760 (50Q, 42V) again!!

[hellogmat]

Originally posted by romero

Congratulations Speedy!!!! That is a great score!!!! I plan to take my GMAT in 3 days hope I fare as well as you did. Do you remember any other questions, especially hard ones? I am in the 650-670 range and really want to cross the 700 barrier. Any help would be apprecited.

thanks
Romero

I wish I could. I remember almost all of the math questions. However, I will be in trouble with the ETS if I disclosed any of the questions. I don't want to take that chance especially after having the score invalidated once for breaking one of their rules. Moreover, the violation would be immoral and unfair to the other test takers.

In any case, if you can solve the OG questions easily, the math is not at all difficult. I did not use any prep material for math other than the tests such as Powerprep, Kaplan, ETS Paper tests, and OG (a few questions at random). The powerprep comes closest to the real GMAT in terms of the type of questions asked.

[nikgmat]

Hi

first of all congratulations on your excellent and consistent performance.

I am going to take my gmat test in a couple of days. I still have problems with the CR. I would like to know if you followed any stratergy for tackling the CR questions.

Thank You.

[abhishek_jha]

Wow, that's a great and consistent score !! Congrats and all the best for your apping.

[Erin]

Awesome post, hellogmat. You've been so very helpful in answering questions for others and sharing your valuable insights. Thanks a million!

I'm happy to see that your scores have gone up so much from 650, but I agree that it seems you've plateaued, but at 760, this is completely understandable.

Please keep us updated on your progress throughout the application process. As I think you know, David Petersam from admissionsconsultants.com is here answering questions. I've talked to him many times on the phone, in email, etc., and he seems *extremely* devoted to doing a great job with his business (he sometimes sends emails at 3 a.m. his time!!).

Congrats again, hellogmat. You deserve all your success and more!

[hellogmat]

Erin,
First of all, I should be thanking you for creating such a useful site, not you thanking me for the contribution!! With the abundance of "me too" sites that promise the world but deliver nothing, the internet would be useless if it did not have some good sites like TestMagic and sentencecorrection that don't promise anything but contribute the world to one's efforts in succeeding in CATs. What make this forum different from other discussion boards are a few things: the positive attitude, the wealth of extremely useful information that most directly contributes to help raise the GMAT scores, the nicely organized and maintained forum topics, the ease of use especially for typing (and editing) the questions and answers, and a chance to make friends through messages. Your direct involvement is invaluable to understand the subtle points that are absolutely necessary to solve hard questions. I had never imagined that my % scores will be equal in verbal and quant and I never had any interest in studying english. All along, my attitude was that I will pull through with my strength in math. Not only have the forums motivated me to learn the finer points of english language, but they have also contributed directly to the increase in my scores.

Secondly, Erin, I sincerely believe that you should write a book titled "Frequently asked questions on GMAT Verbal". (not the actual questions but the types and the fine points to watch out for - even cut-paste from your posts on the two forums will help) I am not exaggerating if I say that you know more about the GMAT than any of the authors of the prep materials, including Kaplan, does. Your expertise is further imbellished because you know the GMAT from a non-native english speaker's point of view as well. None of the prep materials, for example, focuses on the grammar review or explains finer points of grammer that the harder questions tend to test.

I have begun to love solving the SC questions and I hope that continuing to solve those will help me improve my english grammar and style. So, I will continue to visit the sites and inform you about the progress throughout my application process.

Now, I have a few questions for you. Do you think the admission consulting helps? My situation is: -
I have an engineering degree from one of the premier engineering institutes in India. Unfortunately, my undergrad GPA is not very high (7.5/10 -- Equivalent to 2.75 since the overall grade was B-) even though the class rank is OK (5/35). The masters degree in US was a breeze (easy 3.9). I realized that I needed to take the GMAT more than once because some of the schools, such as Haas, ask for two highest GMAT scores. Since academic potential is one of the major factor in deciding the fate of an MBA application, I have to ensure that my application stands out while competing with other applicants with similar background. I read somewhere that I fall in one of the most competitive pools - Indian Engineers.

