560 GMAT - Complete Disappointment with 560!

[Cedars]

Originally Posted by natedog

Thank you for your service. You better downplay your military service because the academic elite are basically anti-military and anti-American. Ironic isn't it? You pay the price for their luxury to to despise you.

Use Manhattan SC for verbal.

I am not sure I agree with your statement natedog, "You better downplay your military service because the academic elite are basically anti-military and anti-American. "
On the contrary, being a former military officer and a West Point graduate, I have found that top five schools are delighted to have military officers in their classes because military officers bring real world leadership experiences that no one else in the class has. This is even more true with military officers that have recently served in combat. Top schools are looking for well rounded leaders and they know that military officers are exposed to real world leadership scenarios that hardly anyone in their peer group has experienced. Of course I am a little biased, but that has been my assessment and all of my classmates assessments that are at Standord, Harvard, and basically every top 10 school in the US.
Now of course you don't want to talk just about your military experience, again you have to show that you are well rounded.

[Dutch]

Cedars,

What year did you graduate?

[dyoh]

Admissions folk know West Point is an elite school which may be enough for admittance into top programs regardless of the experience after WP.

The real world experience you talk about in the military is in the eye of the beholder. The experiences people have in the entertainment biz, manufacturing, construction, biotech, agriculture, education, and defense are all real world experiences. Thinking otherwise would leave a very small world, but maybe I'm biased too.

At the end of the day, we all already know what they want to see - good schools, good grades, good experiences, and good essays. Also, the admissions folk reading your applications will have their own opinions, justified or not, but shining in a few areas should get you through. They want to see that you've been successful in the past and your success will continue, otherwise they're not interested, military brass or not.

[Cedars]

Originally Posted by Dutch

Cedars,

What year did you graduate?

Dutch,

I graduated in 2000.

[natedog]

<<I have found that top five schools are delighted to have military officers in their classes..... >>

I am delighted you have had a positive experience. All the best to you.

I had a warning and a post removed from this site for posting on 9/11 "God Bless America." I guess that is "offensive language" to some folks. If I get banned for this post then so be it. I'm pretty sure this is a U.S. based website so I wonder what we have come to?

[Dutch]

Well, at least I can write...I scored a 6.0 on my AWA...! I am retaking my exam on 02 Jan and using a tutor from ScoreTop. So I am confident that I will break 700!

[jay711]

you surely deserve higher score. aim high and score high. next time you should schedule for the test only after you're ready and confident.

[dyoh]

Originally Posted by Dutch

Well, at least I can write...I scored a 6.0 on my AWA...! I am retaking my exam on 02 Jan and using a tutor from ScoreTop. So I am confident that I will break 700!

Be sure to cover all OG material except the AWA (nice score). You might also need to consider using the excel spreadsheet available on this site that tracks your scores. It really helpes to identify your weak areas and problem concepts. Personally, I was very surprised to find out that I had issues with concepts that I felt I mastered. It's helped me improve my hit rate, but we'll see how effective it really is when I take the test in another month or two.

[Dutch]

Thanks for the input guys. I feel a lot better this time around. I am really focusing on the OG11 problems and so far have been doing pretty good with the questions. Except for SC...I will probably hit that pretty hard and go over the SC 1000 questions.

where do I find the excel spreadsheet to track errors?

D

[dyoh]

Read these two threads

How Ursula used it:
http://www.urch.com/forums/just-fini...ghlight=ursula (760 (Q49, V46))

The grid:
http://www.sentencecorrection.com/fo...?showtopic=714

There are some other versions of the grid, but the point is to track the errors you make to find problem areas. Don't get too specific with it, but note things like parallelism or dangling modifier.