I just Beat The GMAT!

Well, I took the GMAT this morning and rocked it, getting way better than I ever expected to get! And I owe a lot of thanks to this website.

Quant 49 (88%)
Verbal 42 (95%)
Total 750 (98%)

obviously, don't have writing, but I felt very comfortable with my responses.

A little bit about me:
College: Large top 50 public univ.
Finance/Marketing major
GPA: 3.90
H.S. Tests for comparison (because I was curious how they correlated when I started to study)
SAT 1430 (740 M, 690 V); ACT -31 (Math 35, English 32, Reading- 28 or something)

Will be joining a consulting firm in a few weeks with the expectation that I get my MBA in 3-4 years at a top 20 school and then return to that firm. I took the test now because it is good for 5 years and I was fresh out of school/test-taking. I also had tons of free time in May, June and July before I started work.

I HIGHLY recommend any one in that situation to do the same.

If I were to have scored lower I would have simply retook when most of my future colleagues did.


My prep:

Took GMAT Prep I (downloadable) cold, no prep in March before Spring Break:
NO AWA
710 (94%) Q 45 (76%) V 42 (96%)

I was disappointed with the math, because I thought I would do better considering by SAT/ACT, but satisfied with the overall.
I reviewed the answers within the next few weeks, and concentrated on having fun and the end of my senior year.

In early May I purchased KAPLAN Premier.

I spent about a week doing the diagnostic test and going over all the sections in the book. It was extremely frustrating because there are TONS of little errors in the book which is completely ridiculous for a book which you aspire to learn from.

Regardless, it was helpful in Data Sufficiency, Reading Comprehension, AWA, and Critical Reasoning strategies.

Kaplan tests (May-June) ALL NO AWA:

In Book: 670 (91) Q 44 (74) V 45 (99)
KAP1 CD: 640 (85) Q 42 (67) V 36 (81) <---midnight/tired
KAP2 CD: 690 (94) Q 50 (96) V 38 (85) <--got a lot of repeat Q questions for some reason
KAP3 CD: 640 (85) Q 36 (50%!!!) V 40 (90)

By this point, I was absurdly frustrated that my scores had gotten worse, and also was frustrated because I had taken the CD tests on two different computers and was getting repeat questions on some tests. At the suggestion of GMATJim (https://www.beatthegmat.com/seemingly-ge ... 40167.html) I took GMAT PREP #2.


JULY (a little over 1 week to go): July 6
I did the AWA and took the test around 8:00 (when I took the actual)
GMAT PREP 2: 730 (96) Q 47 (79) V 42 (95)

This convinced me that Kaplan purposely gives low scores to encourage you to buy more of their product/justify their Higher score guarantee.

So I took a Free Manhattan test online (July 10)
MGMAT 1: 700 (93) Q 47 (81) V 38 (83)

And finally, I retook the first GMAT Prep 1 on July 13 (3 days before)
(it had been 4 months)
GMAT PREP 1: 750 (98) Q 49 (88) V 44 (97)

JUDGING BY MY PRACTICE TESTS THE GMAT PREP TESTS ARE VERY ACCURATE INDICATOR OF ACTUAL PERFORMANCE.

My actual results were almost identical to my last test.



Other materials used:
-Downloadable flashcards from beatthegmat.com (helped with S.C. and math strategies)
-GMAT Math Bible. this was invaluable..... I skipped through each section and focused on the topics I struggled with....https://www.totalgmatmath.com/
I had a copy a friend gave to me.
-Green OG Quantitative supplement- I knew math was my weak point for some reason (had to brush up on h.s. math) and so did all D.S. problems.
-99 700+ OG problems found on beatthegmat.com (I did about 1/3)

I focused my prep almost entirely around math and I ended up bringing up the score significantly.


Before the test I kept myself in a good mood by joking around with the test center staff and also made sure I went to bed at 10 pm (test at 8)

AWA was easy, probably the best topics I had to date.

Quant: I don't even think I answered the first question right, I TOOK FOREVER on it because I simply did not know how to do it. It involved nickles, dimes, and quarters. Frustrated I picked numbers and threw out a close guess. I maintained focus and tried to pick up speed and if I took too long I would make an educated guess. The rest went by well.

Verbal: I knew I did decently well on math, and verbal is my best section. I found the reading to be the easiest part and probably stumbled on some SC/CR.

I clicked...hoping to score above 690 and was shocked.

