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23 Aug 2014, 21:28
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Hey all, hope everyone's doing well.
I just got home from taking the GMAT and am pretty thrilled. I scored a 730 -- which was my highest score in practice -- and is the average score for the only business school I'm applying to (Stanford). I'm also excited because I rushed prep, only giving myself 12 days to study; when I took my first MGMAT CAT, I had a 600. So, big growth in a short time frame (if people are really curious I can detail my day-by-day activity, but I imagine that's not super helpful to people).
Just to put it upfront, I had:
Integrated Reasoning - 8 (92nd percentile)
Quant - 45 (63rd percentile)
Verbal - 45 (99th percentile)
Overall - 730 (96th percentile)
I'd like to share some of what I did and my experiences with the community to hopefully add value, and also ask for some advice (in particular, about whether I should retake. From reading other similar forums, I think the answers is no, but I would love some thoughts).
1. I've never liked, or frankly believed, in standardized tests. I think they're unfair -- especially to the poor who cannot afford prep courses or who may not have as much time to study as wealthier people do. Go figure.
2. I had hypothesized -- and still hypothesize -- that the GMAT will be the weakest part of my application. My activities, work experience, undergrad GPA, and recommendations are reasonably decent. I haven't started my essays yet, but hope that they'll be good
3. Therefore, my goal here was to do as little prep as possible to get as good as possible a score where schools choose to ignore my GMAT -- to hit the "check the box" category, and have the admissions committee move on from it
4. I started out with an okay score for taking the test truly blind -- I had never looked at any questions/instructions etc. for the GMAT when I got my initial 600 (MGMAT practice CAT). Took it, found my areas of weakness. I had a 37Q (42%) and a 35V (75%). Because my verbal percentile was so much better than my math percentile, I turned all of my studying towards quant
5. I downloaded the Veritas Prep iPad app, which has free instructional videos, and used them in addition to the MGMAT prep books (though in reality, I did very little book reading). I also purchased the OG13 for practice questions
6. I kept cranking on math, and started to do a bit better -- next test was a 640 (41Q 36V, 52% - 80%)
7. I kept cranking on math for the better part of a week. I took my third practice CAT 8 days after my first, and scored a 700 (46Q, 40V, 68% - 90%). I was psyched. I thought that if I could clear a 700, I would be fine and hit that "check the box" threshold
8. Right after school I had spent a few years at McKinsey, where there's a big thing about "strengths based feedback." The idea is that in order to become a much better professional, you shouldn't only focus on improving what you're bad at, but should rather focus much more heavily at being awesome at something you're naturally good at. So, having hit a wall/being somewhat frustrated with Quant, I switched over and decided to start studying some Verbal, with the hope that it could improve my overall score
9. I also read a great article from MGMAT that talked about how verbal was more important than quant to get a good overall score. I'm sure that's a bastardization of what they said, but the general idea is that a higher score on Verbal brings you up vs. a higher schore on Quant
10. I started watching the Veritas Prep materials on the Verbal, and after watching them once took another practice test. This time, 730! (45Q, 45V, 63% - 99%). Shockingly, this score was the exact score and percentiles that I got on official test day
11. At this point, there were only 3 or 4 days left until test day. I took another practice test the day after, and my score dropped to 690 (my Q was the same, but my V dropped to the 85%). I was a bit peeved -- looked back through my verbal to see what I got wrong, how to think about the problems, etc.
12. With 2 days left I was fairly burnt out. I was working a full work schedule (even more than 40 hours per week), and trying to study in between meetings/calls etc. Plus I live with my girlfriend, and we already had some precommitted plans that we couldn't get out of, so a few of the nights of these 12 nights I wasn't able to study very much at all
13. The day before the test, I could tell that my mind was foggy. I hadn't been getting terrific sleep, and I knew I wasn't sharp. I decided to take most of the day off -- I left work at noon, got a baguette and some goat cheese, laid down in a sunny park, and listened to last week's "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me." I spent the rest of the day picking peaches, watching TV, and cooking a dinner. I decided that I had to get my mind back and recenter myself to do well on teh test
14. The day of the test (today!!) I slept in until about 10. Got up, did a bit of studying/refreshing. I went to work out with my girlfriend, which I actually think was HUGELY helpful to clear my mind. Then I watched the MGMAT video about Integrated Reasoning (up until 1p of test day, I had never looked at or answered any IR questions), and read the top post on this forum about the essay. Was quite helpful
15. Drove over to the test center with some delicious fresh peaches, a Gatorade, and a couple things of coconut water
16. Took the test, was nervous throughout, made a few guesses, but overall came out pretty good!
So, what did I learn?
