So last night I struggled dearly to fall asleep. I must have fallen asleep at 11:30 only to wake up at 1:30. I took some melatonin & nyquil to help me sleep, where which I must have fallen back asleep at around 4:30 only to wake up at 6:30.
Started studying august 10th
Books & Courses:
MGMAT - 5th edition all books
MagooshOG 13
MBA downloadable content - 400 extra questions (this was key)
I watched 90% of the
magoosh videos which were awesome - when I wasnt grasping a concept I would read the corresponding
MGMAT sections. I also read all the quant
MGMAT books + sentence correction. did a boatload of
magoosh problems (they're good but harder than the actual GMAT imo). I studied about 3 hours a night after my 10 hour workdays, followed by 5-8 hours on weekends.
I didn't really keep an
error log, something I'll do next for my retake.
First practice 550 (
magoosh)
GMAT PREP 1 650
GMAT PREP 2 650
MGMAT 1 580
GMAT PREP 1 (2nd time) 700 Q45 V40 IR8
Anyhow back to the actual exam. I had no choice but to take a 5 hour energy to wake me up before the exam. The essay was a breeze - the first thing I did was write my conclusion (pretty standard for all essays imo). When I got to the IR I couldn't think so I skipped a question here and there (this is what I did on the gmat prep where I scored an 8). didn't work this time. Quant was pretty easy, but when I had about 10 questions left I had a major urge to go pee. By the time Verbal began i was pretty wiped out, I just wanted to get it over with. I know i struggled on a few of the reading comprehension (for some reason they were all in the 1/4 of the exam). in the end my score was as follows:
670 Q48 V35 IR4
How do I feel about it? I'm disappointed but relieved that I was able to get a decent quant score given I was running on fumes. My goal was to apply to Sloan / Haas / Anderson / Oxford / and probably a few other programs. My GPA wasn't too strong (3.1 8 years ago) majoring in Economics. My work experience is decent - I am currently working for a major bank in Capital markets on the FX Desk in sales & business development (7 years with promotions every 3 years). I guess since I'm in Canada I'm considered an international student (not sure if that helps me or not). I don't have much volunteer experience other than volunteering as a mentor/presenter to MBA students (how ironic) wanting to get into Capital markets.
What does all this mean? i'm not getting into a top 20 school with my poor gpa & sub 700 gmat score (all that and i'm 35 years old considered a senior by mba standards). I honestly believe that I can get 700-800 with a little more studying & much more sleep.
Sorry for the brief debrief and poor writing - I'm exhausted.
oh and a big thanks to this forum - very helpful with answer explanations.