From 690 (5th attempt) to 730 (7th attempt)

I have been a GMAT club member for a long time and have taken the GMAT 7 times. Last year, after getting a 690 in my fifth attempt, I felt pretty stuck. These 5 attempts were given over a period of 3 years, and I had utilized every possible resource available (e-gmat, multiple verbal/quant tutors, veritas prep, gmat club tests etc.). After constantly failing to achieve my target score of 730+ in five attempts, I realized that content or conceptual gaps weren’t the only issue anymore. I needed an exam strategy as I was struggling to complete both verbal and quant sections on time and ended up guessing on the last 10 questions in my previous attempts. Moreover, I was low on self confidence and was kinda scared of the exam.

I had a bad application season (got dinged from 5 schools last year) and was advised by multiple adcoms to retake the GMAT as my score was below average for all the programs I was targeting, and as a reapplicant, GMAT score improvement was critical for my success. I had already worked with some well-known verbal and quant personal tutors and was constantly hitting 730+ on various official and unofficial mock tests. For some reason, I wasn’t able to replicate the same performance in the actual exam. In August 2019, I found Sachin Reddy while browsing through the Admissions Gateway website (https://www.admissionsgateway.com/resources/gmat-prep/). I found some more information on him online (https://www.mbacrystalball.com/blog/2019/01/09/stanford-msx-one-year-mba-admissions/) and decided to contact him. On my first call, Sachin carefully listened to my long GMAT journey and requested me to send all the 5 ESRs from the previous exams. After analyzing my ESRs in detail, Sachin and I got on a call to discuss our strategy for another retake. Honestly, I was expecting Sachin to come back with specific topics/areas that my ESR showed I was not performing well on and come up with an hourly pricing plan to address those (similar to some other tutors I spoke to). To my surprise, Sachin had an entirely different strategy in mind. After reviewing my ESRs, Sachin suggested 2 things:

• Devise timing strategies for both verbal and quant sections
• Deep dive analysis of my error logs and possibly certain topics that I was not strong in

I knew the GMAT private tutors’ landscape pretty well. And, I didn’t want to sign up with just another tutor who would help me solve questions or explain quant/verbal basics in detail, but Sachin’s approach to the exam as well as his pricing plan for GMAT re-takers pushed me to give one last shot to the exam that I had been struggling with. Instead of charging per hour, Sachin had an all-inclusive re-taker package, which required a one-time payment. Sachin was fully invested in my success and created a personalized 2 month plan for me, focusing on the specific areas mentioned above. Sachin had a 3 phase approach for my preparation:

• Phase 1 - Initial Assessment: As we started working together, Sachin made me solve some basic to hard questions in all the sections to review my approach to attempt each question type and provided specific feedback and tweaks to my approach for each question type. For example, I was spending way too much time in understanding the meaning of the sentence in SC (note: its very important to understand the meaning, but only to the extent necessary. I was spending a lot of time in fully grasping every word of the sentence, which was affecting the average time to solve the SC questions).

• Phase 2 – Timing Strategy: After reviewing more question types in verbal section, we realized that I am naturally a slow reader. So instead of focusing on improving my reading speed or trying anything else, Sachin suggested coming up with an effective timing strategy. To address the timing issue, Sachin asked me to video record all my GMAT Prep mock tests and provide him a recording after each exam to review. This was a very useful exercise and something I had never heard of before. Reviewing each of those video recordings with Sachin made me realize my mistakes and uncovered new insights that proved very useful in the real exam. Note: this exercise wasn’t required on the non-official mocks, as they usually come up with a pretty good analysis. Based on the Analysis of the Mock test recordings Sachin created a timing strategy for me based.

• Phase 3 – Error log review: Next, we downloaded all my error logs from the GMAT club and narrowed down on questions I was taking longer. Note – I had done this exercise myself, but Sachin was more interested in achieving 75-80% accuracy on each of the topics rather than getting every single question correct. Sachin has been teaching GMAT for almost a decade now and has solid understanding of both quant and verbal section. Instead of providing lectures and explaining specific topics or new approaches, Sachin and I focused on solving questions and tweaking my approach. For example, I was spending way too much on certain geometry questions, and Sachin quickly pointed out the specific issues with my approach and provided new ways to tackle those question types.

After going through the above, I did a few more mock tests and was constantly hitting 740+. I did Veritas Prep, Experts Global and even MGMATs. This time I was way more confident. Using Sachin’s time strategy and new approaches, I was able to complete the sections on time, with strategic guessing when needed. Finally, I took the test again but still scored a 690. I was nervous again, and all my previous 5 attempts came haunting me in the exam. At that point, I lost all my hopes. I had invested 3+ years on the exam, and I was finally giving up on my b-school dream. I knew I would not apply to any school outside of top 12 and my GMAT score was a deal breaker for most of them. I spoke to Sachin after my 6th attempt and told him that I’d not take the GMAT again. Sachin wasn’t ready to give up on me. He was very confident that I could score a 740 or above on the exam. He created a retake strategy for me and insisted that I instead don't book the exam date well in advance. Instead, I booked the date a few days before to avoid any nervousness or over thinking on my part. I was not ready for this and didn’t want to go through the experience again, but Sachin convinced me to take the exam again. He was very confident in my abilities and rightly so. I went for my 7th attempt and scored a 730 (Q50, V38).

I will be writing another detailed post on my overall GMAT preparation and admissions journey, for which I will provide a link here. But, I thought sharing my story at this time, when a lot of us are isolated at home due to Covid 19, will inspire some of you who are in situation as I was in, to act on your GMAT and B-school aspirations.

I highly recommend Sachin Reddy (https://www.prepare4mba.com/) (https://www.linkedin.com/in/skrkommareddy) to anyone who has been struggling with the GMAT, especially folks who have taken GMAT a few times and haven’t reached their target score. I contacted Sachin last year after 5 GMAT attempts. Sachin has extensive experience working with GMAT students and that really helped me crack the GMAT. I gained admissions to two top schools – one in the top 10 (think Tuck/Haas/Kellogg) and a top 12 (think Darden/Fuqua/Ross).

Happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you!