My experience with the Executive Assessment (EA)

Hi everyone - first post here. I have always found solace in reading other people's experiences on entrance exams (GMAT, EA, etc.) so I thought I would write one myself. Not that there ever is anything too telling in these, but I always felt it helped me calibrate. So here is what I learned, my study plan, etc.

I work in a fundraising/business development role for a large alterative investment manager (mostly hedge funds). I have always wanted to go back to B school in order to build my soft skills to hopefully start my own company/side hustle one day. I am pretty familiar with taking proctored exams since I need securities designations for my role. I have been out of school for 6 years and it has been 2 years since i seriously studied for an exam (the CAIA - Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst). I started this journey two year ago by doing a 1 month crash course with empowerGMAT to prep for the GMAT. I never ended up taking the GMAT because of some personal priorities , but as an aside I would say that empowerGMAT is the best there is. If you're like me, the GMAT was less about learning any sort of source material but rather "beating" the test makers (as empower puts it).

Anyway, I decided to revisit B school when my company mentioned they'd be interested in subsidizing a portion for me. I found out that NYU Stern (my top option) was accepting the EA so I looked into it. Checked a lot of boxes for me (shorter, less geometry, no AWA, etc.) so I went with it. In early September I bought the official GMAC package online, which essentially came with a practice bank of questions (online), additional IR questions (online), and 4 practice exams. To re-familiarize myself I spent every day for a week reviewing my old notes and doing practice problems in the old OG GMAT book I purchased back on my first attempt. From there, I started mixing in questions from the official word bank online every day. I would do about 30 questions all in (10 V, 10 Q, 10 IR) every day and review with my notes as well. I was doing something like 3 hours a day for 4 weeks straight. I took every practice question twice and each practice exam twice. My scores were 149, 151, 152, 154, 167, 161, 162, 154 (in that order). I was feeling pretty confident going into the exam.

I took the exam today (proctored online). I did the relevant systems checks to make sure everything worked well in advance and I can say it was a pretty easy process signing in. The proctor was great. The test itself, not so great. I couldn't tell if it was the heat of the moment or if they cranked up the difficulty but I got destroyed. I only ran out of time on a section once in my practice exams and I ran out of time for every single section (both parts). I was frustrated. IR, typically my highest scoring section, seemed completely foreign to me. I had to throw out 2+ questions entirely. Verbal was a bit more to the tune of what I expected from the practice exams (as was quant).

I do no think I did well at all. The clock starts now (7 days) until I get my score back but I am bearish on my score. I do think the month of 3+ hours a day i put in was enough for those that are curious. i definitely felt prepared. One thing that threw me off a bit was after waiting a month to hear if my firm would help subsidize business school costs, I received a call the night before my exam (last night) from my direct boss saying that they wouldn't. this rattled me beyond belief and perhaps that played into my struggles. Not sure what the score will come back as. For $350 though, tough to justify taking again. Hopefully it comes back with that 150+ magic score. wish me luck.