The leadership potential, another important criterion for admission, is easily demonstrated in my career so far. I have established my own very small IT company that has been profitable for the last 10 years, since its foundation during my third year of engineering. Additionally, my performance at job has helped me get promoted almost every year and command a six-figure salary. I now manage the asia-pacific consulting business unit with more than $2M/yr revenue.

I have always scored among the top 1% in most national/international competitive exams, and I am confident that I will do well in academics no matter how rigorous the courses are. So, I had thought that academic potential would be my strong point. Ironically, low GPA seems to be a weak point on my application because I went to a school that offers the most competitive environment among the top 1% that they recruit in addition to the tough grading.

My target schools are Stanford, Haas, HBS, Kellogg, Sloan and my focus is on entrepreneurship. I don't want yet another high-paying job (a classmate of mine earns less despite having an MBA from Wharton -- a school I don't plan to apply to), but I want to grow my company to the next level (10~100M/yr). Which programs do you feel are best suited for that purpose?

In its featured alumnii, or the existing students, none of the schools has presented a single indian engineer; yet I know that these schools receive a huge number of applications from such candidates and they may very well have students with such a background. Is it so difficult for indian engineers to get into these schools?

Do you believe that the admission consulting will help me improve my chances to get admitted to one of these schools? If the answer is yes, then the question is how?

I want your frank opinion besides David's.

Thanks for reading through the rambling and I hope to receive your reply soon!!

[happyking]

Hellogmat, sorry to bump in when you are inviting Erin's comments. I can't help to say that yr background is awesome, and you deserve the best business school. Do share yr success in application with us in the future.

I'm working in a leading Japanese company. I remember you mentioned that you make trips to Japan frequently in yr job, right? I made trips to Japan also, and will again make trip during 16/Oct to 4/Dec this year. Guess what, I visited India in 1999. I'm also aiming for b-schools as you mentioned in 2004, but before hit a score like yrs, I can't do anything.

Well, wish me good luck...

[ash403]

Hey Deepak (Hello Gmat)
I want to take the test again too. I did quite badly in the Verbal. Scored a 34. I am planning to take it by the 6th of Oct. I have read thru the OG for the first. I am now going through sentence correction.com. What else can i do to improve my verbal scores? I do not like the RCs either. All the sentences in my post begin with an "I". Sorry for the lack of variations! Hehe!

[hellogmat]

Hi Ash,
You can try the Kaplan 800 book. However, I don't think that they go to the level of details that Erin does. For RCs, I have already listed the strategy in my previous post. I improved upon it by practice though. I carefully read the first and last paragraphs and made sure to summerize the paragraph to myself. For the remaining paragraphs, first few sentences + last few sentences of each paragraph is sufficient to figure out what the gist of the paragraph is. If you're really a perfectionist, and if you have enough time, you can always go back to the details after you review the questions.

nickgmat,
Fortunately, I never had trouble with CR. The only question from OG that I had trouble with was the "grain and meat production" question which I have posted on the CR forum here at TestMagic. So, it is difficult for me to emphasize any strategy. The only thing that I can suggest is that you should get yourself familiar with the types of questions such as inference, weaken/strengthen, finding flaws (I had three flaw questions on the GMAT), line of reasoning (similar logic), missing assumption, boldface (unfortunately, the GMAT seems to be asking one or two of these; however, there isn't much practice material for bold face). You can then figure out which type of CR questions you perform badly on and then form a strategy accordingly. The key to CR questions is to be able to identify the conclusion.

I hope that helps.
Good luck.

[Erin]

Hi there, hellogmat. I'll try my best to answer your questions.

Originally posted by hellogmat

What make this forum different from other discussion boards are a few things: the positive attitude, the wealth of extremely useful information that most directly contributes to help raise the GMAT scores, the nicely organized and maintained forum topics, the ease of use especially for typing (and editing) the questions and answers, and a chance to make friends through messages.

Yes, I'm always impressed at how hard people here work, and I've made a few good Internet friends here, too. And a few of them, I've actually had the pleasure of meeting.

