730
47 scaled quantitative (82 percentile)
44 scaled verbal (97 percentile).
I'm 40, traditionally have tested in the 90th percentile or so on SAT (1983) and GRE (1989). I've been married 13 years, have daughters ages 8, 10 and have been juggling a full-time job (copy editor at the local paper), a weekly fantasy sports column (about another 10 hours or so) and studying for this puppy for the last two months.
I used McGraw-Hill's GMAT with CD and the GMAT freeware from MBA.com--a total of 14 sample tests.
Yesterday morning, I took the final GMAT prep and got a 670. I figured I was due for a 620-650, a fine score, but nothing brilliant.
I was wrong. Each time I took a sample test, the kids would be yelling, the wife would be asking for something off the honey-do list, the works. It was bloody frustrating, and I was so distracted that I figured I'd never do a great job. I was wrong.
I think some Divine Intervention was involved, but part of that could have been the duress under which I had to practice. Once in the cocoon of the actual testing conditions--where I was left alone and had silence and time to concentrate, I got into the zone.
I "underwhelmed" mathematically--because I was testing higher--about the 90th percentile--on math at home, but I had been having major problems with the verbal because a lot of the sample sentences are in gibberish (no person on Earth should write in such a nonsensical fashion!), and they often ask you to turn a sentence with seven commas into a sentence with six! Hey, how about turning that sentence into three sentences so the layman can understand it? Sheesh, but that's another song for another album. Anyway, on that final sample GMAT, I got a 55 percentile on verbal. So I went from 55 in practice to 97(!) three hours later in real life.
Needless to say, this is a test I don't plan on taking again--I see that a 730 is 97th percentile, and theoretically that score is good enough for any school in the land.
I had an awful undergraduate record (2.1 GPA). I went to grad school for journalism for two years (finished all my academic work, but didn't hang around to finish my thesis) and had a GPA around 3.55, so perhaps a top-notch school will overlook my bad grades from 20 years ago because I had good grades as a grad student.
Still, it's really hard to get into a great school.
If Harvard, Yale or MIT doesn't want me, that's fine. I've learned over the years that you have to work for what you want, and if I go into even a fourth-tier school, that's OK, because once I get hired, I'll have to earn my salary every day. My 730 isn't going to help me teambuild or improve morale in a sagging department.
Cheers and happy holidays to you guys, good luck to you all, and perhaps we'll meet in class or in the world!
47 scaled quantitative (82 percentile)
44 scaled verbal (97 percentile).
I'm 40, traditionally have tested in the 90th percentile or so on SAT (1983) and GRE (1989). I've been married 13 years, have daughters ages 8, 10 and have been juggling a full-time job (copy editor at the local paper), a weekly fantasy sports column (about another 10 hours or so) and studying for this puppy for the last two months.
I used McGraw-Hill's GMAT with CD and the GMAT freeware from MBA.com--a total of 14 sample tests.
Yesterday morning, I took the final GMAT prep and got a 670. I figured I was due for a 620-650, a fine score, but nothing brilliant.
I was wrong. Each time I took a sample test, the kids would be yelling, the wife would be asking for something off the honey-do list, the works. It was bloody frustrating, and I was so distracted that I figured I'd never do a great job. I was wrong.
I think some Divine Intervention was involved, but part of that could have been the duress under which I had to practice. Once in the cocoon of the actual testing conditions--where I was left alone and had silence and time to concentrate, I got into the zone.
I "underwhelmed" mathematically--because I was testing higher--about the 90th percentile--on math at home, but I had been having major problems with the verbal because a lot of the sample sentences are in gibberish (no person on Earth should write in such a nonsensical fashion!), and they often ask you to turn a sentence with seven commas into a sentence with six! Hey, how about turning that sentence into three sentences so the layman can understand it? Sheesh, but that's another song for another album. Anyway, on that final sample GMAT, I got a 55 percentile on verbal. So I went from 55 in practice to 97(!) three hours later in real life.
Needless to say, this is a test I don't plan on taking again--I see that a 730 is 97th percentile, and theoretically that score is good enough for any school in the land.
I had an awful undergraduate record (2.1 GPA). I went to grad school for journalism for two years (finished all my academic work, but didn't hang around to finish my thesis) and had a GPA around 3.55, so perhaps a top-notch school will overlook my bad grades from 20 years ago because I had good grades as a grad student.
Still, it's really hard to get into a great school.
If Harvard, Yale or MIT doesn't want me, that's fine. I've learned over the years that you have to work for what you want, and if I go into even a fourth-tier school, that's OK, because once I get hired, I'll have to earn my salary every day. My 730 isn't going to help me teambuild or improve morale in a sagging department.
Cheers and happy holidays to you guys, good luck to you all, and perhaps we'll meet in class or in the world!
