I just Beat The GMAT!

Took it 3 month ago. Scored a 690 (Q50 - 95%, V32 - 65%)

I prepared for 6 weeks. Mostly on weekends and long weekends. My practice test scores were gradually rising. 620.. 640..680......720..But towards the end i studied too much and got burnt out. Evening before the GMAT, I took the GMAT prep 2 and scored a 640 i think. Confidence went down the drain. I did not have enough time to postpone the test so i decided to just do my best the next day. My friends took me to a bar so we could talk and have a drink and relax. I had a couple extra and woke up hung over the next morning. Believe me guys, BAD idea. I tried my best to refresh myself. I solved some SC questions and got some confidence back. Went to the test center and started the test with the essays. Took the 10 min break but miscalculated the time and when i went back to the Math section, the test had started 3 minutes ago. So anyways, i gave my 100% and tried to stay relaxed and scored a 690.

I applied to two part time programs Kellogg and University of Chicago and got accepted into both. I had planned to apply to INSEAD full time as well but decided not to. Outside of my GMAT my application was strong. I kicked ass in the essays and i am a killer at interviews. Academic background was decent. Voluntary experience was hot shot.

I don't have much to add except i lately heard that you can just skip the essays in the real GMAT. I heard that big schools don't look into them. Someone was saying that did that and still got into a top 5. Don't know how much truth there is to it, but you check it out. In my opinion, essays are just a warm up exercise for the real GMAT but you definitely don't need to write 2.

I used this forum a lot for my GMAT prep. Eric, thanks for making this resource available.

Good luck you all.