Originally posted by hellogmat

I had never imagined that my % scores will be equal in verbal and quant and I never had any interest in studying english. All along, my attitude was that I will pull through with my strength in math. Not only have the forums motivated me to learn the finer points of english language, but they have also contributed directly to the increase in my scores.

I'm very glad to hear that! Actually, I've had a lot of students start of very strong in Quant (engineers, for example) and end up getting the same or even better in the Verbal than in the Quant. But you know that these people are great students, and are accustomed to succeeding in academics.

Originally posted by hellogmat

Secondly, Erin, I sincerely believe that you should write a book titled "Frequently asked questions on GMAT Verbal". (not the actual questions but the types and the fine points to watch out for - even cut-paste from your posts on the two forums will help) I am not exaggerating if I say that you know more about the GMAT than any of the authors of the prep materials, including Kaplan, does. Your expertise is further imbellished because you know the GMAT from a non-native english speaker's point of view as well. None of the prep materials, for example, focuses on the grammar review or explains finer points of grammer that the harder questions tend to test.

Believe me, this is a project that I've had in mind for some time now, and I work on it when I have the chance. The problem is that I have so little free time as it is, and (unfortunately) my books end up taking the least priority. You know what they say--the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

I'm glad that you've mentioned the viewpoint of non-native speakers. I'd like to point out to anybody who's reading that I got my start as a teacher and in grammar by teaching English as Second Language. Soon after, I began teaching TOEFL preparation, and ended up doing that for several years, with literally thousands of students. It was the questions of these hundreds of hard-working students that helped me form my own system of teaching grammar and of explaining. Without this solid grounding in TOEFL, I wouldn't be able to approach GMAT Sentence Correction with the understanding that I now have. I'm saying this particularly because I know that many native speakers tend to downplay the difficulty and importance of learning a second language. I know in a sense that TOEFL is much easier than GMAT, but in another sense, at least from a teacher's point of view, I believe that TOEFL is more demanding than GMAT in that the teacher needs a greater base of knowledge from which to draw.

Originally posted by hellogmat

I have begun to love solving the SC questions and I hope that continuing to solve those will help me improve my english grammar and style. So, I will continue to visit the sites and inform you about the progress throughout my application process.

Wow, that's great to know! I've noticed that you are still answering questions, and I must say that I admire your diligence in learning. You seem to have truly mastered many of the very subtle GMAT SC points in a very short time. It is impressive.

Originally posted by hellogmat

Now, I have a few questions for you. Do you think the admission consulting helps? My situation is: -
I have an engineering degree from one of the premier engineering institutes in India. Unfortunately, my undergrad GPA is not very high (7.5/10 -- Equivalent to 2.75 since the overall grade was B-) even though the class rank is OK (5/35). The masters degree in US was a breeze (easy 3.9). I realized that I needed to take the GMAT more than once because some of the schools, such as Haas, ask for two highest GMAT scores. Since academic potential is one of the major factor in deciding the fate of an MBA application, I have to ensure that my application stands out while competing with other applicants with similar background. I read somewhere that I fall in one of the most competitive pools - Indian Engineers.

First of all, I don't think you can convert your Indian GPA so easily to the US system, at least you cannot simply divide. From what I understand, the Indian schools grade much harder than do the US schools, so the numbers are not comparable. Your Master's will carry more weight anyway since it will show that you are capable of graduate level work. (Was that a good school?)

Unfortunately, the one thing there seems to be absolutely NO lack of in this world is Indians will stellar academic stats and GMAT scores. You've been around for a while, so I'm sure you've noticed that there are many Indians who've scored in the high 700's on the GMAT. So yes, you'll be competing against many of them for only a few spots. You may know that schools try to select applicants so that there will be a broad representation of countries in the school--it makes their programs more diverse.

Originally posted by hellogmat

The leadership potential, another important criterion for admission, is easily demonstrated in my career so far. I have established my own very small IT company that has been profitable for the last 10 years, since its foundation during my third year of engineering. Additionally, my performance at job has helped me get promoted almost every year and command a six-figure salary. I now manage the asia-pacific consulting business unit with more than $2M/yr revenue.

