Heyy mbain2010.. dont get disappointed.. this happens to many people..
I dont have much wise words for you as I am also in the same ship
I started my preparation quite late..in mid september'09 and I was aiming something which was very difficult for me - to get into class of 2010. I took GMAT in Nov'09 and scored only 620. I was also very disappointed after I got my score. As I was not able to get into any good B-school at this low score. I knew I have to forget about fall-2010 class.
But then I said.."hey!!.. this is only the starting..if I knew from the start that GMAT and MBA is not a cakewalk..then why am I so sad?"... then I started cross questioning myself. I spent almost a month in figuring out what went wrong. In this whole month I gave myself time to think about all possibilities. I listed out the the things which I did, and which would have been done. And then I realized that its never late to start a journey with all your heart.
I took another whole month to give myself a nice break. and now I'll be starting again with my studies from Feb 1st!! this time I have whole plan ready. I have set weekly and monthly goals. Lets hope everything goes per the plan.
The main idea behind my srategy is "Earlier the better!" So I have roughly planned my year like below:
Feb, March- Study. Stregthen basics, polish advanced concepts, and do more and more practice (the
error log I maintained last year wold be of great help)
April - Appear for more and more mock tests and revise only the topics which you think are still weak.
May - First half - revise everything
Second half - take GMAT (This time the score has to be good!!)
June - Start writing essays based on last year's essay topics
July, august- Polish essays, run behind recommendations (Let the recoomenders clearly know about their role)
September - Apply for 50% of the schools in your "top 6" list (this will give you ample of time to concentrate on each school)
October,November - Apply rest of the schools in R2.
December - Keep a month safe for sudden changes in plan, last minute rush, sit-back-n-wait-for-interview-call time
Hope this helps you! 1 last thing I would really like to tell you is, if you have planned something for next month, reschedule and do it this month. I have made these mistakes last year. So remember..earlier the better..this way you have chance to make mistake and importantly..to learn from them!!
Good luck!!