770 (Q 50 V 45) - First attempt

Great Score! Congrats Neo!!

Very nice!
All the best for next stage :)

Super Score even if you are from IIT.
So now does your wife think you are smart?

EDIT: Removed the post as it had too much info about me

congrats for grate score. goodluck.

hey man, I envy your score - well done!

Good luck with your applications!

congratz on the great score buddy
All the very best on ur App process !

Can you give me a pointer of where to get the 'test-code documents' you were talking about ?

Those documents (Provided by ETS) just have "GMAT Test code XX" written on the first page. So I don't know if those documents have a name. The test codes are 14, 25, 28, 31, 37, 42, 48, 52 and 55. You can get them on eSnips. Sorry if I am sounding like an uneducated buffoon right now. I have no idea about the origin of these docs .. nor did I ever care

EDIT: These are retired GMAT paper tests.

Thanks Neo !
I sure wudn mind an 'uneducated buffoon' tag as well if i can make a 770 too

grad_mba,

These are retired GMAT paper tests. I hope you read this

Ha ha .. competition is much worse than this. You will realize it when you get deeper into the research and all.

But hey, we are preparing for a fiercely competitive business world. So who is afraid of the competition for MBA admissions? Just say, bring it on!!

I am still curious if all the stuff you see is really a representation of the true competitive nature of the Indian applicant pool. Looking at admissions411, it definitely looks like a hard hill to climb for an Indian male in IT due to the schools, GPA, and GMAT. My really question though is how many of those people are code writers with limitted leadership examples. Thats probably what makes it harder for them. I have friends and family who software engineers and even 5-6 years out of school a lot of them are still writing code in a group and haven't even gotten to lead a team or anything to demonstrate leadership.

I am sure a lot get high GMAT scores but I do think that even for that demographic your 770 is going to be at the very top, its not like it gets much better than that. Plus you are a team lead if I recall correctly so your essays can show leadership and your resume will be more than a list of programming languages you know.

Thanks for the encouragement

Yes, I am sure that I will be able to overcome most of the competition by showing how I've been leading teams for a long time, how I've been instrumental in changing the project-management process in our company, how I have been getting promoted almost every year in the current company, how I've co-ordinated shows at college and how I've led our "school for poor" to get to where it is right now.

Moreover, I am planning to apply to a select few M7 schools, devoting at least a month to each. I also plan to downplay my technical achievements and highlight my leadership / teamplayer / extra curricular / community achievements.

However, I could never get a "wow factor" in my profile. I could never afford to quit my job and try entrepreneurship, for example (Hey, how can you do that if you're still waiting for your green card ). I could never do anything for which the adcoms would say, "Oh, well, I've never seen THAT before". So I don't know what kind of a chance I have at the M7s. But I am going to give it my best shot, none-the-less. I think that's what our approach should be .. irrespective of the competition.

Congratulations Mneo. Any tips for the rest of us?

ArvGMAT, (I am responding to your personal message here. Who knows, someone else may also benefit from it)

Thanks I think that you should focus on your weaknesses during this one remaining month that you have. You stand to gain the most by working on your weaknesses. The practice tests (retired paper tests or whatever) that you take will ensure that you are not neglecting your strengths either. To ensure that no area is neglected, you can also consider visiting the Math/Verbal Question sections.

I wouldn't suggest you to spend too much time on Probability (It's a very small part of the GMAT maths section). Perhaps you can spend one day in understanding the theory, and one in solving various kind of problems. During the later stages of your preparation, you'll keep getting probability problems here and there to keep your concepts tight. GMAT probability is not very complicated anyway.

SC was my biggest weakness too. Initially I was trying to pick the sentence that sounded right to me. But most of the SC questions in GMAT are based on simple rules that the OG and Manhattan SC guide mention. So, instead of relying on your feeling (Which is wrong quite frequently), trust the rules that you read in those guides. I went through the Manhattan guide a couple of times, and I did all the OG problems. Doing OG problems means reading the solution too (Not just checking if you chose the right answer or not).

Finally, I think that GMATPrep is a good indicator of your potential GMAT score. If you aren't happy with the score that you are getting from that software, then perhaps you should give yourself some more time to prepare.

I am applying in 5 of the M7 schools (3 in R1, 2 in R2). Let's see how it goes. All the best for your endeavor !

Okay, it seems that my green card process is going to take a little longer than I anticipated. So I am now seriously considering postponing the MBA applications till next year