I just Beat The GMAT!

A difference of 9 points on the verbal section seems like a huge difference, and it often is: A verbal score of 26 corresponds to the 40th percentile, whereas a verbal score of 35 corresponds to the 74th percentile.

However, a 41 is the 92nd percentile, hardly a score to be ashamed of. You probably had an "off" day on the verbal section, and your resulting verbal score was merely excellent rather than tremendous. A couple of silly mistakes on SC and a CR mistake that you would cringe at might have been enough to push your score down from 47 to 41.

I wonder whether the verbal section scores have more variability at really high levels: it's hard to say, since people with a 46+ verbal score rarely retake the exam . Mine have been 48,50,50,51 and 51, but I like to think I am improving in the verbal section over the years.

My advice: do the exam again only if you are applying to schools that pay special attention to quant scores. A 47Q 47V would get you a 760.

Thanks for the encouragement Kevin. My problem with my verbal score is that it suggests I got several (i.e. more than five or six) verbal questions wrong. I have never had a problem with GMAT verbal, and I have never encountered a question that I found was too "hard." If I make a mistake it is generally that I misread a word or something, and the mistakes are not systematic. In other words, I am highly suspect of my verbal score, especially because the last several questions were VERY difficult (by GMAT standards, anyway), and I was STILL extremely confident that I was answering them all correctly.

I will definitely be applying to schools that require high quant scores (as I'm sure all the top 10 schools do), and I don't feel as if the rest of my background is "sexy" enough to overcome a 720 and a 700, both with low quant scores. However, I'm not really sure what else I can do. Do I need to have consistent 800s on the practice tests to ensure a 740 on the real GMAT? I've never been more frustrated in my life.

Send me a PM and I will let you know what I can do for you!

Thanks Kevin, I'm pretty swamped at the moment but I'll contact you soon.

On another note, I just thought of something else that may seem obvious but just recently occurred to me. In my anger, I decided to calculate the mean and standard deviation of my various practice test scores to see how my actual test compares. Here are the results: for quant, I had a mean of 48.0 with a standard deviation of 2.0 (2-sigma range of 44.0 to 52.0). For verbal, I had a mean of 46.0 with a standard deviation of 1.4 (2-sigma range of 43.2 to 48.8). Overall, I had a mean of 752.9 with a standard deviation of 21.4 (2-sigma range of 710.1 to 795.6). The sample size was 9 for the quant and 8 for the verbal and overall.

These results are surprising. My quant score on the real test was 2.0 standard deviations below the mean, my overall score was 2.47 standard deviations below, and my verbal score was a whopping 3.54 standard deviations below. Since quant and verbal are independent, the probability of these scores being "right" (i.e., within the possible distribution of my "true" score), is astronomically low, even given the small sample size. There a few possible reasons for this:

1. The practice tests are not representative of the real GMAT, either in difficulty or in types of questions.
- I find this to be unlikely; three of my scores came from the official GMATPrep tests, and four came from the Manhattan GMAT CATs, which I thought were significantly more difficult than the real test but were still representative of real GMAT question types.

2. Somehow the real test conditions were systematically different from the conditions I experienced during the practice tests.
- I also find this to be unlikely. I don't "freak out" during tests, and I did not experience any unusual conditions that would hamper my performance. In fact, I felt highly confident and calm the entire time. While I did not complete the AWA during the first 6 of my 8 practice tests, I don't think this had an appreciable effect, since the AWAs do not bother me (and in fact I just found out I had a 6.0 on them)

3. The variance of scores on the real GMAT is higher than the variance of scores on the practice tests.
- This, I think, is the most likely answer, and it has an obvious reason. The practice tests count all questions toward your score, and thus the sample size is high. However, the GMAT reduces that number by something like 1/4 or 1/3, which substantially reduces the sample size and increases the variance. In other words, a wrong answer has a larger effect on your score in the real GMAT than in the practice tests.

