Taking the GMAT.

I took it about 3 years ago but never actually went to business school.

It depends on what tier level school you want to go to. For any top tier school, 1400 or above won't keep you from getting in (ie - is good enough, assuming the rest of your application is good). I was able to crack this level.

I'd probably rachet that down by a 100 points or so for each "tier" level, being not an exact science. That is 1200-1400 will probably get you into any second tier school, but to be conservative, shoot higher.

There is (or at least used to be) a writing section also. Scored on a 1-6 basis. I can't be certain, but I am pretty sure as long as you don't really f this part up (get a 4-6 and you're okay), then this part really doesn't matter too much.

TIPS = Well, first off, as with any test, the more you study the better you'll do. This is especially true in regards to practice tests. That can't be stressed enough. I'm also currently undergoing the CFA testing (passed Levels I & II already - yay!) and the style is very similiar. Taking as many practice tests as you can is half the battle. You definietly need to know the underlying material, but I"d even take a practice test before starting to study. Then at least 2 after finishing.

Know your study style. If you know you need to be in a study group, join a study group (Princeton Review, friends, whatever). If you are confident you don't need it and can study on your own, do that. If you know that starting to study 3 months ahead will be pointless, then don't start doing that. But on the other hand, don't wait until 2 weeks to the test if you know procrastination has always been a problem in the past.

If I had to lay out a schedule, assuming you don't need to join a study group and don't have to go back and re-learn all the basics, I'd go with this:

(1) 2 months before = take a practice test. note your strenghts and weaknesses
(2) After the practice test = start studying. plan to learn all the material over the next month and a half. keep in mind your original strenghts and weaknesess.
(3) 2 weeks before the day = finished studying. take a day or two break and take another practice test. again, note your strengths and weaknesses. Spend a week brushing up on key areas, and your weak areas.
(4) 1 week before the day = same practice test and brush up cycle
(5) In the final weak, again review all key areas and weak areas. You can either take another practice test though I'd recommend just sporadically doing questions here and there

Final tip = know your test. The GMAT is special in that your questions, and score, change as a result of how well you're doing during the test. Which means, the key here is to quite obviously not screw up on some of the easier questions. Keep this in mind when studying and doing practice tests. If you think you got one wrong, but it was definitely hard and you're confident you were on a roll to that point, don't fret it, those final questions are suppossed to be hard. You can still get a very good score.

And the coolest thing, imo, is that you get your score right then. AND you can decide to not even get a score if you think you screwed up, and take it again without it really going on your "record"

Keep in mind it is just a test and if any school will truly use only a test score to accept or reject you, you really don't want to go to that school. Seriously. The Harvard, Wharton's, Berkeley's of the world are great, but you can get just as good an education at "lesser" programs. You don't come out with as high paying jobs, necessarily, or as vast an alumni network, but you are just as prepared, if not more so, than other MBA's from any school.

Hope that helps.

EDIT: Oh, and a b-school tip. Obviously, all of those top schools are good for your resume regardless of what you want to do and where. But with all schools, keep geography in mind. This is especially true of any graduate program. If you want to live on the east coast, going to an east coast school would have the most benefits. If you want to live in Texas, a Harvard MBA will be great, but a UT MBA is viewed as just as competitive, if not more so.

 

I'm not sure you took the GMAT. The test is on a scale of 200-800. So....a 1400, assuming 600 magical "bonus" points, should have gotten you the golden ticket.

 

Has the scale for the GMAT changed? I took it on a whim a few years ago. I scored a 720, I think. It was in the 90th+ percentile.

 

ya I took it a while back and got a 680, which was decent I guess. Unless the scale has changed 800 was max.

 

You'll need a score over 700 to get into Ivy League schools I believe. I agree w/ JayZ on taking practice tests. I took one, realized what I needed to study, rinse, repeat. Also the format is very important, which JayZ also described. No pressue, but don't miss the 'easy' ones! I think the killer for me is I took too much time on the really hard ones, so I ended up randomly picking answers for the last few questions.

Does someone know about retaking the GMAT? I had a friend who was trying to get into Wharton, and I think he said something about if you retake it, your past scores will be averaged in. Or maybe only your last score counts, even if it's lower. Or maybe I'm thinking of something else...

I took it a few years ago, I scored somewhere in the high 600's. Does anyone know where we can look it up? I have no idea where my results are. Strangely enough I got a 6 on the writing, which I thought was the most worthless part of the test, and I'm a math guy. Evidently my score was all I needed to get into my program (it's under the business school, but not an MBA, I went for it right after undergrad so no work experience for me), so I'm glad I didn't have to look at another GMAT again Of course, I am actually considering going back to get an MBA right now, so I might need to after all.

 

Buy the blue GMAT book, the one with the old GMAT questions, and just work like a ton of problems. The Kaplan CD/book is good too since it has like 6 practice tests which are really helpful. Also take the practice GMATs with the software that's downloadable from the gmat.com website.

As far as scores, you'll need around a 670 to get into a top-20 school. I scored 710 on it last fall the second time around. My first time I got a 650. Anyways, long story short, I just finished my first semester at McCombs, and I'm having a blast.

 

I took the test earlier this year. I got 700-something (I really can't remember now). I'll echo advice already given:

1. Take a practice test to see where you're weak, and study that.
2. Practice on the computer to get used to the format.
3. Make sure your first questions are right, since they set the difficulty of the later ones.
4. Practice your time management. They don't ask super complicated stuff, but they don't provide a ton of time to answer the questions. So you need to practice against the clock so you have an idea of what your pace needs to be. You don't want to rush through unnecessarily, and you don't want to run out of time.
5. Again, they don't ask super-complicated stuff -- it's all high school math and no calculus (I know I would have scored better on the math at an 18 year old than I did at 30) -- but they try to be tricky. Beware.

 

Whoops...for some reason I was doubling the scores (or maybe I was thinking SAT for some reason). Yes, it is up to 800, and 700+ will get you in anywhere.

 

Could be that you took the GRE and not the GMAT.

 

Use the practice guide that the test makers themselves create. I forget the name of it, it's been so long. But the style of questions is literally identical to what's on the test. Princeton Review and Kaplan aren't good for GMAT prep.

I obviously kicked a$$ on this test, as I am naturally highly intelligent. I scored in the top 0.5% of all test takers. Basically, out of a sample of 1,000 test takers, 5 people had equal or better scores. Gnaw on that for a while. When the lady printed out my score, she handed it to me and said "oh my goodness, wow".

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