End of a long GMAT journey with a 740

Black Knight wrote:Sorry guys for not being able to update you. Yes, I did have my interview around a week back. There were three interviewing panels with three panel members each. I had my interview with the second panel. The interview started well but when it came to the usual why MBA question, they really caught me. I had prepared well for the response since this is a usual one asked in such interview but they didn't seem convinced. We kept on going back and forth on this topic for almost 10 minutes. In the end, one panelist changed the topic and gave a breather by asking something related to my job and the interview winded up.
All in all, I am quite ambivalent about my performance. I don't know whether they geniunely felt that I'm not clear why I need an MBA or it was just a ploy to stress me out and see how I respond.
Keeping my fingers crossed but not very hopeful. Bad start to the season.

rishi raj wrote: Well, you never know the panel might be doing a stress interview. The admission panels in Indian schools are known for doing this. When are you expecting the results ?

Black Knight wrote:

rishi raj wrote: Well, you never know the panel might be doing a stress interview. The admission panels in Indian schools are known for doing this. When are you expecting the results ?

It will still take some time for the results to be out. How are things at your end?

rishi raj wrote:

Black Knight wrote:

rishi raj wrote: Well, you never know the panel might be doing a stress interview. The admission panels in Indian schools are known for doing this. When are you expecting the results ?

It will still take some time for the results to be out. How are things at your end?

I'm done applying to Wharton and Stanford.
Taking a break from the essays till 30th October as I'm very tired and I need a break. Diwali would be a good break!

bblast wrote: Good job !! Some of us are still struggling. . I am 70% through my apps. Days running out fast.

Black Knight wrote:

bblast wrote: Good job !! Some of us are still struggling. . I am 70% through my apps. Days running out fast.

But I remember that you said that you'd be applying to ISB and Smeal till Nov,right ?So you shouldn't be in much hurry.

Black Knight wrote:After having revelled in the glory of the GMAT score which I got two days back, finally I am here with my debrief . Here's my story and I hope that it'll be helpful to others here.


The idea...

Initially I had planned to go to a business school in the 2010 intake but because of lot of other things going in life, I couldn't take the GMAT then and fulfil that dream. Now after having worked for 6 years and achieving a fairly good career growth,I was in two minds whether going for an MBA made sense at this point of time. I researched more on this, talked to many alumni of top business schools and realized that a one year MBA would be a better option for me. After doing more research, I found that the PGPX program at the IIMs and the 1 year programs at INSEAD and ISB would fit me well.

The Study plan/strategy:

My goal was to not stress myself too much in the beginning. I knew that I had to peak in at the right time instead of burning out myself.
I set out for a 4 month plan and took a new year resolution that I am going to be consistent with my studies. I formally started my preparation in Jan end and was targeting at taking the exam by end April.

The Hurdles...
Work : Since I am at a project managerial position and also married, I had to juggle things well. I got zero time to study in office and had to manage studies at home. Since I hardly get anytime left after coming to home(thanks to a kid) ,I would get up a little early in the morning and study from 6 to 8 am everyday.

Discipline: I have been out of touch with studies for the last 6 years. God! makes me realize that time passes so quickly. Maintaining discipline and having the willpower to sit and study for 2 hours is something I developed with a lot of struggle. I had initially planned to take my GMAT by end April but because of work my preparation went off the hook for 2 months in April and May and finally I restarted the prep in June.


The start...
The first thing was to research on the material to use. Being from one top engineering schools, maths never looked scary to me .I have had good communication skills and since I have been a voracious reader, I didn't have face much issues in Verbal. However, the English tested on the GMAT is a little different from that which is use in our daily lives and I needed to ensure that I prepare diligently for that.

The resources...
For SC, I referred MGMAT SC Guide and Aristotle SC Grail I used SC Grail first. The content layout in SC Grail made learning SC concepts very easy and allowed me to quickly re-learn a lot of what I had forgotten.I firstly went through the entire SC Grail first and then again went through it but this time, I started doing the Questionbank at the end of the book alongwith the topics. For example, while studying the chapter on Modifiers, I utilized the matrix and did all the Modifiers question.
The benefit of doing the SC Questionbank of 100 questions was that I didn't end up wasting the OG questions initially. The answers to some questions were debatable but overall I think they were good to push me to the next level.

After having completed SC Grail, I moved to MGMAT SC Guide. I breezed through the book smoothly and then finally moved to the official Guide questions. I did the official Guide questions sequentially instead of practising them topic wise, because after practising the questions from SC Grail topicwise, I wanted to do questions from a mixed pool and OG provided me just that.

