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barriosk
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580 to 680 in 7 weeks, still not where I want to be but... 30 Dec 2010, 15:03
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3 months of off and on studying (and a serious family situation that threw off my studying one month before the exam), a cross country trip a week before the exam--->>> 580.

7 weeks of serious studying, investment in MGMAT books and the GMAT Club toolkit for the iphone, in addition to the official guides -->> 680 (I didn't finish the last 2 questions on the quant).

I know it's not great but it's 40-50 points higher than the mean/median of the programs I was looking at.
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580 to 680 in 7 weeks, still not where I want to be but... 30 Dec 2010, 18:27
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Congratulations!

I have prepped twice actually (took GMAT once but prepped twice). The first time was on and off with a book and it gave me absolutely no results. This may vary for others, but my perspective was that it was a waste of time to read GMAT boos occasionally; it required a serious time investment to get results.
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580 to 680 in 7 weeks, still not where I want to be but... 31 Dec 2010, 04:02
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A 680 is a solid score. And to increase your intitial performance by 100 points is absolutely fantastic. Which schools are you considering?

And I agree that casual, passive studying does not usually produce the desired results. A great GMAT score is undoubtedly worth the time, money, and effort. And you have shown what hard work can accomplish.
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barriosk
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580 to 680 in 7 weeks, still not where I want to be but... 31 Dec 2010, 05:37
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I've been looking primarily at Babson-Olin, George Washington, and University of Buffalo with Emory as a reach school (my score is right at the mean). I'm also looking into Carroll, but I went there as an undergrad (graduating 8 years ago) and my GPA then was nothing spectacular (3.2) so I'm not sure if that will be held against me.

Back to the GMAT, here are some other things I did during my 7 week boot camp:

1. First 2 weeks focusing on nothing but factoring, arithmetic, and number theory. You need to get the basics down cold before you start focusing on those difficult work and rate problems. One of the things I learned was that you will not be seeing 700 problems unless you master the 500 problems first!

2. Practicing verbal portions last and late at night helped. My brain was usually fried but I figured my brain would also be fried during the exam when I got to that portion.

3. Practiced sentence correction, critical reasoning, and data sufficiency with the GMAT Club toolkit for iphone. And I basically practiced anywhere and everywhere with it (on the recumbent bike, waiting in line at the store, on the metro). Seriously, iphone and ipad users should not hesitate to get this piece of software. One of the things that killed me first go around was data sufficiency and by practicing constantly, it helped me tremendously in the exam.

One thing I want to add: Don't buy GMAC's rhetoric that all you need are their books and software to prep for the exam. That's bull. Think about it, most people study for a minimum of 3 months. The official guide has about 800 or so problems so assuming you do 30 problems a night, you're done with the book in a month. And more often than not, you are rusty on your geometry and algebra so need some serious drilling before you can tackle the official guide problems. The official guide's math tutorial is lame at best so you need to invest in materials that will give you a very detailed drill down of the math concepts tested (I found Manhattan GMAT to be very good).
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580 to 680 in 7 weeks, still not where I want to be but... 31 Dec 2010, 12:30
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It's a good score, though.. congrats!
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