A) You DON'T need a ton of time to make major points improvements. Some of it may just be brushing off what you already know
B) DON'T only study what you're bad at. DO study what you're naturally good at, and see how high the ladder you can climb
C) DO watch the Veritas prep iPad videos while working out. This was probably where most of my learning of new material happened
D) DON'T freak out or worry too much. Try to be calm and centered. DO take time to re-balance yourself if you're feeling out of whack/unlike yourself. You'll be better for it
E) DO go to the forums here, and do the practice questions at the 600-700 and 700+ levels. I started to get frustrated with the OG because there were too many easy questions that I was getting right, and wanted to focus on the more challenging ones that I always messed up
So, what's my question?
My question is, do I retake? I think it would be feasible, though probably somewhat difficult, to make marked improvements in math. And as I mentioned before, I just have a natural dislike for standardized tests.
That said, I only got a 63rd percentile on math. While my 730 score overall is great, a 45Q - 63rd percentile is somewhat worrying.
So, my question -- is this worth going after? Is this worth the extra time? I'm applying to Stanford October 1st, and haven't started my essays yet (I intend to spend the next 5 weeks sprinting on this, like I did for the last 2 on GMAT).
My personal feeling is to just be done with this, never have to take another standardized test, keep my score, and focus on the essays. I could potentially just register to take the test again (the reason I only gave myself 12 days is because I wanted to build in the 31 day buffer to retake), and just NOT send it to Stanford if I don't do better/don't do as well. But I just fundamentally don't like the tests, don't want to distract from essays, etc.
So, any thoughts? Questions? Comments? Anything I can help with or provide guidance on?
Thanks all
I just got home from taking the GMAT and am pretty thrilled. I scored a 730 -- which was my highest score in practice -- and is the average score for the only business school I'm applying to (Stanford). I'm also excited because I rushed prep, only giving myself 12 days to study; when I took my first MGMAT CAT, I had a 600. So, big growth in a short time frame (if people are really curious I can detail my day-by-day activity, but I imagine that's not super helpful to people).
Just to put it upfront, I had:
Integrated Reasoning - 8 (92nd percentile)
Quant - 45 (63rd percentile)
Verbal - 45 (99th percentile)
Overall - 730 (96th percentile)
I'd like to share some of what I did and my experiences with the community to hopefully add value, and also ask for some advice (in particular, about whether I should retake. From reading other similar forums, I think the answers is no, but I would love some thoughts).
1. I've never liked, or frankly believed, in standardized tests. I think they're unfair -- especially to the poor who cannot afford prep courses or who may not have as much time to study as wealthier people do. Go figure.
2. I had hypothesized -- and still hypothesize -- that the GMAT will be the weakest part of my application. My activities, work experience, undergrad GPA, and recommendations are reasonably decent. I haven't started my essays yet, but hope that they'll be good
3. Therefore, my goal here was to do as little prep as possible to get as good as possible a score where schools choose to ignore my GMAT -- to hit the "check the box" category, and have the admissions committee move on from it
4. I started out with an okay score for taking the test truly blind -- I had never looked at any questions/instructions etc. for the GMAT when I got my initial 600 (MGMAT practice CAT). Took it, found my areas of weakness. I had a 37Q (42%) and a 35V (75%). Because my verbal percentile was so much better than my math percentile, I turned all of my studying towards quant
5. I downloaded the Veritas Prep iPad app, which has free instructional videos, and used them in addition to the MGMAT prep books (though in reality, I did very little book reading). I also purchased the OG13 for practice questions
6. I kept cranking on math, and started to do a bit better -- next test was a 640 (41Q 36V, 52% - 80%)
7. I kept cranking on math for the better part of a week. I took my third practice CAT 8 days after my first, and scored a 700 (46Q, 40V, 68% - 90%). I was psyched. I thought that if I could clear a 700, I would be fine and hit that "check the box" threshold
8. Right after school I had spent a few years at McKinsey, where there's a big thing about "strengths based feedback." The idea is that in order to become a much better professional, you shouldn't only focus on improving what you're bad at, but should rather focus much more heavily at being awesome at something you're naturally good at. So, having hit a wall/being somewhat frustrated with Quant, I switched over and decided to start studying some Verbal, with the hope that it could improve my overall score
9. I also read a great article from MGMAT that talked about how verbal was more important than quant to get a good overall score. I'm sure that's a bastardization of what they said, but the general idea is that a higher score on Verbal brings you up vs. a higher schore on Quant
10. I started watching the Veritas Prep materials on the Verbal, and after watching them once took another practice test. This time, 730! (45Q, 45V, 63% - 99%). Shockingly, this score was the exact score and percentiles that I got on official test day
11. At this point, there were only 3 or 4 days left until test day. I took another practice test the day after, and my score dropped to 690 (my Q was the same, but my V dropped to the 85%). I was a bit peeved -- looked back through my verbal to see what I got wrong, how to think about the problems, etc.