While the true reason is most probably a blend of all three, I feel as if number 3 does not get enough attention, both from GMAC and from test prep companies. To remedy this, the prep companies should randomly choose 1/4 of the questions to not count toward your score to more accurately match the sample size. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

mj12g wrote:Right now I am, shocked, horrified, and ashamed. I just finished taking the GMAT about a half hour ago, and I scored a 700 (44Q/41V). While this may appear to be a decent score, the last time I took the test in September 2009 I scored a 720 (40Q/50V). This time I felt fully prepared: I wasn't hungry, nervous, panicked, tired, cranky, sick, or any other adjective you can think of. I had been scoring well on my practice tests, and I never went below 45 in verbal and also never went below 44 in quant, although that 44 in quant was a single instance; in every other practice test I was scoring 48-50. My actual score in verbal was particularly shocking, as I have never, and I mean NEVER, scored so low on verbal, right back to my very first diagnostic test in 2009. My verbal score is so low that I'm considering calling Pearson and asking if they got my score screwed up somehow. It's that low.

At this point, I don't know what to do. I applied to business schools last year and didn't have much success. This year, my plan was to retake, get a 740 or above, and shoot for some better schools in the first round. Now I'm just lost. I KNOW I can beat this test. In my studying I took the GMATPrep 3 times, scoring 740, 770, and 780. I also took 4 Manhattan GMAT CATs and scored 720, 750, 770, and 740. I'm not really looking for advice, I'm just venting, but now I need to take this test again to prove my mettle.

720 is a decent score and is okay for any top ten US schools you want to apply. While many people are struggling to break the 700 barrier to help them secure the academic aspect of their applications, the weight between 720 and 760 or even 770 is not so significant as to keep you off the door. Moreover, GMAT is NOT the only factor. There are many other factors that the admissions teams take into account. A good GMAT score (700+) should set your foot at the door, but even an 800 score alone cannot get you in. GMAT is like the first screening, but after that, it is your stories that matter.

With a 720 score, I have a strong feeling that it was not your GMAT that kept you out.

im surely missing sumthing here!!! i thought 720 or even 700 is a great score provided ur SOPs & recommendations were decent...can the experts pls comment??

ronaldramlan wrote: 720 is a decent score and is okay for any top ten US schools you want to apply. While many people are struggling to break the 700 barrier to help them secure the academic aspect of their applications, the weight between 720 and 760 or even 770 is not so significant as to keep you off the door. Moreover, GMAT is NOT the only factor. There are many other factors that the admissions teams take into account. A good GMAT score (700+) should set your foot at the door, but even an 800 score alone cannot get you in. GMAT is like the first screening, but after that, it is your stories that matter.

With a 720 score, I have a strong feeling that it was not your GMAT that kept you out.

I hear this often, and I have trouble believing it as many do. First of all, my 720 was heavily skewed toward verbal (I was in the 56th percentile in quant), and if I were an admissions officer, I would not admit someone with such a low quant score.

Also, you have to look at the GMAT the way adcoms most probably do. I don't have much that separates me significantly from everyone else. My work experience is solid but in no way unusual. My GPA was good, but so was everyone else's. I don't have much in the way of post-college extracurriculars. The way I can really separate myself from the pack is with a high GMAT score. I agree that a high GMAT is no way to guarantee admission, but if you need a differentiating factor, it certainly will have an effect. To say that, for an adcom, a 720 is essentially no different from a 770 (as many here seem to claim) is preposterous.

To speak to maddy's post, it's true that a 700 is a great score. I don't doubt that. The problem is competition. I'm aiming for top 10 schools, and nearly everyone applying has a 700 and good recommendations. The key is to beat them, not merely to match them. And every year that becomes harder and harder.

mj12g wrote:

Also, you have to look at the GMAT the way adcoms most probably do. I don't have much that separates me significantly from everyone else. My work experience is solid but in no way unusual. My GPA was good, but so was everyone else's. I don't have much in the way of post-college extracurriculars. The way I can really separate myself from the pack is with a high GMAT score. I agree that a high GMAT is no way to guarantee admission, but if you need a differentiating factor, it certainly will have an effect. To say that, for an adcom, a 720 is essentially no different from a 770 (as many here seem to claim) is preposterous.

