kongo09

In case anyone comes ever back to these posts: I just graduated with distinction from INSEAD. So all is well and my advice concerning the GMAT is still valid. Good luck to all of you! kongo09

In case anyone comes ever back to these posts: I just graduated with distinction from INSEAD. So all is well and my advice concerning the GMAT is still valid. Good luck to all of you! kongo09

Thanks for your kind messages! Erin: that's very kind of you. If you like the article, feel free to use it any way you see fit (make it sticky, put it in a separate article on your page, whatever you like). It is just my humble return to a great website. dafir: You asked about the interviews. INSEAD interviews are conducted by alumni close to where you live (well, if possible). Usually, there are two interviews. Only in exceptional cases where the admissions committee is extremely convinced about your admission already, you might only have to do one interview. Both interviews lasted for about one hour in my case. The interview partners don't know the essays you have written, but only get the six page profile of your application as a basis to ask questions. The structure of both interviews was very comparable, although it is probably more or less up to the interviewers how to question you. First I was asked to introduce myself. I used this opportunity to tell a bit of a story. Where do I come from, what's my background. What did I study and how did that develop. How did I come to choose my first job and how did I progress on my career. I also described my social activities and how that all ties into my personality. It wasn't a big monologue as the interviewers interrupted me at times, either to ask a clarifying question or to show off that they'd read my profile. Occasionally they directed me to another part of my life. But overall, I was very much in control. This lasted for about half an hour. The other half they asked about my motivation for doing an MBA. One of them was quite challenging and you better have some good reasoning prepared beforehand. They also wanted to know why I had chosen INSEAD and which other schools I was interested in (in my case none). An important topic were my plans for after the MBA. Do I plan to go back to my current employer, what alternatives do I see? What do I do if INSEAD doesn't accept me? This part was a bit tougher to survive. Overall, the interviews felt like a very interesting discussion. I even discovered a few things about myself and also learnt a bit about the interviewers as I was bold enough to ask them about their time at INSEAD, their application strategy and their before/after experience. My advice in short would be: read your own essays once more and use that content to tell your story. The admissions committee later compares the profile and your essays with the interview reports and loves to see consistency. Overall, be yourself! Ah, and start by thanking them that they have found the time for your interview. You might want to send a short email to the interviewers the day after just to thank them for their time and the interview. Interviewers are asked to write a report straight after the interview. Maybe that makes another good impression? good luck, kongo09

INSEAD seems to have a problem with their email server for notifications if you have a personal email adress, e.g. an adress with your own domain name. Please refer to this post for explanations: http://www.TestMagic.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=10735

Dear friends, I've been tracking the forum for a few months now and before I disappear into the dark, I'd like to let you know that yesterday I was accepted for the MBA class of INSEAD starting September 2004. You can imagine that I'm quite pleased with this, especially since INSEAD was the only school I had applied for. Some advice on how to prepare for the GMAT and a bit about application writing can be found in another article I wrote some time ago: http://www.TestMagic.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7479 I have one more hint if you intend to apply at INSEAD as well. They have a strange email server that messes up the notification process. The whole admissions process is handled by email. You don't receive any calls or papers by mail. However, there is no guarantee that their emails come through. I learnt that personal email adresses, i.e. adresses based on your own domain name for example, cause problems in their system. In my case I did not receive the invitation to interviews and was waiting for the deadline to expire. However, the deadline is the deadline by when the interview reports already have to be back to INSEAD. Luckily, a rather upset interview partner (usually an INSEAD alumni) called me and asked whether I would still be interested. I was totally confused and thought someone played a joke on me. Not a good start for a smooth interview. So, if the deadline for the interview decision approaches and you haven't heard anything yet, just give them a call. I know they discourage calls but what the heck. My call saved me! Good luck to all of you, kongo09

Dear friends, today I was accepted into INSEAD. I'm quite pleased, as you can imagine. It looks like my strategy has worked out in the end. All the best to you and good luck! kongo09

You are off-topic here. This is for reports on completed tests! To answer your question: If you would like to do sample tests, the best ones are probably POWERPREP. You get them for free when you register for the GMAT. Or download it from the mba.com website. Kaplan and Prineceton tests are not that impressive. I wouldn't worry about them. Rather, complete the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] and make sure you REALLY understand all the explanations. Those of the correct answers and those of the wrong ones. The repeat for all the questions you failed.

