2 years, 3rd Attempts, Finally. Success @ 700

Proof that both perseverance conquers and a higher power exists. I've been waiting two years to write this.

Quick overview of my path:

1st Attempt: 11/30/13: 680 (Q46 V38)
2nd Attempt: 9/2/14: 640 (Q44 V34)
3rd Attempt at beating this sucker: 7/18/15: 700 (Q47 V40)

Brief background on me- white male from top-10 public state school, student-athlete at the time, now working in the non-profit sector, located in North Carolina. I have some irrational and lofty goals of getting into Harvard, and as much as I knew the GMAT is one piece of the application, mentally I believed that I had to break 700 in order just to get my foot in the door.

1st Attempt: Went with MGMAT, and did the online study plan, which consisted of bearing down once a week for a three hour session over multiple weeks. The upside to this was from a beginner's perspective, as I had never taken the test nor anything about it at all. The folks at MGMAT did a great job at a broad sense of what to do and what to study, but I never felt completely like I had fine tuned any particular subject. When I got a 680, I was bummed I didn't break 700, but actually shocked I got that high, honestly.

2nd Attempt: Postponed studying until work slowed down, took the summer to enroll in the Economist GMAT course. The upside, I thought, was a 50 point score guarantee. Since I still had all my MGMAT books and could still access their material online, I thought the combination would be great.

640 proved it obviously wasn't. With the Economist, I became focused on the course itself and completing it in order to ensure a refund. This translated with me pouring hours into repping through as many questions as possible without truly understanding anything. Their set up may work for some, but for me, I was never able to fine tune any particular subject, math or verbal. You bounce all over the place when it comes to difficulty of questions, so I never mastered anything in particular.

I came into test day lacking any kind of confidence, knowing that I just wasted 3 months of studying without getting anywhere. All my practice exams leading up were in the 660-680 range.

640 was hard to swallow. To think that you put hours into something to get better at, when in effect I got worse, was tough to mentally wrap my head around. Prayer helped. But I still felt that I could not apply with a score worse than the first one, even if 'they only take the high score.'

3rd Attempt

I came in weak with confidence in prep for studying. I didn't want to go back into slogging three hours a night when I felt like I was not cut out to beat this thing altogether.

In stepped Target Test Prep- namely Jeff Miller. The guy hounded me to try them out, and I committed to trying for one last time.

Their material was much better suited for how I studied- I could do it at my own pace, dive into a subject, and then pick questions in varying difficulty to ensure I knew equally how to attempt a 700-level problem with a sub 600 level. Very easy to use, very conducive to learning how to get deeper within a particular subject. Combinatorics/Rate Problems/Mixture Problems: all I felt like I knew how to do at the lowest level, but not past that. Target Test Prep set it up so I could actually progress in a particular subject with tons of questions in a particular subject.

From a verbal perspective: I did nothing. I have to give props to a grandmother who was a grammar nazi growing up, but instead of spending any time studying any verbal, I just committed to focus/write down more while going through passages. I brushed lightly with the MGMAT SC guide, practiced a handful from the OG, but nothing past that. This turned out great, as I never overthought any SC as I usually did. I felt fresh in the verbal, and thankful that I was a native speaker that never had to study an idiom.

Leading up- I took 4 practice tests (all from GMAT Prep software). I had taken enough in the past to know that those were the most applicable to the test. I didn't want my confidence hurt from the ultra-hard MGMAT folks. I scored 680-720-730-720 on my practices.

700- doable.

Lessons learned:

- Everybody on here studies different. What helped me- learning a quant section back and forth before moving on. In comparison on the 3rd attempt- there was never a question I looked at without knowing how to attack it, even if I eventually screwed it up. The confidence was real. That helped.

- What changed the game for me in Verbal- writing down to understand. This changed all of my RC and CR scores. I was busting extremely high verbal scores (for me) at the end of it just by focusing on the material, and what helped was writing down what I could. Even if I never looked at it again, this got me to a place over understanding those brutal passages that are painful to get through.

- The lame line- If I can do it, anybody can. Truth here. I'm the most average dude you'll ever meet, other than an uncanny ability to knock my head against the wall by refusing to quit on this awful test. Perseverance, in this case, overcame my lack of actual intellectual aptitude.

- There is a higher power. If you met me in person, you'd pick up instantly that I'm not the smartest cat around, and I know full-heartedly I could not do this on my own. Regardless of religious background, I took the 3rd attempt and actually let people know what I was doing. I asked for support, and just knowing others had my back gave more confidence. I received prayers/texts/calls the day before and the morning of. Felt good walking into the awful test place knowing you got some folks believing in you. Shout out to the big man upstairs.

To that- the one Springsteen quote that put it in perspective: 'Be able to keep two completely contradictory ideas alive and well inside of your heart and head at all times- believe you are the baddest ass in town, and, you suck.' I simultaneously thought I could crush this every day- which helped with confidence- but also knew that I needed to learn constantly. Stay hard, stay hungry, stay alive.

Cheers to beating this test, and a toast to all those who will do the same.

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