I just Beat The GMAT!

Hi All,
I just took GMAT today first time and scored a very bad 550 (51 percentile). Q40 and V26. I am an Indian IT female professional with around 7.5 years of experience. I was seriously preparing for it for last 1.5 months investing roughly 7 hours per week(used to study mostly during weekends and in bus on the way to office). In practice tests I used to get around 580-630. However, during last week I didn't take any practice test. I believe the main reason of my failure was I never took a complete test of 4 hours including AWA. Always used to skip AWA section. So had serious pacing issues in quantitative and verbal after AWA. I almost had to guess last 10-12 questions of verbal. Though I had a good start with verbal. Secondly, I exceeded my break time after AWA by 3.5 minutes because of which I lost complete confidence to break the GMAT. Somehow I paced through the quantitative section. So advice to all who are going to appear for GMAT that go back to your seats 2-3 minutes prior to your break end time. I didn't know that they will scan palm again during the breaks which took some time for me.
My appointment was at 14.45 pm today. My husband came with me to the test center. I was reading the flash cards in the tube during my journey to Holborn test center in London. Reached at around 14.25 pm to the test center. Read regulations and gave id proof so she signed me in. As soon as I reached inside the room I saw I was allocated terminal 13. Believing in numerology 13 number has never been a good number for me, I thought now its all going to be messed up. I had to select business schools for applications initially. Then proceeded to AWA section. Analysis of Argument was ok followed by quite simple Analysis of Issue. First time I wrote AWA in exam. Never practiced it before. Advice to practice AWA before exam as I was very tired typing AWA. Though dont have any typing issues but it really makes you exhausted.
Then I went for break had bananas and coffee. I had trouble finding my test room again which took an additional 2.5 -3 minutes. I got delayed for quantitative section and was very disappointed. Somehow I rushed through the section. Then took break. Started with verbal. This time I reached 2 minutes in advance. Started with it properly with SC. It was good. But after 20 questions I felt very exhausted. Came across RC which took lot of time and so I ran short of time. I literally had to rush through last 10-12 questions.
I have been using BTG forum and find it excellent. Thanks to the founder and you people who are extremely helpful in answering queries. Need an advice as to which schools accept 550 in London or India. Should I give up my dream of doing an MBA from a good B-school or should I pursue an executive MBA. I am very serious about getting an MBA from a good B-school. I have good GPA I believe because stood second in my engineering college (B.E computer engg) from mumbai university. I had good work experience in well known MNC's Infosys, Geometric software solutions. Have a good onsite exposure was working with ABN Amro(USA), Belgacom(Telecom company based in Belgium). I also won a spot award in Infosys. Currently I am working with a company in UK for past 1.5 years. This was just a briefing to give an idea about my profile and chances for securing admission in a good MBA school. My dream schools are ISB, LSB, Warwick, Cranfield or Cass. I am sure I wont get admission to any of these schools with this score. So need advice whether reappearing and securing 600 will help or should I look for some other option.
Please advice what should I do next?
Many Thanks in advance.

interesting, cranfield has an admission test as an alternative to gmat

https://www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/p835 ... ments/quiz

Are you sure you don't want to have another go at GMAT? If you work on your verbal, I am sure you can make your score look better
good luck!

Thanks for encouragement. I will appear again in another 3 months. Any pointers for verbal improvement?

Hey! I can seriously recommend the Manhattan Sentence Correction Gmat Strategy Guide. It has improved my SC-Skills a lot. In addition to that, you get 6 free Manhattan GMATs. These test are especially useful to train harder math questions.

Hi scoobydooby,
I checked with Cranfield admissions team and they say that they need minimum 600. That test is the test given by all cranfield applications after being shortlisted. So GMAT is first criteria although its not mentioned on their site.

oh, sorry i was mistaken then. sites can be misleading. i thought it was actually a pretty cool idea if the deadlines were too close to attempt a retake.
may be you could start your applications along with the preparations for a retake so that you are able to comfortably wing in your applications by the deadlines.
you have a solid workex, am sure you should be able to get in a school of your choice. all the best.

Received AWA report. 5.0 is the score. Is 5 an ok score on AWA?

poonam1279 wrote:well known MNC's Infosys,

pardon me mam but what company is that?

dear Mr Deadman...

Why dont u just google infosys... 7,410,000 results lead to the name!

Surely its got to be famous! if not an MNC..( just becoz it isnt based in US or UK..!!) its branched in these countries by now.

and lemme clarify.. i am no way related to infosys.. or any similar IT backgrounds to say the least..

blitz28 wrote:dear Mr Deadman...

Why dont u just google infosys... 7,410,000 results lead to the name!

Surely its got to be famous! if not an MNC..( just becoz it isnt based in US or UK..!!) its branched in these countries by now.

and lemme clarify.. i am no way related to infosys.. or any similar IT backgrounds to say the least..

Infosys is a S*di*l company with cheap labors...yes it is an mnc as it works in several nations...it can have 7410000 results but how many products....woh..u will say its service company....so except the size it contains what else? have u compared the productivity of a true mnc with that of infosys...

Dear Maihuna,

I am glad atleast you know Infosys exists! Unlike a previous poster... who claims absolute innocense!
Good bad or ugly... service or products, I am not contending that! It may or may not be!

And like I said.. I am no way remotely related to infosys or IT industry!

Take care!

well i think it was obvious that Deadman was being sarcastic because poonam claimed it as well known MNC....no offense but some ppl don't have a good impression about that company and it has earned this but guys please don't argue over this in a post that was written to seek some help.

Forget Infosys and read the rest of the post.

blitz28 wrote:dear Mr Deadman...

Why dont u just google infosys... 7,410,000 results lead to the name!

Surely its got to be famous! if not an MNC..( just becoz it isnt based in US or UK..!!) its branched in these countries by now.

and lemme clarify.. i am no way related to infosys.. or any similar IT backgrounds to say the least..

:roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:

Am in the USA and have not heard of it. Sorry and back to the thread if you dont mind.

blitz28 wrote:Dear Maihuna,

I am glad atleast you know Infosys exists! Unlike a previous poster... who claims absolute innocense!
Good bad or ugly... service or products, I am not contending that! It may or may not be!

And like I said.. I am no way remotely related to infosys or IT industry!

Take care!

Thanks blitz28,

You kept the cool, as dreadman was sarcastic I too was, but you forgive my fault. Great and thank you.

As in another mail Nethran correctly pointed some people have negative impression about the company, I am one of them, and yes the issue should be to help Poonam Didi, rather than the nonsenses of Infosys or It companies in india.