Critical Reasoning : Now this is a section which I loved equally because of its application in the real world. I used Powerscore CR Bible for this and while reading the book,I took notes diligently. As suggested by rishi raj and others, I started applying the CR concepts in real world. For example,while reading the newspaper or while talking to people, I would try to find out the assumption in their arguments or I'd try to find a strengthener or weakener to support/weaken their argument. Doing all this was fun and I learnt immensely.

Reading Comprehension : I started reading the New york times ,The Wall street journal and any other type of reading material I could get my hands onto. I especially recommend trying to read a couple of scientific publications if you have never done so, as you might run into a reading comprehension that carries such content. The language in a scientific paper can be very technical and, depending on the author's style, dry (no offense to scientists; I do fall into this category more often than I would want to). For practice, I exhausted the passages in OG12 first. However, I found most of the passages to be easy or of medium difficulty level. Moved to RC99 after that. Some of the passages are really difficulty there and not very representative of the GMAT passages but I think they helped me improve my stamina and concentration ability. I also became comfortable with those kind of obscure passages which are are tested on the GMAT.

The test...
I reached the center on time . The test started and I was a little nervous in the beginning but the AWA questions were straightforward, and I breezed through them. I would say I took about 3 minutes to plan, 25 minutes to write and proof-read simultaneously, and the remainder to do a final read for each essay.

The Math section went smoothly. Some of the questions were quite tricky and I ensured that I double check the answers for those tricky bits.

Verbal went by a little jerkier; I had found that my primary issue with verbal during the practice tests was that I tended to gloss over passages and sentences, resulting in me missing out on key information. During the test, I was constantly reminding myself to slow down and read confidently and to answer only when I believed that I had a clear understanding of what was meant or wanted.

After filling the survey and making sure that I had "report/view scores" selected, I hit the send button. Got a 740( Q49, V42). I was more than happy to see the scores .It was such a relief that I wouldn't have to take the GMAT again.


I am happy that the GMAT saga is over and I can happily look at the schools I'm targetting without having to worry on the GMAT front. These forums-both gmatclub and beatthegmat have been of great help to me as I googled the SC questions I had doubt in and invariably would land up with the links to the questions discussed here.
Rather not to compare but just as a thought, I think that each site has its own strengthen. The advantage of BTG is that it has instructors from various companies and you get great answers. The advantage of gmatclub is that it has more active community when it comes to the b-school application process. I got to know most of the things about the pros and cons of the schools from it. Hail the founders of both these websites.
I will be happy to take any questions and help out others here.

-Black Knight on beatthegmat
-target2010 on gmatclub.

bblast wrote:

Black Knight wrote:

bblast wrote: Good job !! Some of us are still struggling. . I am 70% through my apps. Days running out fast.

But I remember that you said that you'd be applying to ISB and Smeal till Nov,right ?So you shouldn't be in much hurry.

hmm. but I am applying a little early to ISB- 31st OCtober. They claim to give early i/v's to 31st Oct applicants. And Kelley is also due in 10 days. BTW I am almost done with ISB and Kelley. Just proofreading the printouts of the apps almost everyday.

For Smeal application I am working with an alum. deadline is 11th Nov.

rohu27 wrote:

bblast wrote:

Black Knight wrote:

bblast wrote: Good job !! Some of us are still struggling. . I am 70% through my apps. Days running out fast.

But I remember that you said that you'd be applying to ISB and Smeal till Nov,right ?So you shouldn't be in much hurry.

hmm. but I am applying a little early to ISB- 31st OCtober. They claim to give early i/v's to 31st Oct applicants. And Kelley is also due in 10 days. BTW I am almost done with ISB and Kelley. Just proofreading the printouts of the apps almost everyday.

For Smeal application I am working with an alum. deadline is 11th Nov.

bblast,

hope u are selecting hyd as ur interview location for the 31st oct thng. im sure u must be aware, jst reconfirming.

rishi raj wrote:I think that it'd be a good idea to visit the campus irrespective of whether you get an admit or not. ISB , I have heard, has a futuristic campus and something you'd definitely be happy attending. Before you do the campus visit, connect to a student so that you're able to form a better bond before you visit the school.

punewarrior wrote:
I wish to know whether visiting a campus helps a candidate favorably. I mean someone mentions in the essays that he has visited the campus of Harvard, wouldn't that impress the admission committee that this candidate is serious enough to get through Harvard ?

Black Knight wrote: Visiting a campus is not going to influence the decision of the Admission committee in any way. Not all the candidates have the resources and money to splurge on visiting a campus and especially so when you are applying to around 5-6 programs in distinct geographies. So competency level ,not money, is what counts!

archimittal wrote:Any updates ?