1) I never drink coffee or take any caffeine. As far as that is concerned, I don't even drink alcohol or smoke. And of course I am nervous to some extent. And in the case of the GMAT I really had a bad start with nearly coming too late to the appointment. My very personal recipe is to boost my self-confidence. As I wrote, the GMAT is just a test. It doesn't tell you anything about your personality or your potential. It only tells you, whether you can think in a way similar to how the testmakers think. That's it. Moreover, the MBA is not a life-giving, happy-making, save-the-world necessity. If you are a strong and successful character, you will still succeed without an MBA. You can't be stopped by some stupid regulations, tests, admissions committees, etc... What do they know? Nothing! I tend to see these things as a game. Play it hard and you might win. If you lose, you play again. If you keep losing, change strategy or game. But it is still game. Having a great partner, being healthy, enjoying time with friends and family, these values are all more important. Well, most people appreciate this when they lost one of these things. But if you look at the GMAT from that perspective, it is not really that important. I can recommend the book "QI, The Quest for Intelligence" by Prof. Kevin Warwick which opens your eyes concerning IQ tests and standardized tests. Ok, now in practical terms: Be ready with preparation three days before the test. Redo your problem questions. Do timed sample tests. And go to bed early. And don't cancel your score unless you only finished half the questions. 2) In math I found probability most difficult. But that was not because they were very difficult, but because of my bad preparation. Read the probability questions in this forum. Understand the explanations. Especially the hints from hellogmat are very good. Really understand them. Write your own questions and answer them. Explain the questions to your friends (even if they refuse to listen). I math I messed up one probability which was pretty standard (like a group of people, you take two according to some criteria, what's the probability that they match a different criterion). I also messed up one geometry which looked very different from all I had seen before, but actually was very easy, once I thought about it at home. The trick was to break down the problem in easier problems: You are asked for an area of a triangle: Ok, you need base and height. That breaks down the question into two: for base and height. Sounds simple, but that's the whole trick. In verbal, the reading comprehension questions always fooled me. I found it very helpful to read the text properly the first time and not just scan it. In scanning, I was never able to grab the necessary bits of information and always found myself reading major parts again and thus loosing time. However, reading does not mean understanding. Don't try to understand everything. Just read it.

Assume the large container takes 15 units. That means the medium one takes 5 units and the small one takes 3 units. If you fill 90 medium containers, you have 90*5=450 units of powder. Now you can setup an equation: Let n be the number of large containers. As the number of small containers is the same, it is also n. 15n + 3n = 450 => 18n = 450 => n = 25 You need 25 large and 25 small containers. The correct answer is therefore A.

List A contains all even integers from 1 to 100, i.e. 50 numbers. The question asks for those that are not in list B, i.e. those, that can not be divided by 3. Writing down the numbers, you see that every third integer in list A is divisible by three: 2 4 -6- 8 10 -12- 14 16 -18- etc... For each number that is divisble by three, there are two that are not divisble by three, and they always come in blocks of three end of the block being a multiple of 6. The last of these blocks ends with 96, which is 16 * 6. These 16 blocks have 32 integers, that are not divisible by three and 16 integers that are divisible by three. Add the integers 98 and 100 and you get a total of 34 integers that are in set A but not in B. The correct answer therefore is E. You can do a crosscheck by calculating the total number of integers in set A: 34 are not divisible by 3 plus the 16 that we found to be divisible by three gives the 50 that we figured out right in the beginning (100 divided by 2).

