My Deadline is Approaching and I Don’t Have the Score I Want!
Ive been speaking with a lot of students in this position recently welcome to December. Most second round deadlines are rapidly approaching and some students, unfortunately, dont yet have the score they want in order to apply. What to do?
What you CANT do
There are some things you can do but we cant expect miracles either. If you tell me that your test is in less than 2 weeks and you need to improve your score by 100 or more points, Im going to (gently) tell you that such a goal is unrealistic. Im not going to discourage you from going for it (it doesnt hurt to try), but you should also start examining your other options are. These could include accepting your lower score, changing the schools to which you apply, or postponing your candidacy to a later round or a later year. Some people, thinking through this, actually end up deciding that theyd rather wait a year anyway and take their time with the whole application process.
(Just a note on that last point: a lot of people tell me that they would be devastated if they had to postpone for a year; when I ask why, I often get a variation on, My parents / my significant other / my friends / my boss / everyone expects me to go to business school next year! Well, sure, because youve been talking about it but youre an adult in charge of your own life. Youre allowed to change your mind! All you need to do is tell anyone with whom you dont want to go into detail, I decided it would be better for my career to wait until next year.)
Most people in this position are hoping for substantial change (if you were only 10 or 20 points short of your goal, you wouldnt be panicking in the first place). As a general rule, unfortunately, not a lot will change over a period of a few weeks. If, on the other hand, you have 4 to 6 weeks, you might be able to lift your score somewhat.
What you CAN do
I want to make very clear that the steps Im about to discuss will not work for everyone. There is no guaranteed way to lift your score in a short period of time if such a thing existed, I would be very, very rich. :) Still, if youre in this position, youre desperate, so you might as well try and hope that youll be one of the lucky ones.
Timing
First, most people have timing problems and this is one of the things that can get better in a period of 4 to 6 weeks. When I say most, I literally mean something like 98% of people have timing problems even though many people tell me that they dont. Trust me you do. Nearly everyone does. Many people think their timing is fine because they dont run out of time on the test but that doesnt mean that you have good timing. It just means that you dont have one particular timing problem.
If youre not convinced that you do have a timing problem, use this article to analyze your most recent MGMAT CAT. You can mess up the timing on individual problems even when you finish the test on time.
Okay, now read the In It To Win It article to reset your overall mindset. Follow that up with this article on Time Management. Then start doing today what the time management article says, particularly section 4 (One Minute Sense).
You wont completely fix your timing in a short timeframe it depends upon how significant your timing issues are. But if you can get better, then that might just help to lift your score. The worse your timing problems are, the more a really strong 4-to-6-week focus on this topic can help.
Content
Next, if you havent already, use the first article I linked above to analyze your most recent MGMAT CAT(s). Get a good assessment of your current strengths and weaknesses. Next, look online to learn which topics and question types are most commonly tested. (Ill also give a list here, but this can change over time, so this list is only good for the next 6 to 12 months!) Finally, compare the two. You want to identify the items that are weak for you and on the most-commonly-tested list. You dont want the things that are your absolute biggest weaknesses those are harder to improve. You want things that are of medium weakness and also commonly tested; these will give you the biggest return for your time investment.
As of now, here are the things that tend to be tested most commonly on the GMAT:
Algebra: anything to do with equations (linear, quadratic), including translating words into equations; exponents
Number Properties: positive, negative, odd, even, divisibility, prime
Fractions Decimals and Percents: fractions and percents (especially in word form)
Word Problems: statistics (average, median), general word problems that need to be translated to math
Geometry: triangles, polygons
Sentence Correction: modifiers, meaning, parallelism
Critical Reasoning: Find the Assumption, Strengthen, Weaken, Inference
Reading Comprehension: Inference, Specific Detail, Main Idea
Set a Plan
The whole point here is that we have limited time, right? So dont try to do a little bit of everything. Pick a subset of things and tackle those strongly. Also recognize that youre going to be working hard over the next 4 to 6 weeks youre not going to have much time for socializing, and this can be especially difficult over the holiday season. If you cant commit, then maybe the best decision really is to postpone for a year.
First, if you dont yet have the score that you want, its probably the case that you werent studying in the most effective way possible so something about your study habits or methods needs to change. For many people, one of the most significant problems is what we call the quantity over quality approach. People think that, if they just do every last practice problem and every last practice test out there, then theyll get the score they want. This doesnt work.
If youve been following this approach, then you actually need to do fewer problems and practice tests but youre really going to start studying and analyzing your work as well as the problems themselves. Most of your learning actually comes after you finish working on a problem; you learn from your review and analysis of your work.
Read this first; it talks about how to analyze a practice problem. Unless youre getting to this level of understanding, youre wasting a lot of very valuable time. Want examples of how this actually works? Glad you asked here are examples of the analysis of real problems, one for each question type:
And just in case youre really gung-ho, here are some examples for IR:
If you have not been studying in this way before (and most people who havent achieved their goal score have not been studying in this way), then you need to start now. You will be very unlikely to make any kind of significant scoring change in a shorter period of time if you do not analyze these problems and your work on these problems.
Take-Aways
1) Be realistic. You might be able to achieve a 50+ point increase in 4-6 weeks, and nothing is stopping you from trying, but there are no guarantees. It might not work.
2) Target the low hanging fruit things that are easier to improve in a short timeframe and things that will have the biggest impact. Timing is the first obvious category. Also target medium weaknesses that are commonly tested on the exam.
3) Plan for multiple possible outcomes. If you dont get the score you want, what would you prefer to do? Apply anyway? Change the schools to which you apply? Postpone until next year? If you think about this in advance, youll be a lot less stressed when it comes time to take the test, because youll know you really do have various options and your entire existence does not hinge on this one exam. I promise. :)