Hi Team,
In need of your professional opinion and some expert advice over here!
I am in pursuit of my dream to attend top tier business school for a part-time MBA (Stern/Berkeley/Booth) and, like many others, struggling to get my GMAT score on par with my dreams. To profile myself and my GMAT struggle:
- I just took my GMAT this afternoon: Quant - 39, Verbal - 34. Overall score - 600.
- I started studying for GMAT with Veritas Prep in-person course last year, but got totally overwhelmed with a new client at work and had to withdraw myself from studying prematurely. Besides, while taking the course, I realized that I had much more work to do on my basic math skills, and that I wasn't able to keep up with the expected pace of the program. To give you more background, I moved to the US when I was 18 and have not taken any math classes since then (I passed my math test on the entrance exam to the US college + transferred my credits and never had to worry about it until now). I resumed studying when I scheduled my test (to avoid procrastination) 3 months before the test. In 3 months I went from lower 500s to lower 600s while using Veritas online study material.
- I will admit I could have studied harder. Late nights at the office, keeping up with the household chores made it a little more challenging to focus on studying. I studied every other weekday and 5-6 hours each weekend day, but in the last week before the exam I realized that I still had a lot that I could polish.
- My weakest part is Quant, particularly Data Sufficiency and lengthy text problems as I struggle to hold on to the flow of the problem. I could definitely improve my verbal score as well though, since it received little to no attention during my studying. I am a non-native English speaker, though I have lived in the US for the last 10 years, so I am pretty well versed in English, but I do have a problem reading certain content as I loose my attention pretty quickly.
- Additional background: I graduated from a good public school with GPA 3.65 while working full-time in hospitality industry to pay for the tuition and living expenses. I have about 3 years of industry work experience and whole bunch of years (and lost patience/gained wisdom) in hospitality. I intent to apply for a part-time MBA at Stern, Berkeley and Booth for Fall 2018, so I still have time.
Finally, my question: what would be the best strategy for me to study and re-take the test? I am hoping to continue studying for the next month and a half, to use that momentum, and retake the test at the end of July. What can you recommend? As much as I would love to have a personal tutor, I can't really afford to pay $250 per hour for multiple hours. Should I just continue solving DS and word problems online? Should I take one class with a tutor? Are there any other tests that can help me pre-determine the strategy for studying?
Would greatly appreciate your help!
Julia
In need of your professional opinion and some expert advice over here!
I am in pursuit of my dream to attend top tier business school for a part-time MBA (Stern/Berkeley/Booth) and, like many others, struggling to get my GMAT score on par with my dreams. To profile myself and my GMAT struggle:
- I just took my GMAT this afternoon: Quant - 39, Verbal - 34. Overall score - 600.
- I started studying for GMAT with Veritas Prep in-person course last year, but got totally overwhelmed with a new client at work and had to withdraw myself from studying prematurely. Besides, while taking the course, I realized that I had much more work to do on my basic math skills, and that I wasn't able to keep up with the expected pace of the program. To give you more background, I moved to the US when I was 18 and have not taken any math classes since then (I passed my math test on the entrance exam to the US college + transferred my credits and never had to worry about it until now). I resumed studying when I scheduled my test (to avoid procrastination) 3 months before the test. In 3 months I went from lower 500s to lower 600s while using Veritas online study material.
- I will admit I could have studied harder. Late nights at the office, keeping up with the household chores made it a little more challenging to focus on studying. I studied every other weekday and 5-6 hours each weekend day, but in the last week before the exam I realized that I still had a lot that I could polish.
- My weakest part is Quant, particularly Data Sufficiency and lengthy text problems as I struggle to hold on to the flow of the problem. I could definitely improve my verbal score as well though, since it received little to no attention during my studying. I am a non-native English speaker, though I have lived in the US for the last 10 years, so I am pretty well versed in English, but I do have a problem reading certain content as I loose my attention pretty quickly.
- Additional background: I graduated from a good public school with GPA 3.65 while working full-time in hospitality industry to pay for the tuition and living expenses. I have about 3 years of industry work experience and whole bunch of years (and lost patience/gained wisdom) in hospitality. I intent to apply for a part-time MBA at Stern, Berkeley and Booth for Fall 2018, so I still have time.
Finally, my question: what would be the best strategy for me to study and re-take the test? I am hoping to continue studying for the next month and a half, to use that momentum, and retake the test at the end of July. What can you recommend? As much as I would love to have a personal tutor, I can't really afford to pay $250 per hour for multiple hours. Should I just continue solving DS and word problems online? Should I take one class with a tutor? Are there any other tests that can help me pre-determine the strategy for studying?
Would greatly appreciate your help!
Julia