If the point P is sitting inside circle C and line L goes through P, line L also has to intersect with circle C two times: once when it enters the circle, a second time when it leaves the circle. Note, that P is inside C. If P were on C, L would be a tangent having only point P in common with C. With P outside C, you couldn't answer the question, because L could intersect C, be a tangent or not touch C at all. The correct answer therefore is C.

Another rather important piece of advice Ok, I did a fine GMAT score. But is that the door opener to your dream school? No, it is not! Yesterday, I posted my application and overall I spent about two weeks full-time drafting and preparing it. Don't underestimate this. This is major work. What took the time? Filling in the school form takes you a couple of hours. However, you want to really fine tune that. Don't use extra sheets of paper unless the form explicitely states that you may do so. The admissions officers get so much paper, they're not amused by your lengthy extra sheets. Make yourself really shine. Put in all these cool extra things you did on the side. Show you care for your community and people. Show your sports achievements. But in doing so, demonstrate your leadership capabilities. Member of clubs X or Y doesn't do it. Show that you organized things, led teams, had money to budget, etc... This fine tuning took me at least another two days. Ensure that your recommendations are top notch. You can't leave that to chance. Talk to the prospective recommenders. Ask them, whether they can justify doing a top reference for you. If not, approach someone else. Spend time on your essays. This took about a week for me. Writing the essays is very difficult. Well, you write one in no time. But again, you want it to be top quality. So be sure to be succinct, to explain your weaknesses, to demonstrate your strengths. Use personal examples. The admin officers would like to meet you virtually. Make the essays personal. And do not use a ghost writer. They will almost certainly spot it and that's a knock out. However, you should discuss your writings with friends and family and a native speaker could be of help as well. Overall, I found this at least as difficult as doing the GMAT. And in terms of admission, you can make many more mistakes in this part of the application than you can do in a well prepared GMAT. So take your time!

Thanks for the praise. I still find myself coming back to check the forum. Great place! To answer the question: The head of the test centre had told me that I could not use spare time left for extra break and that I shouldn't do it anyway since the air in the room would be so bad after some time so that I should come out as soon as possible. That's bullocks. Just answer the last question of the section and lean back. Don't hit NEXT and CONFIRM until ten seconds are left. Be aware, that if you hit NEXT the CONFIRM button lights up for only some seconds, so you can't hit NEXT and then a few seconds before time is up hit CONFIRM. You have to do both. And you don't want to mess this one up, right? In any case, I found this extra time very helpful. It doubled my breaks and you definitely are more relaxed for the next session. As far as the working conditions were concerned, the air was really bad. What was worse is the flickering screen. They used some antique PCs with 60Hz or so refresh frequency. I found it very hard to concentrate under these conditions - but after some time the test had sucked me in enough to not realize anymore

I'm sorry to say this but you must be joking. Do you really believe that the quant score reflects your ability as an engineer and therefore you should score higher? That's ridiculous. You say you aim for the top 5 schools. If you are truly convinced that ten points more or less on the GMAT make; a difference for the schools when you score above 700, you are surely mistaken. Personality and suitability for senior management are for more important factors. If I were and admissions officer and saw someone with 770 take a test twice only a month after, I'd conclude that this person doesn't have anything else todo in life. Have you ever calculated your opportunity cost of studying for another month? You should invest that time on preparing a superb application, writing brilliant essays and making sure that you enter all schools in the first round. And if you've done all that already, volunteer for some community work. That's a better investment.

