walk or between meetings. Their team would get on a call with me when I was faced with pre-exam jitters, help me strategize, and help me feel confident in my abilities. In August 2021 I managed to score a GMAT 700 (Q47, V39).

By then I had also started the application process, and several admits and rejections later, I am now headed to my dream school – INSEAD (23D).

For future aspirants looking for guidance – please have a plan.

• If you can evaluate your abilities and learning curve by yourself, great. If not, please speak to a coach and formulate an effective plan and stick to it as far as possible. We all fall off the wagon sometimes, it’s important to get back up.

• Pick a course you like – there are several good ones out there, I personally went for Experts’ Global and am very happy with it. What worked for me was consistency. Practice concepts every single day, even if it’s just for a few minutes. Mock tests are good, but too many may lead one into a rut.

• Start with the official GMAC mocks, evaluate your strong and weak areas, and spend more time practising the weak concepts. Following that, one or two mock tests every two weeks is pretty good. Please rest your brain for a couple of days before the exam and avoid taking full-length mocks in the last few days, it leads to exhaustion and lack of focus during the exam.

I will end with this advice – the exam will certainly throw some interesting questions at you, try to have fun with them. Remember that you do not need to get every single question right to score well on the GMAT, and if you see a lot of hard questions coming at you, you’re probably doing well. Eventually, if you fall short of your target score, you can always try again.