What path should i choose???

Question

Hello KevinRocci , I gave my GMAT a couple of days before and scored a decent 720 (Q 50, V38) . But i feel this score will somewhat mar my chances to a top tier b school and I have also got this gut feeling that can do better by just focusing on verbal some more, so I am going through the idea of retaking the exam after a month again. Pls guide what path i should choose and I m suffering from a huge dilemma regarding retaking the GMAT again.

Thanx in advance !! _________________

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear Vinitkhicha1111 , I'm Kevin's friend & colleague, and I am happy to respond! :-)

You GMAT score is already in the mid range for the average scores at the very top schools. Even your breakdown Q & V percentiles are good, in the mid to high 80s. Top B-schools regularly accept people with lower GMATs than this, and regularly reject folks with higher GMATs than this. At this point, your GMAT is more than good enough. It could take another 100+ hours of preparation to move it up just 10-20 points, and that time is better spent elsewhere. At this point, the rest of your application (letters of rec, essay, interview, etc.) is really what could make or break your candidacy. Do you have a clear and compelling vision of what you want to achieve? Is there a strong message that ties all the elements of your application together? If you have another 100+ hours to spend, it will benefit you much more crafting a masterpiece of an overall candidacy to accompany an already very good GMAT, rather than leaving your application where it is, studying like a maniac for the GMAT, and maybe gaining a little in your score. (There's a very real risk that you could devote 100+ hours of GMAT studying and then have your score drop on the second attempt--- this happens far more frequently than you would expect!!) Much better to spend that extra time & energy making your entire application shine. Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

Vinitkhicha1111 · Answer

Hello mikemcgarry , I am a regular visitor of Magoosh blogs and love to read your intuitive approaches to tough and tricky questions. Kevin's tuesday videos have been a favorite tip to me in my prep throughout. Now,I am really thankful and elated enough for your kind words and frank opinion. Ya, even I agree that 720 is a decent score and overall I am at the average benchmark of most of the top tire b schools.

But somewhat somewhere I feel that it was not the lack of knowledge due to which I suffered in verbal but a clear lack of timing strategy (even I had had a strategy but I didn't follow it quite well :oops:

) and on top of this I had this kinda awkward feeling answering those official "BULKY" questions with whole sentences underlined, TYPICAL CR questions and more...I gave Gmat Prep tests (both), was using Veritas's tests and gave some MGMAT mocks as well. But those verbal items were feeling like alien creatures..I screwed on the first question of the verbal question itself ( i took about 4 mins on that SC ques keeping the first 10 questions MYTH in mind). Now even I don't have a clear vision as to how to understand this subtle awkwardness ( it was surely not panic) and how to improve my timing strategy (now i m thinking of guessing 1 ques in every 5 questions pool ). Pls provide some of your Expert advice as to end this end this HUGE DILEMMA of mine in the verbal section. Today , I received my Official report and have scored a fantastic 5.5/6 on AWA. So I feel just a little polishing of my knowledge and brushing up my answering skills will help me cross that HORRIBLE V41 and 750+ benchmark. I apologize for the long post which you had to endure. Thanx in advance

Vinit J.

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear Vinit, My friend, you say this problem wasn't panic, and I believe that you weren't in a full panic state of mind, but there's a funny subtle thing here to appreciate. When the Sympathetic Nervous System (the "stress" system) is activated, it has effects throughout the body. Stress is not a mood. Stress is not a state of mind. Stress is a full-body phenomenon, and it may be acting on the body -- and on the brain --- even though one is not emotionally registering the fact. The chemicals released in the body by stress hamper higher order thinking. In extreme cases, some GMAT test takers describe the feeling of their mind going blank. It sound that this didn't happen to you, but the low level stress was enough to make the GMAT SC sentences feel like "alien creatures." Right there, that's the effect of lower level Sympathetic NS arousal on higher-order thinking. What's the solution? I have a two-fold suggestion. First of all, to increase you proficiency with Verbal, to bring it really to an expert level, you need to read the most sophisticated material you can find. See this blog: https://magoosh.com/gmat/2014/how-to-im ... bal-score/ GMAT material alone are not enough to gain proficiency in this elite section. You have to be comfortable reading some of the most difficult things in print. You have to be comfortable reading sentence that are five times as long as anything that appears on the GMAT SC. Find academic texts in fields with which you are unfamiliar, and read those. You have to be comfortable reading almost anything. That is the level of Verbal proficiency a high GMAT Verbal score represents. Second, it sounds as if you have virtually no experience with stress-management skills and are thereby suffering the effects of stress. In this blog, https://magoosh.com/gmat/2014/lower-on- ... ice-tests/ I discuss some of the effects of stress and link to articles on stress-management. You need to practice these skills as regularly and diligently as you practice anything associated with the GMAT. Now, having said all that, you seem to think that the difference between a 720 and a 750 will be huge for your application, and I am not sure this is the case at all. Yes, there is some difference, but given the sheer amount of time and effort this next run at the GMAT will take, it is far from clear to me that it is worth it. You say, " I feel just a little polishing of my knowledge and brushing up my answering skills will help me cross that HORRIBLE V41 and 750+ benchmark ." I think you are seriously underestimating the challenge here. A 720 is approximately 94% percentile, top 6%. a 750 is 98th percentile, top 2%. In other words, 2/3 of the people who achieve at least 720 fall short of 750, and there are many reasons why this is true. There is absolutely nothing simple or easy about gaining that ground. The student who underestimates the challenge is doomed to failure. See the discussion of excellence in this blog: https://magoosh.com/gmat/2014/gmat-stud ... 0-or-more/ If you are willing to work on this next GMAT as hard as you have ever worked on anything else in your life, then that's at least a start toward achieving those elite heights. Again, though, my question is: would such monumental effort be worth the possible gain? Also, keep in mind the vagaries of test-taking: you could work as hard as you have ever worked, but then have a bad day on test day or be sick or something, and get a score that you have cancel --- all that work for nothing! We are taking about monumental effort with absolutely no guarantee. Is this the best use of your time and energy? Before you spend dozens of hours of blood, sweat, and tears in this next GMAT attempt, I would recommend a serious discussion with an admission consultant. How does the rest of your application look? If the rest of your application looks just like those of a thousand other applications, then even a 800 might not be enough to guarantee admission. Remember: top scores routinely reject applications with perfect scores. To get admittance to a top school, you need to stand out. A 750 doesn't really standout very much more than a 720, but what you say in your essay, how you present yourself and your vision --- that can be huge and make you look like 1-in-a-million if it is done well. That's precisely why you need to talk to an admission consultant. Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

What path should i choose???

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