To speak to maddy's post, it's true that a 700 is a great score. I don't doubt that. The problem is competition. I'm aiming for top 10 schools, and nearly everyone applying has a 700 and good recommendations. The key is to beat them, not merely to match them. And every year that becomes harder and harder.

Dude, I totally agree with you. You know people can be such hypocrites(sorry if that sounds rude).
People say - "You know, getting an MBA is no big deal, not the end of the world". The fact is they say this after they get an MBA. Similarly people with 760+ scores getting into Ivy Schools say you know 720 is all you need after that its all about essays - blah, blah, blah. Again how did that guy knew he was given an admit based on his essays and not on the GMAT score. To natives or other less represented communities 720 or even 700 can be sufficient for H/S/C. For more people with humbler profiles the GMAT is one of the controllables, the higher ther better. You can always buy an essay, recommendation etc. You can't buy a rockstar GMAT score.

mj12g wrote:I hear this often, and I have trouble believing it as many do. First of all, my 720 was heavily skewed toward verbal (I was in the 56th percentile in quant), and if I were an admissions officer, I would not admit someone with such a low quant score.

Also, you have to look at the GMAT the way adcoms most probably do. I don't have much that separates me significantly from everyone else. My work experience is solid but in no way unusual. My GPA was good, but so was everyone else's. I don't have much in the way of post-college extracurriculars. The way I can really separate myself from the pack is with a high GMAT score. I agree that a high GMAT is no way to guarantee admission, but if you need a differentiating factor, it certainly will have an effect. To say that, for an adcom, a 720 is essentially no different from a 770 (as many here seem to claim) is preposterous.

To speak to maddy's post, it's true that a 700 is a great score. I don't doubt that. The problem is competition. I'm aiming for top 10 schools, and nearly everyone applying has a 700 and good recommendations. The key is to beat them, not merely to match them. And every year that becomes harder and harder.

You are right that the adcoms will spot your weakness on quantitative from your quant score, but there are ways, besides of course taking the GMAT again, in which you can show them that you are quantitatively capable to follow their curriculum, such as showing your good undergrad performance on subjects more heavily weighed towards quant (statistics, calculus, etc), taking quantitative courses (such as accounting and statistics) and getting good grades on those courses. If you feel that you can improve your quant score in the next test, by all means take the test again.

Regarding what you said about whether the adcoms will see you as a common candidate and even though I'm not an admissions expert, I think that how unique you are cannot simply be justified by the individual aspect as you described above. The combination of your work experience, extracurricular and recommendations should create a story of you. That story will tell whether you stand out of the pool. Many people feel that they have nothing unusual in their life and professional aspects, but the adcoms may not see their profile in the same way as they do. Furthermore, your professional background (traditional vs. non traditional) and whether you fall into the under represented applicant pool will differentiate you from the rest of the applicants.

You are right that you are competing against many applicants and need a differentiating factor, but hardly can a GMAT score be one. The way I see GMAT from what the adcoms say is that GMAT, along with GPA, falls into the academic aspects of your profile, but as long as you can prove with a sufficiently high score that you are academically capable to tackle the rigorous curriculum, you are okay and the GMAT is no longer a differentiating aspect. That's why applicants are advised to look at not only the average score but also the mid 80% range, because an average score is just the average, many admitted students will get higher score and lower score than the average. The mid 80% will give you a range of the score of admitted students, and roughly falls in 660-760 for top schools. Coupled with the average score of 715 (except for Stanford and HBS), the mid 80% range tells you that nearly 40% of the applicants have GMAT score between 660 and 715. This means that, solely taking GMAT score alone into account, you have beaten out at least half of the applicants.

Despite what I said, I hope that some admissions experts can comment and share their views.

Regarding your surprisingly low quant score on the real test, did you do the essays before going to quant section during all of your practice tests, including MGMAT and GMATPrep?

Also, many people try to refine their quant skills by feeding themselves with even the most difficult quant questions, don't fall into this trap. They are so obsessed with hard questions as to subconsciously miss relatively easy questions. Well, you are not going to see the hard questions if you don't get the easy ones correct.