Hi folks, I did the test today and as you can imagine I am quite pleased. First the obligatory thanks to the forum. Great stuff around! So what is my advice for you? Most important: Don't panic! GMAT is just a test. It is not some supernatural thing. And as a test, it can be beaten. Remember the Matrix? GMAT is not easy. You definitely need sound preparation. But I don't believe that the extra month will do it. If you in general are quite strong in language and math, two weeks should do the job. If you have problems to understand explanations to questions posted to this forum, you need much more. I used Kaplan, Kaplan 800, Princeton and the Official Guide. Forget about Kaplan and Princeton if you aim at a score above 700. Both companies try to maximize profit and therefore target the bulk of people in the middle field. Kaplan 800 is a nice one day read but doesn't add too much value either. The most important things I learnt from these books were: Use process of elimination! Guess if you spent too much time on the question! The only MUST is the Official Guide. These questions come very close to what I saw on the real thing. You have to get the feeling for it. I managed to do about half of the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip]. You should do everything. Do it on paper with some neat answer form prepared. Then later, you can tick all the questions you did wrong. It is crucial, that you really understand the explanation. All the stuff you find in Kaplan and Princeton is actually in these explanations - just much better. Kaplan and Princeton don't have real GMAT questions, and frankly I find them of a different style. They don't give you the right feeling. Sometimes, their questions are plain wrong. I found questions on the Kaplan CD in the first test that had real bugs like the underlined part not matching choice A. The books seem to be compiled without too much editorial effort. Just a money maker. Forget them. On the other hand, the questions in the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] are very well designed. Just like on the real test. So get their feeling. Repeat all the wrong questions. And not only know why you made a choice, but also why the other choices were wrong. In the beginning, I found it very helpful to not try to solve the questions in the allotted time. Take your time. Understanding is more important than speed. If you are confident that you could answer all the questions if you only had enought time, it means you understood the reasoning. Only then go for speed. Keep in mind that some questions will always take longer than others to answer. So don't get upset with one taking three minutes rather than the average. Frankly, I believe that the Kaplan strategy of taking a lot of time for the first few questions is wrong. You want to get to the hard questions. So you want the first ones to be correct. However, hard questions take more time. There is no point in getting to hard questions and then failing to answer them. So in the beginning you get the easier ones. And you really feel that they're easier. So don't waste time triple checking. Save time for the real brain teasers. In math, I found the difference between hard and easy quite striking. Easy ones can be answered in seconds. Some hard ones I still haven't understood. In verbal, I wasn't able to observe too much difference. But maybe that's because I'm not a native speaker, so they're all difficult to me. While you go through the official guide, compile a list of all your mistakes if they can be generalized. Write down all these stupid mathematical concepts about triangles, equations about probability, idioms, etc... Finally, do [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] questions with real timing. By then, you should be able to fly through. Remember, this is not about memorizing the whole book, but about understanding the concept. Your brain will indeed memorize, but also recognize different questions as similar to those seen before. That's what happened to me on the real test. You see a question that's new and still you think: wow, sounds familiar. And that's because you've learnt a concept by then. The last thing to do is Powerprep. You will probably score quite high because the questions are those of the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip]. But that's only good for your ego! And the Powerprep test is as close as it can get. I felt it to be important to get the real feeling. On test day, make sure you are on time. I had planned to be there 40 mins in advance and then got stuck in traffic so that I arrived only 5 minutes in advance. Bad start. You don't want to panic. And relax. People are friendly. When I came to the center, the other test takers were quite tense. Sitting around quietly, nobody talking. So hey, make a joke and let off some steam. It helped me a lot and I felt that everyone was going in with a much easier mood then. Suddenly, you have allies. You're not alone. During the test, use your breaks. The test is long and you need them. Don't worry about the past section. It's gone. Instead, go to the toilet, stretch your legs and drink water. Don't waste valuable break time should you finish earlier with a section. Use that time as well. You recharge a bit and that helps. In the end, don't cancel. You haven't done too badly. Trust yourself. And don't panic! I don't believe that the test tells too much about your abilities. I am a scientiest with quite a math background. Still, I scored higher in the verbal section - in spite of being a non-native speaker. So if the business schools put a lot of weight on the test, don't be fooled. It is just a way to kick out people. But it has nothing to do with yourself. And always remember: Standardized tests produce standardized minds!