Well, that certainly sounds good, and could very easily end up being what gets you into the better programs. You know at some point, GMAT scores, GPA, etc., are just numbers--the best schools will be choosing based not so much on these numbers as on leadership quality, potential, personality, etc. The schools will want to know that you will fit in well and will contribute to the strength of their programs. I.e., that you will be a leader, a community-builder, etc. The kind of guy (or gal) that everybody wants to be around!

And the fact that you have a job already, and will have a job, will make you less of a risk in today's economy.

Originally posted by hellogmat

I have always scored among the top 1% in most national/international competitive exams, and I am confident that I will do well in academics no matter how rigorous the courses are. So, I had thought that academic potential would be my strong point. Ironically, low GPA seems to be a weak point on my application because I went to a school that offers the most competitive environment among the top 1% that they recruit in addition to the tough grading.

That's good to know, but it sounds like you're in good shape with academics. My gut on this one is that the programs will see your Indian undergrad work in context, and your US Master's in a very favorable light. Try not to play up your scores, grades, etc., as doing so to excess could leave a very negative impression--you risk coming across as obsessed with scores and grades.

Originally posted by hellogmat

My target schools are Stanford, Haas, HBS, Kellogg, Sloan and my focus is on entrepreneurship. I don't want yet another high-paying job (a classmate of mine earns less despite having an MBA from Wharton -- a school I don't plan to apply to), but I want to grow my company to the next level (10~100M/yr). Which programs do you feel are best suited for that purpose?

Okay, here's the part that I feel I cannot help you as much as I would like. Unfortunately, I do not know enough about the various programs to make this kind of recommendation. It sounds like there's a lot on the line here for you, which would make me even more hesitant.

But here are US News' Rankings for Entrepreneurship:

1. Babson College (Olin) (MA)
2. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
3. Stanford University (CA)
4. Harvard University (MA)
5. University of Southern California (Marshall)
6. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)
7. University of Texas–Austin (McCombs)
8. University of California–Los Angeles (Anderson)
9. University of California–Berkeley (Haas)
10. University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
11. Northwestern University (Kellogg) (IL)
12. University of Virginia (Darden)
13. Columbia University (NY)
14. University of Arizona (Eller)
University of Maryland–College Park (Smith)
16. Indiana University–Bloomington (Kelley)
17. New York University (Stern)
University of Colorado–Boulder (Leeds)
19. Ball State University (IN)
20. Cornell University (Johnson) (NY)
21. Dartmouth College (Tuck) (NH)
University of Chicago
23. Baylor University (Hankamer) (TX)
University of Washington
25. Carnegie Mellon University (PA)
San Diego State University
27. Duke University (Fuqua) (NC)

Oh, you have seen this post about Stanford, right?

Originally posted by hellogmat

In its featured alumnii, or the existing students, none of the schools has presented a single indian engineer; yet I know that these schools receive a huge number of applications from such candidates and they may very well have students with such a background. Is it so difficult for indian engineers to get into these schools?

Um, I can't say for sure, but I don't think it's harder for Indians than it is for anybody else of another nationality.

Originally posted by hellogmat

Do you believe that the admission consulting will help me improve my chances to get admitted to one of these schools? If the answer is yes, then the question is how?

The short answer is yes, I do think a consultant can help you, but the question is how much. And once you know how much, then you have to ask yourself whether it's worth it. Many of the people I work with take the attitude that whatever money they need to spend now will be worth it for the future, if the extra points or better essays will help them get into a better school. Many of these people are shooting for top schools and have good jobs already, so they seem not to care so much about the money and time involved in the applications process. I know other students, though, who become very angry at the thought of having to spend so much money just to get into school, especially if these people are working in countries where salaries are comparatively lower. I myself have very mixed feelings about the whole system, but as they say, "It's all part of the game."

In the end, there are many factors to consider, and I think that you are really the only one who can decide. However, remember that the decisions you make now could very well affect the course of your life--think clearly and wisely, and decide what you feel comfortable with now, and what you may in the future wish you had done now. (In other words, no regrets!)

hellogmat, I hope this information has been of help to you. And of course, I wish you the best of luck in the whole applications process.

[gmat20034]

hellogmat, what did you score in yor ETS paper based tests?