I just Beat The GMAT!

First off, THANK YOU TO BTG. This forum has been my homepage for the last 6 months. Hopefully someone will find this debrief helpful.

Just took the GMAT and scored a 710. Although I was hoping for 740, I am happy with my score.

Background:
- 26 year old
- Engineering background (BS/MS)
- 3.5 BS GPA, 3.8 MS GPA.
- Consulting and Government (4 years experience)

I allotted a fair amount of study time because and I knew that there would be times where I would not be able to study because of work. A rundown of my scores.

02/21/2010 - 540 (mgmat) no prep.
06/06/2010 - 570 (mgmat)
06/20/2010 - 660 - 44Q 36V (mgmat)
07/04/2010 - 690 - 47Q 37V (mgmat)
07/18/2010 - 650 - 48Q 32V (mgmat)
08/01/2010 - 690 - 49Q 35V (mgmat)
08/15/2010 - 780 - 51Q 45V (mgmat retake)
08/29/2010 - 690 - 48Q 37V (gmat1)
10/10/2010 - 760 - 50Q 42V (gmat2)
10/16/2010 - 710 - 49Q 38V (actual test)

Material Used:
MGMAT Sentence Correction
MGMAT Reading Comprehension
PowerScore Critical Reasoning
GMAT OG 12
GMAT Verbal
GMAT Quantitative
BeatTheGmat Practice Questions (highly recommended)

As you can see, my first score was really low, so I had a lot of catching up to do! Between February and June work demanded a lot of my time, but I was able to go through the MGMAT SC, RC and PowerScore CR. My score didn't jump very much primarily because I was having trouble with pacing, so I spent the next month working through all the questions in the OG and Verbal/Quant GMAT books, bringing my score to around 690.

The last month was spent fine tuning and doing a lot of practice questions. I found that the BTG practice questions really helpful with pacing. The questions were also good because I ran out of questions form the OG GMAT guides.

I didn't study the AWA section until two days before the test (hopefully this wont bite me in the butt), so I did not do any practice tests with the AWA. I think this may have hurt me on the actual test because my stamina waned when I reached the verbal portion. I felt a noticeable drop in my concentration at around midway through the verbal part. I found myself rereading questions two or three times and I would sometimes just guess because I had to move on.

I will be applying to Wharton, Columbia, Stanford, Chicago, Yale, and possibly Harvard. Any opinions on my chances?

Wow!!! Great score. Congrats mrleeandy.

Best luck for your next steps. Go for your dream school.

hey congrats on the score

nice score! what do you think is the best way to prepare for Quant and Verbal?

WOW - Nice score. Congrats.

I just gave my GMAt got 510 - it sucks - So i am preparing againg. Any suggestions?

Can you give more detail about your preperation and what else you did which got you a great score. It will be helpful in my preperation.

Thanks