Importance of AWA and IR for the application process?

It is certainly necessary to write the essay! And you do want to do fairly well on it. A 5.0 out of 6 looks pretty good even though that is only the 57th percentile. You do not want to fall to a 4.0 20th percentile) if you can help it.

Integrated reasoning is new, but again you do want to post a score here. I would want to get at least a 4.0 (37th percentile) so that it looked like you are actually trying.

But the biggest reason for you to study these sections is so that you can do them without struggling. You do not want to struggle because that is what will take away from your Quant and Verbal.

Lean how to write an essay smoothly, study IR so you get some IR questions right and just guess at any IR questions that are giving you trouble. That way you get through these sections smoothly and are ready to do the Quant.

Oh and have a sugary snack at the break to get you ready for Quant and another to get you ready for Verbal - it is a brain chemistry thing...

So I guess I will have to study writing essays... like back in school

Thanks for your reply David!

Actually that leads me to another (yet simple) question - is it allowed to bring snacks or drinks?
The GMAT video says: "bring nothing but your ID" if I remember it right - a coffee would be nice during the break though

You can bring snacks and drinks! and put them in your locker to access during the break. So it might need to be like one of those bottled drinks like a Starbucks cappuccino.

One thing that you do want is a sugary snack. That is because of brain chemistry. Sugar goes immediately to the decision making part of your brain and refuels it.

You will want to make sure that you do not drink too much of that coffee - remember that you need to go 75 minutes on Quant and Verbal and bathroom breaks come out of your time!!!

As far as I know, Stanford GSB has categorically stated that IR is not going to matter this year. It may from next year but certainly not this year.

FredT - They say it will not matter this year, but I still would not want to put up a zero. There are too many contingencies like re-applying next year to Stanford or one of the schools you apply to takes that zero seriously.

My thought is as I said above to put in an efficient effort and try to get half of the items correct or so and put up a score while not working too hard. I mean it does not make sense to try for a perfect score on the IR, but try to get a least a 4.0 (37th percentile).

What do you think?

I agree with David's reasoning. It's better to do well on the IR rather than be bogged down by anxiety