Admission HHL - experience, how I studied, dos and don'ts, GMAT avrg

Everyone,

I've been following gmatclub for some time now and, although I've never really participated, I wanted to leave my personal experience with the GMAT and application. I think this forum is awesome, but I missed topics of people who do not really need to get +700 on GMAT and who did have success in admission processes in respected MBA courses. So here it is:

I'm brazilian, 32 years old and I am an environmental engineer. I work in a highly respected French company here in Brazil. I started this odyssey with GMAT in December, 2015, when I decided to go for an MBA course in Germany.

To begin with my studies and understand a little bit more about the whole process and especially about the GMAT, which I had no clue existed at the time, I got into a local prep school. They provided some good explications on the process and also provided me with study material – Manhattan, GMAT OGs and every other material you can imagine. I had classes with them, splitted in Quant and Verbal classes, and was being guided the whole way through the MBA application world.

Anyway, soon I realized that it was not enough, since I was not seeing much development in regards to mock tests and everything. The classes turned out to be poor and this was not going anywhere. Then I discovered the GMATCLUB and e-gmat. It was really eye-opening for me and I realized that I was really, really behind with my studies. At the time, it was around May, 2016 (yes, I think I lost a precious time with some poor local guidance) and In June, when I had my first GMat prep test, I had a 540. Something was not going well, after all.
Then I’ve learned about the e-gmat webinar about GMAT and how to prepare oneself to it. It was a breakthrough. After that, I started to evaluate the possibility to get the study packages from e-gmat. I had to reinvent myself and I was already very tired of studying and walking on circles. Have one of you had such a feeling? It’s terrible.
Well, I had to reinvent myself. After some other webinars, I decided to get the Verbal package from e-gmat, since I was not going very well in the Verbal part. I also had the number properties package. At the time, it was September, 2015.

It took me something like 1,5 months to finish them and I started to feel much more confident. Despite that, I did not feel exactly ready for the test. I was not doing the mocks properly and the time constraint was really disturbing me.

After some research, I’ve found a document from a teacher of Manhattan in which she explains how to manage time in the Test. Another breakthrough. It was just what I needed. She teaches you how to control the time in the test. Basically, you use the paper sheets you receive for the test and split them in a way you always know where you are ate in regards to time. After that, my score started to climb. For the universities I wanted to apply, I did not need a score greater than 650. And after some practice with the time management technic, I started to get exactly this score. It was October, I was really, really exhausted from studying and thinking every day about it. I was waking up and studying every day one hour before going to work and, after the work, studied for more 2,5 hours.

After going well (from my point of view, of course. I did not have a +700 but, after all, I did not need it) in the mock tests I decided to schedule the Test. The test was actually fine, I was kind of nervous, but it went fine. I had a 600. I wanted to score better in Quant, but I could not. I made some stupid mistakes. Anyway, such a score could be enough for the university.
I initiated the whole application process right after the test. I had two interviews, one of them from HHL. The two were awesome and I really enjoyed both conversations. The first one was with two persons from the admission committee. The one from HHL was from a prof. Dr. and the talk was really technical and there’s where I feel good.

One day after the HHL interview I received a really positive feedback from one of the admission managers. One week later, i. e., today, I received an email saying that I was accepted.

So, Now I am really happy and can’t wait to get out of the office and celebrate! Some thoughts on things that could be of good help:

1 – take a look at the e-gmat. These guys developed the most amazing teaching system I’ve seen.

2 – not everyone needs to get a +700. Here in the forum everyone seems really above average. I am not one of them and studying for gmat can be really hard. In the end, GMAT is not everything.

3 – Get in touch with the schools. I went to two MBA fairs and had really good talks with recruiting managers. I was always in touch with them. One of them went with me into the Hotel Lobby (in the hotel where the fair took place) and had a 2-hour chat about the university, process and etc. since that time (it was April or may) I’ve been always in touch with her. That’s really important. For the record, during my interview with the Prof. Dr, a week ago, she mentioned that this attitude was really well seen by the school.

4 – trust yourself. You may find difficult to understand that you can do this, especially when you read stories about people here in the forum that got a +700 and whatever but did not get into a B-school. I often got upset because I knew it would be too hard to get such a score. But, as I said. I did not need it. Maybe you do not as well. Your profile can give you really good points.

5 – take a look in the time management technics from Manhattan. Awesome!!

https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/ ... 0(Part%203)%20-%20Linkback%20to%20Part%201

Good job everyone!