My Experience / Lessons Learned: (A Complete Nightmare)

I would like to share my experience with the club... I would say its a rather long story but I was in the same spot as many of you are now.

First... please take a look at my scores:
GMAT 1 (2007): 540
GMAT 2 (2007): 460
GMAT 3 (2007): 430
GMAT 4 (2009): 570
GMAT 5 (2010): 690

For the first GMAT I enrolled myself in the Princeton Review. I dedicated lets say around 3 hours a week. But did not took the exam seriously as I did not used any practice test.. I trusted my common sense (a major fault in this exam) I ended up blowing my first attempt.

For the GMAT 2 and 3 I was sure that something had happened with me and that probably I made some careless mistakes that surely could have brought my score down. I was too confident that the test was rather easy and as an engineer, I could of course manage the quant equations on time... I took again the test and received a big dissappointment... I was shocked! My engineering abilities did not work again! There must had been something wrong with me or... "Was the test really this difficult"? (By the way I just took one practice test two days before the GMAT and did not even finished it.)

For the GMAT 4 I had learned my lessson... This exam could get tough if you don´t practice a lot so I needed to fully dedicate myself to practice! I guess you could say I finally gew up and took this test seriously.

In this process I sacrificed most of my social life... I committed to study 5 hours on weekdays and around 15 hours on the weekends for 6 months. but something went badly wrong... I only brought my score up to 570. I was totally frustrated as I knew that this score was way below the 80% needed by any good school.

With this score I decided to apply to BSchools in 2009 - I was so exhausted with the GMAT, that I convinced myself that I could create a killer application and that my global working experience will offset this low grade. This idea was backed up by an admissions consultant I hired. He almost assured me that with his help I would be the exception and I would eventually "break" the system and get accepted. I applied on the second and third rounds (big mistake: one should take always advantage of the early and first rounds)... Unfortunately this process did not worked the way I wanted it... I got dinged from Kellogg, Ross, Tuck, Haas and waitlisted at Mendoza just to eventually got dinged.

I then decided to look for a school that did not demanded a GMAT as a requirement to grant an admission... I ended up excited by the fact that Madrid's IE program has its own admissions test! I totally nailed the test and was later admitted to the MBA program.

I was "ok" with my IE admission but something about it was not right (althougth its a great school!)... My goal had been always to study at the US or the UK and I had drifted away from my goal because of this monster (the gmat)...

I started then to deeply think that I did not wanted to live my life thinking "what if I had taken the test a fifth time?"... So after taking my time to make this relevant decision.... I then enrolled in the Manhattan GMAT boot camp at NYC in the summer of 2010. This would be very expensive (Two years living in NYC), but I kept thinking "WHAT IF" this works?

I simply can tell you that this decission was the best I've ever made in my life! They break up the GMAT not into two main topics... they go way much deeper in their study guides! They give you 7 practice tests and a systematic way of measuring your progress... Apparently the way they break up the test and the structure of the bootcamp program works excellent for me because on August 2010 I took my GMAT 5 and increased my score 110 points! just in time for the early rounds at Duke and Tuck!

I now think back and understand my faults which I would like to share with you:
1- Take this test seriously
2- Dedicate time to practice
3- Don't just start going through the problems... you will end up making the same mistakes again and again! What is needed is to fully understand the concepts asked! (for me, the MGMAT boot camp was my saviour)

Please do not give up! I am one of those scary stories with a happy ending! But please don't become one! Its too stressfull!

I wanted to share my experience with you and hopefully make you avoid the same mistakes I made.

Good luck to everyone!!!

By the way I just got accepted to Duke!