As a premise, I literally just found this forum today as I was searching for some predictor of which MBA program would be a good fit. I read a few success stories on here, and I thought I would share mine as I'm still pretty pumped from finding out my score!
My story is pretty short. I'm finishing up a Finance degree and wanted to get the GMAT out of the way before I start full-time as I will be applying to business school within the next 2-4 years. I did a little research and decided that the 9-week online
Manhattan GMAT course was the way to go. I consider myself reasonably intelligent so when I took my first Manhattan CAT and scored a 560, I realized I had some work to do. Over the past 12 weeks I have diligently completed every Manhattan book, over 600 practice questions, and 6 practice exams all with thorough review. Although my scores did improve I was disheartened when I flat-lined on my scores after the course was completed.
Here are my scores:
1st CAT - 560
2nd CAT - 640 (week 4)
3rd CAT - 700 (week 9)
4th CAT - 680 (week 9)
1st Official Practice Test - 680 (week 10) - this one scared me
5th CAT - 730 (45 Q, 45V) (week 11)
GMAT - 730 (48 Q, 42 V)
Just glancing over this forum it seems like everyone on here puts a lot of effort into figuring out the perfect formula for achieving their dream score. While I think some courses/programs may be better than others, it seems like in some cases too much effort is being placed on figuring out how you're going to study, not actually studying. My advice to everyone, just repeat the problems you miss over and over again until you get the correct answer in under two minutes using the best method - it's really not that complex. Thanks everyone for listening, still super pumped about my score and feel a little sick from my hangover after celebrating the fact that I'm finished with the GMAT!!! Open to any questions.