In 2021, I decided to work towards pursuing an MBA to accelerate and grow in my career. This is when I started to prepare and give the GMAT entrance exam.

After taking guidance and suggestions from a lot of people, I believed that I can self-study my way through this exam. I solved the original guides and questions from many other free resources. I was fairly able to cope up in all the sections except the Verbal section. Specifically, my sentence correction was very weak.

In my first two attempts, I got a 660 (Attempt1 - Q50/V30; Attempt2 - Q51/V28). After my first attempt, I was shocked since I scored above 700 in nearly all my mocks. I thought that maybe it was just a bad day and gave another attempt within a month. I was devastated to see similar result.

After taking a break to focus on some personal commitments, I gathered courage and decided to give one last push. I realized that I had to do something different to improve my Verbal score. After a lot of research, I came across the E-GMAT course. The reviews were fantastic.

I signed up for this course strictly to improve my Verbal. After going through the course I realized that all the shortcuts I learnt from free materials were absolutely inapplicable to the difficult questions. E-GMAT's unique meaning-based approach is actually what is essential to crack the Verbal section. I learnt the importance of understanding the meaning before evaluating the options and grammar part of sentence correction questions. I realized that there are no proven shortcuts for solving difficult sentence correction questions. Yes, it initially took me 3 to 4 minutes to solve each question but slowly with ample practice through the quizzes and scholaranium's question bank helped me improve speed as well as accuracy. I first focused to improve accuracy, and then focused to improve speed. After being comfortable with my speed and accuracy through practice questions and Sigma-X mocks , I was finally confident enough to take the actual test. I felt a lot more comfortable while solving the verbal questions and landed a 10 point increment (from V28 to V38). I comparatively fell slightly in Quants section, but nevertheless landed a 710 (Q49/V38/IR8/AWA5)!

To summarize, E-GMAT helped me realize and work on the following three aspects which helped me finally cross the 700 mark:
1) Comprehending trumps Grammar - Just applying grammar rules without understanding the meaning will not help you solve the 700 level questions correctly
2) Accuracy trumps speed - If you are not able to get questions correct initially, your score will drop even if you solve the questions at a fast pace.
3) Official mocks are outdated and easier - I am sorry to break this to you. Although official mocks are the closest in terms of exam environment and scoring algorithm, it is much easier than the actual exam you will take. This is because the mocks are old, and candidates on average have improved on solving difficult questions because of which the level of actual GMAT is higher than the official mocks. E-GMAT's Sigma mocks maybe slightly lengthy, but the difficulty level is pretty much what you will face in the actual exam.

Once again, thank you E-GMAT for devising this fantastic course and helping students like me to channelize our efforts in the right direction for achieving our dream score!

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Karthik is extremely professional with a deep expertise in the domain of end-to-end admission consulting across all top global b-schools. He understood that my goal was to get an admit in top European b-schools and always provided personal attention. Even though I approached him after Round-1 was over for most b-schools, he helped me in applying to 4 b-schools between Rounds 2 and 3 within very constrained timelines.

He helped me in evaluating my profile, discovering my true post-MBA goals, shortlisting b-schools, tailoring every single essay prompt (including scholarship essays) and preparing for interviews. He clearly explained to me the risks, pros and cons of applying to all the shortlisted b-schools based on his years of experience of guiding students with diverse profiles and experiences. Last but not the least, instead of just correcting grammar or suggesting points from his end, he always pushed and guided me to think through my pointers for every essay. He pin-pointed the strengths and helped me realize what my essays may lack through simple examples, giving me a clear direction in which I was supposed to think. This ensured that my applications are 100% my original stories and perspectives (this is a very important criteria for every top b-school).

After the application stage, I received interview calls from 2 top business schools - HEC Paris and ESADE. He scheduled mock interviews with me for each of the schools and made me realize my strengths as well as some critical areas of improvement. Additionally, since HEC Paris interviews need you to prepare and present a presentation as well, Karthik even helped me in cleaning up and tailoring the presentation which made it more crisp and interesting. The entire process from getting onboarded with Karthik to giving my final interviews took ~4 months. He constantly supported me throughout this journey.

The results finally came. I received admits from both b-schools HEC Paris and ESADE. ESADE also gave me a ~15% scholarship on tuition fees. I was elated and called my parents and friends giving them the good news. I have decided to join HEC Paris for the September'23 intake because it was always one of my dream schools. I am very thankful to Karthik for his valuable support and guidance throughout this process and I could not have pulled this through in such a short timeline without his help!

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