GMAT - The first step

Well, I have already crossed the first hurdle last month. After two failed attempts at preparing for the test year, I finally decided to take an appointment for June end and started my preparation with around 2 months time. The credit crisis had taken all the steam out of my job so I had all the time in the world to prep up for the test and so I did. And wholla! I hit the jackpot - a 760 with a higher percentile in verbal than in quants. What more could an engineering grad hope for on his best day. Few tips for those who are yet to take the first plunge into the process:

I started my prep with a very basic revision of verbal fundae coz I didnt really feel the need to brush up on quants (an engineer is always overconfident with numbers). Then I took my first GMAT prep tests to gauge my status. I did score pretty well but I realized I had cracked verbal merely on hunch. So I set out to read and solve all verbal stuff I could lay my hand on.

Fact 1 : Never do what I did, i.e. never study too much stuff. A lot of what is available out there is sheer crap. I would suggest Manhattan Gmat Verbal guide especially for the sentence correction part. It is clear concise and more then enough if you have your basics right. The GMAC OG last two editions are best for problem solving. If you find that too easy just re-do it and try to understand the logic behind the answers rather than just bother about how many you scored correct.

Quants is relatively easier and I guess one needs to score really high to get a good percentile. I only managed a 95% despite a score of 50. So make sure you get enuff practice if it is needed. OGs are slightly below the test standard on quants and solving something such as kaplan or manhattan could possibly help. Dont think I can help much with this coz never really bothered about it anyway.

Fact 2: If you find yourself unable to complete in time practice with Kaplan or princeton tests. These are much tougher than the real thing but they improved my timing a lot and if you can finish these in time you dont need to look at the clock in the test( don't take this literally ;) )

The essays are pretty much sanitation if you can put your thoughts together into sensible english and pen them down quickly. I practiced about five issues and five arguments and it worked out fine for me.

Make sure you keep one of the GMAT Prep tests for the end. That is the closest thing on earth to the real test. Don't lose heart if you score low. Who know's if you strike gold on the D-day. ]

Best of luck to those taking the test. I am willing to help with any questions that anyone has around prepping up and the test.

Friends and fellow bloggers...this is my first blog inspired by the many experts of blogging who have penned down their experiences of MBA application process. I start this blog with the hope that in the process of writing down my thoughts I will rediscover myself in a new way and probably help a few others along the way in the achievement of the mega MBA dream. At this point I can only hope that like the many other bloggers whose blogs I religiously went through I end up getting my admit at the end of it all.

Cheers
Phoenix