TwinnSplitter

Awesome, you'll have fun here, it's a great school! The new Hyde Park campus is absolutely amazing (I've been taking a few classes there lately to get me ready for my MBA). When you say finance, do you mean PhD in Finance or an MBA with a finance concentration?

Thanks everyone again for all of the kind words, it's awesome how much of a community-feel this site has. Grey, thanks for the congrats! How did the admissions season turn out for you? Have you decided where you're going yet?

Hi FiF for GMAT, Sorry for taking a while to get back to you (schedule's been pretty hectic lately), but I hope that my advice is still relevant. I think that if you didn't regularly study in the month between the cancellation and the test, then that would definitely explain the drop, as it is very easy to get out of the ETS mode of thinking very quickly (e.g. if I took the test right now there's no way I'd do as well). However, if you did regularly study in the same way that you did before the cancellation, then it may just have been an issue of you letting a relatively insignificant issue (the cancellation) rattle your concentration and confidence, even though there was no reason to lose confidence--after all, a month isn't enough time to lose your skill, as long as you didn't burn yourself out. So, I would just recommend to get back into the studying mode, and be mentally tough--don't let this bring you down. In my opinion, if someone does well on the practice test s/he can do well on the actual test (assuming s/he hadn't already seen the questions on the practice test), it's just a matter of staying mentally tough, focused, and relaxed.

lol, I was actually very seriously considering law school, but once I began to do a little more research I realized that law is often not what most people think it is. I wanted to do work that I found interesting, and when I found out that most lawyers never saw the courtroom but rather saw a constant barrage of paperwork, I decided that I should look more into business. Then, the more I researched business, the more I saw that there were tons of sub-fields under the broad umbrella of "business" that I found extremely interesting, so I decided that an MBA was what I wanted to do. Also, despite some people's opinions to the contrary, I believe that an MBA is much more of a generalist's degree that can be applied anywhere. Plus, if there's one thing I don't like doing in school, it's work that requires extensive literary research--which is exactly what you need to do if you want to excel as a lawyer :yuck:

Hi CTG, First of all, congrats on the great score! As far as how I addressed the lack of work experience, there were two main aspects of my efforts to convince them to accept me without work experience: 1. Convincing them that my own experiences had the equivalent effect on me as would traditional work experience. Because I didn't do a traditional internship at a large corporation, but rather did one at a much smaller firm, I was able to get assigned to projects with much greater responsibility than is usual for an intern. I felt that this, combined with the challenges I faced in my personal life and the leadership positions I took in extracurriculars, gave me a substantial amount of indirect experience. Thus, I tried (and apparently succeeded) to convince the AdCom that while I lacked formal work experience, my part-time/informal experience allowed me to mature and grow to such an extent that I would not be at a disadvantage to those with full-time work experience, and that I would be able to contribute just as much in the classroom. 2. Convincing them that my lack of experience would actually be an advantage in allowing me to contribute a unique perspective. In my essays, I argued that because people's work experience may have accustomed them to looking at problems a certain way, my lack of work experience would allow me to provide a perspective which was relatively unique, not coming from an expert in any particular field or industry but rather from somewhat of an outsider. While it certainly wouldn't be good to have an entire MBA program full of people with outsiders' perspectives, I argued that having a few of these would add to the discussion, providing more of a theoretical/outside-the-box view of things. However, I made sure to emphasize that I wouldn't only be theorizing, but would rather be making sure that my perspectives were grounded in the real-world by integrating the perspectives and knowledge that I gained from my classmates who had full-time experience. Thus, I argued, our class would have a good combination of real-world practicality and outside-the-box thinking, with my classmates giving me real-world perspective and me giving my classmates an outsiders' theoretical view of things. I also argued that, because I came from the Econ program at UChicago (perhaps the most theoretical program out there), but also had a reasonable amount of real-world experience (see the first part of this post), I was a good candidate to be the one who provided this theoretical/outside-the-box view of things while still keeping it grounded in the real world. As an aside, I would highly recommend doing something that really makes you stand out from the crowd while also giving you leadership experience you can talk about. For example, I spent a summer as a surf guide on a Spanish-speaking island in Panama (even though I don't have a drop of Spanish blood in me), and I think that it really added to my application. It gave me an amount of leadership responsibility which is pretty tough to get when you're younger, it was very unique, and it showed that I was willing to explore and appreciated diverse cultures (something VERY important to AdComs). One more thing I believe helped me get in was my academics. I've been fortunate enough to do very well in school and on the GMAT, and, being a college senior without full-time experience, these were crucial aspects of my application. However, for the more general population (i.e. those with work experience), I want to emphasize that the GMAT is NOT AS IMPORTANT AS YOU THINK. While there is always an additional benefit to a higher score, the marginal benefit of a 790 to a 750 is just that: marginal. Essentially, if you have a 730 or higher, don't worry about your score keeping you out, but rather focus on other more important aspects of your application. Exceptions to this rule: people without work experience, for whom academics become a more substantial portion of their application; people with poor undergrad GPAs, for whom a high GMAT can show that they can handle the work; people without much quantitative experience; and perhaps the ultra-competitive Indian IT pool, although a high GMAT won't be your differentiating factor (those come dime a dozen in this group)--your experiences, extracurriculars, and essay spin will be. haddy, I am very glad that I was able to help so much in your preparation for the GMAT. If there's anything that you (or anybody else) need, either in terms of GMAT prep or more generally admissions advice, let me know and I'll do my best to help out! Good luck everyone!

