My GMAT Experience - 720 (Q49, V40)

Before I start, I would just like to say that 720 certainly isn't as great as the scores I have seen in this forum. However, I have been reading so many post-exam posts filled with happiness and relief, and always dreamt of doing one myself. While I fell a little short of my ideal score, I do think that a 720 is right in the ball park on any top B school.

I also have some tips I didn't see on here that I'd like to share. Hope you guys find this useful!

I'll keep this short and crisp with the key points:

1. I first took my exam in 2012, during senior year of college, and scored a 700. While I had convinced myself that anything 700 or greater "ticks the box" for GMAT, several people told me that getting closer to the mean - especially since I am from an over represented applicant pool (Indian, Male) would be useful.

Tip # 1 - It is not just enough to get 700+. For HSW, definitely a score of 720-730 will be a fairly significant upgrade over a 700. An expert also told me that this shows that I didn't just "creep into" the 700s, but got there fairly comfortably.

2. During my applications, I realised how badly I wanted to go to HBS, so decided to retake. While I got a 760 on my last GMAT Prep test, I scored a 710 on the actual exam. The #1 reason this didn't happen is because I didn't eat!!! By the time the verbal section came around I was completely brain dead and just couldn't process any information. I decided to retake in 3 weeks, this time with proper nutrition (high protein cereal before the exam, followed by granola bars during every break), and increased by Verbal score by 2 points, with basically no additional studying.

Tip #2 - Don't underestimate proper nutrition! I truly believe it can make a 20 point difference in your final score. Keep your blood sugar up by eating complex carbs.

3. Math - MGMAT is by far the best. However, I found the MGMAT CATs much harder than the actual test, and hence wouldn't recommended them. They made me focus a lot on quant, when in fact I was already a 49-50 student. Scoring 46-47 on MGMAT quant scared me; the actual test is at least 3-4 points easier on Quant. GMAT Prep questions, followed by googling solutions to wrong answers AND answers which I wasn't 100% sure off was critical.

4. Verbal - For SC and RC, what really made a difference for me was active note taking. Towards the end of the exam, it's really hard to process all the information without taking notes. I would highly recommend this, it helped me digest the information better. For SC, if you are a native speaker, just do tons of practice. MGMAT, GMAT CLUB forum questions, and GMAT Prep questions (from exam) were all helpful. For verbal it really comes down to keeping your mental stamina, rather than difficulty. Some CR and RC passages are extremely hard towards the end of the test.

5. IR - This section is a joke, don't spend more than 2 hours in total on this. Getting an 8 is extremely straightforward.

6. Studying - I did 3-4 weeks of intense prep, as I had already done a 10 week course earlier. Manhattan has great guides, but for questions, I would focus more on GMAT Prep. Buy the 2 additional exams, and re-do each of them twice. MGMAT quant was just way too hard and lowered my confidence.

7. Exam day advice - eat before breaks!! Also, no need to be nervous before the exam. The first hour (Essay + IR) is more of a warm up, so walk in there relaxed. That seemed to help me and get me in a more relaxed frame of mind before starting math and Quant.

8. Timing - Strangely enough, I had more timing issues on Verbal rather than on Quant. However, for Quant, it is important to realise within 5-10 seconds if you know how to solve the problem. Worst case is spending 2-3 minutes and realising you have no idea what to do. To get a 49/50, you can afford to get quite a few questions wrong - don't always strive for perfection.

Overall, I think the test day experience comes down to 2 things 1)Following a structured process, including elimination where possible 2)Taking notes on CR and SC to help you stay focused and 3)Eating well. I can't stress how important this is. It made a huge difference to me!

I realise this isn't the best debrief out there, but I hope you find it useful. I truly believe that the GMAT isn't a test of intellect, but rather of structure, preparation, and exam day management. Anyone here can get a 700+ score, just go one question at a time and ALWAYS stick to the process you used while studying. Especially for verbal, where things can get quite jumbled given how fatigued you are by the end.

The resources and support from people here is awesome, spend plenty of time on these forums before you take the test. Good luck!!!