12. With 2 days left I was fairly burnt out. I was working a full work schedule (even more than 40 hours per week), and trying to study in between meetings/calls etc. Plus I live with my girlfriend, and we already had some precommitted plans that we couldn't get out of, so a few of the nights of these 12 nights I wasn't able to study very much at all
13. The day before the test, I could tell that my mind was foggy. I hadn't been getting terrific sleep, and I knew I wasn't sharp. I decided to take most of the day off -- I left work at noon, got a baguette and some goat cheese, laid down in a sunny park, and listened to last week's "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me." I spent the rest of the day picking peaches, watching TV, and cooking a dinner. I decided that I had to get my mind back and recenter myself to do well on teh test
14. The day of the test (today!!) I slept in until about 10. Got up, did a bit of studying/refreshing. I went to work out with my girlfriend, which I actually think was HUGELY helpful to clear my mind. Then I watched the MGMAT video about Integrated Reasoning (up until 1p of test day, I had never looked at or answered any IR questions), and read the top post on this forum about the essay. Was quite helpful
15. Drove over to the test center with some delicious fresh peaches, a Gatorade, and a couple things of coconut water
16. Took the test, was nervous throughout, made a few guesses, but overall came out pretty good!
So, what did I learn?
A) You DON'T need a ton of time to make major points improvements. Some of it may just be brushing off what you already know
B) DON'T only study what you're bad at. DO study what you're naturally good at, and see how high the ladder you can climb
C) DO watch the Veritas prep iPad videos while working out. This was probably where most of my learning of new material happened
D) DON'T freak out or worry too much. Try to be calm and centered. DO take time to re-balance yourself if you're feeling out of whack/unlike yourself. You'll be better for it
E) DO go to the forums here, and do the practice questions at the 600-700 and 700+ levels. I started to get frustrated with the OG because there were too many easy questions that I was getting right, and wanted to focus on the more challenging ones that I always messed up
So, what's my question?
My question is, do I retake? I think it would be feasible, though probably somewhat difficult, to make marked improvements in math. And as I mentioned before, I just have a natural dislike for standardized tests.
That said, I only got a 63rd percentile on math. While my 730 score overall is great, a 45Q - 63rd percentile is somewhat worrying.
So, my question -- is this worth going after? Is this worth the extra time? I'm applying to Stanford October 1st, and haven't started my essays yet (I intend to spend the next 5 weeks sprinting on this, like I did for the last 2 on GMAT).
My personal feeling is to just be done with this, never have to take another standardized test, keep my score, and focus on the essays. I could potentially just register to take the test again (the reason I only gave myself 12 days is because I wanted to build in the 31 day buffer to retake), and just NOT send it to Stanford if I don't do better/don't do as well. But I just fundamentally don't like the tests, don't want to distract from essays, etc.
So, any thoughts? Questions? Comments? Anything I can help with or provide guidance on?
Thanks all
getsunny
Joined: 08 Sep 2013
Last visit: 21 Jul 2023
Posts: 101
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 36
Status:Planning to retake
Location: India
Concentration: General Management, Healthcare
Schools: S.P.Jain Institute (A)
GMAT 1: 660 Q48 V33
GPA: 3.24
WE:Management Consulting (Consulting)
23 Aug 2014, 22:50
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Bookmarks
Hi Pripsie,
Congrats on the great score! I think your score is good enough, and your efforts would be better spent on essays and other parts of your applications. The only thing that comes across as unusual, is that you're just applying to Stanford. Is there any particular reason for that? I think it would be good to have at least 4-5 schools, that fit your aspirations, in the list.
Other than that, I think you're well set for your applications and a 63rd percentile in quants shouldn't be a problem. All the best!
Congrats on the great score! I think your score is good enough, and your efforts would be better spent on essays and other parts of your applications. The only thing that comes across as unusual, is that you're just applying to Stanford. Is there any particular reason for that? I think it would be good to have at least 4-5 schools, that fit your aspirations, in the list.
Other than that, I think you're well set for your applications and a 63rd percentile in quants shouldn't be a problem. All the best!
24 Aug 2014, 19:19
Kudos
Bookmarks
Thanks Sunny! I think that's right -- call me done with the GMAT and standardized tests for the rest of my life 
To be honest, Stanford is the only school I would want to go to -- if I didn't get in I would likely just skip b-school. I just wrote a longer piece here -- would love any thoughts you have.
Thanks!
profile-eval-and-thoughts-on-framing-goals-rationale-176862.html
To be honest, Stanford is the only school I would want to go to -- if I didn't get in I would likely just skip b-school. I just wrote a longer piece here -- would love any thoughts you have.
Thanks!
profile-eval-and-thoughts-on-framing-goals-rationale-176862.html
