I am an Indian applicant from one of the leading tech institutes in the country, with a background in technology and computer science. I initially found the applications for HBS and Stanford GSB very daunting, and I spoke to my mentor, an HBS alumnus, about this. He shared his experience working with Katy and recommended that I work with her. From the first consultation call, I knew I had found the right fit - she was honest about the work I would have to put in and the areas in which she could support me. I was also impressed that she had taken a deep dive into my background to ensure that she had the proper context about me. Thus, I decided to work with her, even though I was a bit late with the applications, with barely two months remaining before the deadline.

Once I started working with her, I could take a structured approach to the applications of HBS and Stanford GSB. She ensured that I presented my story and gave me mindful and well-thought suggestions that significantly improved my presentation in the applications. In the end, I was confident that through the applications, I provided a holistic picture of myself and presented why I wanted to join a business school and how the deferred program would benefit my long-term goals. All this while, she was brutally honest about my chances in different schools. When I was rejected from Stanford, she gave me detailed reasons why I might have been left behind. She also provided me the confidence to reapply a few years later if needed. When I was invited to interview within a week by HBS, she went above and beyond to ensure that I would be relaxed and well prepared for the interview.

I have learned a lot about myself and have been able to discover my inner ambitions and motivations. The journey has been transformative, and having a deferred admit from HBS makes the experience even sweeter. I owe a lot to Katy for helping me through the journey, and I would recommend any serious b-school applicant to work with her.

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I started considering applying for deferred MBA admissions back in September 2021. The first thing that comes up with regards to any school admissions is - the standardized test requirements. Coming from an over-represented group (Indian Engineers), I would have to ace the GMAT (read - about 20 to 30 points above the general median) in order to not have standardized prep as a weaker part of the application.

I started with taking an official GMAT mock test, and I received a 690 (Q50 V34). While taking the mock test, I quickly realized that I would have to focus my preparation for the verbal section, and in particular, the Sentence Correction section of the test, thanks to the level of discomfort I was having with it. After reviewing the test, it became clear to me that I will need to focus on the foundations of grammar, and develop a knack of checking not just for the meanings (which I was reasonably comfortable with), but also for the grammar.

I started looking for some resources, and I came across e-GMAT. From the introductory videos and reviews, it became very clear to me that their test prep relied a lot on correctness and developing fundamentals, instead of trying to teach some GMAT-specific ‘hacks’/solutions. This approach seemed really charming to me given my target of having a high GMAT Score. Thus, I took up the GMAT Online 360 course from e-GMAT.
I focused particularly on the SC section since I saw the most value in improving my weakest section. I started following the foundational topics, and covered most (if not all of them) with attention to detail so as to develop the grammatical foundations. I would at times try to ‘skip’ the learnings by jumping into cementing exams, but I could see no improvements then, and therefore decided to continue covering all the topics. Once I completed the SC course contents, I made the novice decision of taking the GMAT with no exam temperament (ie. no practice of taking the GMAT mocks). In my first attempt, I scored a V730 (Q50, V39).

In my fist exam, I realized the importance of being able to reduce the time I took for solving the SC questions, especially given that I was receiving very long sentences and I could see that despite my ability to solve these questions, I was taking up too much time to reach the solution, thus leading to an incomplete verbal section attempt. Once again, I focused on improving my SC score by taking the cementing tests (especially the medium and hard categories). After each test, I made sure that I would go through the questions I had a bit of guesswork involved (by flagging such questions), the incorrect answers, and the questions in which I took up a bit too much of time (both obtained via the xPERT engine). I would also make sure to review the concepts that I would deem necessary. In particular, I had focused tremendously on the modifiers section, especially the verb-ing and the verb-ed forms.

After the cementing tests, I took the official GMAT mocks and the Sigma-X mocks. The Sigma-X mocks were tremendously helpful since they were tougher than the actual GMAT Exam, and therefore I was very well prepared for any hick-ups during the actual exam. After a month of preparation, I took the GMAT again, this time with a score of 760 (Q51, V40), just enough to apply to my target B-schools with a sense of comfort.
As far as the course is concerned, I have been able to learn a lot about the fundamentals of grammar, written English, and the importance of unambiguous sentences. The course will not just help in GMAT (the prime focus of the course), but it should also help with written English - right from comprehension to developing a knack of writing unambiguous text.
I would recommend the e-GMAT course for anyone who is looking:

1. To learn from the fundamentals - throughout the journey, I never found any ‘hacks’ to solve a question. I cannot stress enough how important this is for a high GMAT score. Take it from someone who has done reasonably well in multiple standardized exams :)

2. To truly excel in the test- the e-GMAT course goes above and beyond to prepare for the worst-case scenarios during the actual test. While the course may seem daunting at the beginning, the actual test will feel like a breeze.
3. To use data-driven analytics in their prep: The X-PERT engine does really well in finding out the gaps in the preparation through its cementing and mock tests. Any candidate can use the analytics to fill in the gaps by revisiting these topics.

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