Help needed! Stuck with 36-37 in Verbal

Question

Hi,

I'm an Indian Male Engineer and this is my second attempt at GMAT, the first one being in Aug'16. I scored 700 (Q- 49, V- 36, IR- 6, AWA- 4) and used that to apply to various schools. While I got in to just 1 school (NTU - which I did not join), this year I have decided to reappear.

I started seriously working on it in the last 4 weeks. I bought Manhattan Test series and have taken 4 CATs till now. Scores below -

Exam # Website Quant Verbal Total
1 Manhattan 45 34 650
2 Manhattan 45 36 670
3 Manhattan 46 37 680
4 Manhattan 45 35 660
5 GMATPrep 49 37 710

All these exams were taken with a gap of 1 week between them with the GMATPrep being taken yesterday. Also, for the 4th exam (GMAT- 660), I was really distracted (shouldn't have taken it at home).

My biggest concern, as you can see is how to improve my Verbal score (which is pretty much stuck around 36/37). I also bought the Manhattan Verbal strategy guides but haven't been able to put them to much use till now. Based on my performance in these exams, I definitely need to work on SC, which is where majority of my mistakes are, the only question I have is how?

What is the best way to utilize Manhattan Strategy guides? I've scheduled my GMAT on 19th December, and I'm freaking out!

Thanks in advance!

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Erabm1439s,

To start, a 700/Q49 is an outstanding score (it's just a bit shy of the 90th percentile overall). Since you're continuing to study for the GMAT, I assume that you think that your GMAT Score is the primary reason you were rejected from the Schools that you previously applied to. However, that might not be the case - and your time might be better spent improving other aspects of your application(s).

Before I can offer you the specific advice that you’re looking for, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

1) When did you apply to Business School?
2) What Schools did you apply to?
3) Were you granted an interview by any of those Schools?
4) Since you were accepted to NTU, why did you choose not to apply?

5) When are you planning to next apply to Business School?
6) Are you planning to reapply to the same Programs or do you have different Schools in mind?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Erabm1439s · Answer

Thanks Rich! You're correct in that this score is a good score, the challenge with my case is that I'm 1.) Indian 2.) Male and 3.)From an Engineering background. Due to the sheer volume of similar applicants, this score (GMAT - 700) does not look sufficient to me, but I might be incorrect.

Below are my responses to your questions - 1) When did you apply to Business School? I applied for R1 for ISB and R2 for NUS, NTU, Tepper, Anderson, Kenan-Flagler and Rotman last year (2017 intake) 2) What Schools did you apply to? Answered above 3) Were you granted an interview by any of those Schools? Nope. The only interview I received was for NTU. 4) Since you were accepted to NTU, why did you choose not to apply? Mainly because everyone I talked to, who had already graduated from NTU, or was part of the previous class mentioned how hard it will be to get in to a Management Consulting role from NTU, and how most Indians end up coming back to India. 5) When are you planning to next apply to Business School? 2018 Intake R2 6) Are you planning to reapply to the same Programs or do you have different Schools in mind? ISB is my dream school. So I'm definitely going to apply to ISB again. Apart from that, I'll probably apply to Tepper, Anderson, Kenan-Flagler and Rotman again. Hope this helps answer all your questions. Looking forward to your response! Anshul

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Erabm1439s,

I understand the competitive 'pool' of applicants that you come from - so it makes sense that you would want to improve the strength of your Overall application. That having been said, that is a broad Admissions question, so you would likely find it beneficial to speak with an Admissions Expert about your overall profile and plans. There's a Forum full of them here:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/ask-admission ... tants-124/

While improving your GMAT Score seems like an 'obvious' area to focus on, there are likely some other aspects of your application that need work. To that end, you might want to reach out to some of the Schools that rejected you and politely ask WHY you were rejected. It might be that you didn't have the proper Work Experience or that you made some type of 'mistake' with your Essays.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Erabm1439s · Answer

Thanks so much  EMPOWERgmatRichC !

I've asked admission consultants about the shortcomings of my profile - and the answer remains that I need to focus on my application. Surprisingly, this is also the feedback I got from ISB. I would like to mention here that the essays I wrote for ISB were horrible. I then took help to write essays for other schools I applied to - which is what helped me with NTU.

I wanted to make my overall profile stronger, and since my 10th(86%), 12th(76%) or undergrad (7.2/10) scores aren't that good, I wanted to demonstrate academic ability using GMAT. Do you think it would be helpful?

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Erabm1439s,

With a 700/Q49, you've already proven that your current 'academic abilities' are really strong. The phrase "need to focus on my application" is incredibly VAGUE. What parts of your application needed work? You seem to understand that your essays needed work (so you worked on them), but are those essays as fantastic as they can be? And were there any other SPECIFIC aspects of your application that needed improvement? Highly-competitive Business Schools tend to look for strong OVERALL applicants, so you really have to examine every aspect of your profile/application. If the people you've already talked to cannot point to specifics, then you need to keep looking and find someone who will.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

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