Hi FiF for GMAT, For CR, there's 2 sections per test, 10 sections per book, about 25 questions per section, for a total of 500 questions. So, if you take around 2-4 minutes per question (including time to review the correct answers), that totals to about 25 hours to do every CR question in the book. If you're doing RC as well, there's 1 section per test, and you should be a little more strict on yourself in terms of timing for RC, so figure about 10 hours to do all the RC sections in the book. Of course, for both types of questions you should be looser on timing in the beginning, to make sure you've got the concepts down. Then, once you feel that you've got a solid grasp of the concepts, start tightening down the time until you eventually get to the LSAT's prescribed 35 minutes per section.

Thanks, everyone, for the congratulations. I am really excited to be attending Stanford next fall, and hopefully will see some people from this forum there too:) Erin, like the other poster who got into the GSB, I will definitely make a strong effort to come meet you and personally thank you once I move out to Palo Alto.

hey everyone just wanted to post a little update on what's been going on with me. I just got into Stanford (my top choice since I plan to work in CA in the long run), so it looks like I'll be heading back to California next fall. I have never been so elated in my life! Also, I still check back on this forum occassionally, so if anybody has any questions about the GMAT, the application process, or anything else, fire away! Good luck to everybody!

congrats on the great score! glad my debriefing helped!:)

agreed

Agree with OA. "In less than 35 years since..." implies that we are discussing something that happened over a period of time. "Less than 35 years after..." implies that we are discussing a reality that exists at a point in time. I believe that the author's intent was to display the reality that existed 35 years later, rather than describe what was going on within that 35 year period.

I was allowed to do mine after the test also. Just tell them you accidentally hit the "next" button. And unless something's changed since I took the test, it's 5 schools, not 3.

It depends on how majority is being used. If the sentence is saying "A majority of X" or "The majority of X", then it is plural so we would use "want" rather than "wants." So, for example, you could say "the majority of students want lower fees." If majority is being used as a noun in and of itself rather than describing a fraction of a group, then it's singular. So, for example, you could say "the student majority wants lower fees."

definitely think it should remain TestMagic...as others said, it's got sentimental value:)

good work buddy, congrats!

Hi gmat4me, To be honest, I would say that the Kaplan LSAT material is horrible (just like the Kaplan GMAT material for the verbal section). They simply don't put the time and effort into their research that LSAC and GMAC do. hi jslaught83, That's a good question...unfortunately, I don't know the answer. I'm not sure how much overlap there is between the 10th and 11th edition (I haven't looked at the 11th), but if there isn't much overlap, here's an option: Buy both the 10th and 11th. Use 10th edition to work on while you're going through Manhattan SC, and once you're done with Manhattan SC, you can move onto 11th edition. This way, you'd have a whole new set of SC questions which you haven't seen before to work on.

hi CTG, When I said that there weren't any softcopies available, I meant official softcopies. The first question looks like it could be a real LSAT question, but the second one doesn't (the question stem isn't complete, unless it was copied incorrectly).

you can order the hard copy online at https://os.lsac.org/Release/Shop/Shop_Books.aspx?po=Y I don't believe that there is a softcopy available, although there is a free sample test at http://www.lsac.org/pdfs/2005-2006/LSAT-test-new.pdf

hi subzero, Although I don't have much experience with the 1000 CR questions, I can almost guarantee you that the LSAT ones are of better quality...in fact, they are even of better quality than the GMAT ones (in my opinion), although they are also more difficult.

good job buddy, I had a good time working with you (as piyusht) in the SC section of testmagic...I owe at least a couple of my points in verbal to all the SC advice and knowledge you posted back when you were piyusht.

my advice would be to buy the book with 10 actual LSATs, which includes the answers. It's a very cheap investment (I think around $30), especially when compared to the amount of money one makes when coming out of a good MBA program. Also, who knows whether the LSAT questions on Scoretop are actual LSAT questions or whether they are the same garbage ones you can find in a Kaplan or PR book. Another option is to simply post the most difficult questions that you want to know the answer to onto TestMagic, since I'm sure that people would reply and thus give you a general idea of whether you are correct (although they may get angry with you when you don't post an OA).

If your work experience is solid, I think you should have a good chance with 2 years of w/e....in fact, Harvard and Stanford are moving more towards applicants with less work experience, and MIT recently sent me a letter saying that they were specifically targeting me as a younger candidate.

hi rupalims, see post #148 of this thread.

Kaplan's Math Review for the GMAT and GRE

yup, I have windows XP and it worked on my computer...I'm not a computer pro tho, so I'm not exactly sure how to fix ur problem, sorry;)