Thanks to everyone that helped me out (if you are still reading) and this website! I hope my experience helps others in some way.




If anyone would like to shed light on my chances at the following schools I would be interested (my stats are above) and my job is with a top 5-10 consulting company. Also, tell me what I can do to improve my chances...

UNC-Chapel Hill
U. Virginia
Cornell
Berkeley (Hass)
HBS
Northwestern
Chicago
Wharton






that was long.

I'd say that you have a good shot at any school after a few years of solid work experience. Your stats are (obviously!) excellent. If you apply to all of those schools listed, I would be shocked if you were rejected by more than a couple (of course, assuming your work experience ends up as described, you work hard on your essays, and get strong references). Great work!

Great job buddy! You have all you need to get into your schools. Like you, I already to the GMAT and plan to apply in 3-4 years. My piece of advice, forget about MBA programs for a few years. Just focus on your job and getting involved in your local community and you will get into any school you want.

Can you share some insights on how you did so well on verbal?

Thx

Btw, great score! Glad to hear the exam went so well for you!

I don't know if I feel comfortable posting it but I might email you it if you PM.... The site charges for something similar so I don't want to get into any kind of trouble.

awesome score! Good Luck.

Wohooo!!!
You made my day

Great score. Focus a lot on building your extra curriculars for the essays during the next few years and you are through to most top b schools.

Good luck and heartiest CONGRATULATION for one of the best scores for the year !!!


Cheers
Turbo jet

Man, Great score!! Congrats!!

hey...congrats!!!!

could you please send it to me to.

WOW excellent. Congratulations.

Now you should work on other parts of your application. I know bunch of people who got above avarage GMAT results but were not offered a place at those top schools and vice versa.
In my experiecne, they look for diversity, group of people who stand out each on their own. So, try to stand out. Motivation letters, reference letters and most importanly (way more important then the GMAT result, despite what some people here might say) personal interview. If you appear dull or uninspiring or lacking in motivation, unclear career plan, if you spent your entiry life in one place...you can have 800 at GMAT, the chances of being offered a place are non-existant.
So, good luck

Thanks for the good wishes, and once again thanks to everyone and this site for helping me take the GMAT and achieve a good score.

Per Ian's comment I will not send out any copies of the pdf Math Bible as I definitely do not want to get in any type of legal trouble or trouble with this forum. However, if you do need help I would recommend the "Math Bible" - I believe it is now called "Total Math" and is available at https://www.totalgmatmath.com/
I actually didn't figure out that it came from that website until yesterday, I just had it handed to me through the grapevine I guess.

Some of the sections are more valuable than others in explaining the material. I found it very helpful in my final days as a way to touch up and strengthen all of my weak areas. I had been consistently scoring in the high 30s and low 40s in Math until I begin to try and seriously correct my weak math topics.

The old version I had was 300 or so pages broken up into about 40 sections. It contains a few page description of each subject and some tips for problem solving. Then it offers practice drills followed by GMAT type problems (some extremely easy, some more difficult--- I would miss 1 or 2 per section).

The book is about $50 and I think it would be most helpful to someone in a similar situation as I was.
i.e. You know that your quantitative ability is higher than the scores you are receiving on practice tests. This would likely be a result of rustiness with the subject areas because of a lack of exposure in some time. (Despite being a finance major, I did not take ONE explicit math class throughout college because I tested out through AP)

I found it especially helpful for dealing with ratios, rate problems, work problems, permutations, probability, symbolism, triangles and overlapping sets.

On the other hand, if you are already scoring 50+ in Q, I don't know if the book would be worth the rather large investment. I would focus on verbal because that would obviously be your weaker area and you probably have mastered the concepts found in the book.

If anyone has other questions/comments/wants advice I'd be happy to help.

AWA update 6.0

The official report was actually generated within 6 days from when I took the test and available as a download online.

And one strategy I didn't mention before- before I began to work on the quant and verbal respectively I jotted down the following charts on my noteboard:



5 66
10 56
15 46
20 36
25 26
30 16
35 6

5 67
10 58
15 49
20 40
25 31
30 22
35 13
40 4

The first number is the problem you are on followed by however much time should be left in that section. I referred to it occassionally to adjust my speed/guessing. Memorize the first chart because every number next to the 5s has a ones digit of 6. The 2nd begins one unit higher (67) and subtracts by 9 each time.