Oh my god! I just took my second Princeton practice GMAT and am consequently freaking out! This is NOT OK! After having studied for a couple weeks my score has not improved at ALL??? WTH? My first practice exam before any studying was a 640, 41-Q 37-V which pretty much sucked, I should have done MUCH better on the quant. The verbal I expected to suck at. But I blamed it on the fact that my time management sucked and with a little review and practice I'd do fine the second time around...well it turns out I'm just plain stupid. This time I still got the 640 with a 42-Q and 36-V? I am borderline retarded apparently.
I am going to try really hard to not go crazy over this. I have to hunker down and stop playing so much. It's time to give up the salsa dancing until August. Dammit! I'm going to go take a nap now until I feel better.
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Before you conclude that you are borderline retarded, perhaps you should try some other (non-Princeton review) tests. Maybe PR does not closely approximate the GMAT, and you are not doing well because of this difference (I am speculating here!). Have you taken the GMAT prep test? That's the "official" mock test, and should give you a fair idea of where exactly you stand (you can download it from mba.com).
640 is an 80%ile score, so while it's not a good score it certainly doesn't put you in the stupid category! But it's good to know that you have very lofty expectations of yourself.
FSM- Thank you for the rational thought. As you can tell, I have lost my ability to reason at this point :-). I have decided I will take one practice exam per week (Kaplan or GMAT Prep) until G-day. And if I still can't get a 750 well then I don't deserve to go to b-school and I will embrace my borderline retarded status. I'm not so sure I could be any less politically correct?
Just a thought .. why are you so hung up on 750? I am sure that no school (even Stanford) would reject any applicant with a 700 GMAT score on that basis alone. A higher score is always better of course, it's just that if you have a 700 GMAT score, then other parts of your app will have to be stronger.
Having said that, I am aiming for a perfect 800 :-) I like to aim for the maximum, but at the same time if I end up scoring 700, I will go ahead and apply with that score.
BTW I think of my expected score as a normal distribution with -3 and +3 sigma values at 700 and 800 respectively ( remember Statistics 101 :-) ). Depending on my performance on G-day and a bit of luck, my score will lie within that range but it's most likely to be in the middle of that zone. In case you hadn't noticed, I have conditioned myself to be overconfident :-)
I believe that mostly you are upset not because of the score (you know you can do a lot better than that)but because of the fact that all these hours of studying don't seem to have worked out. And I say don't seem to, because believe me they did. Ask yourself, was my timing better this time, was I more accurate, am I able to spot my weaknesses a lot better now, etc...? Like you, my first two tests were a tragedy but after that, all of a sudden for no specific reason I had an enornous improvement and I started "hitting" around my target scores.
Plus, I couldn't agree more with FSM. You could never win a battle in which you don't believe in!!!
good luck on your GMAT preparation!
the best thing probably to do now is to revisit what happened in the test, and see how you can change what went wrong. also, as fsm pointed, your application to bschools need not only be gmat dependant.
good luck
You are all too kind! I am feeling slightly better about the whole situation now. I have stepped away from the bridge :-)
I am hung up on the 750 because I feel that my app is weak. I have very little leadership/management experience and I am an awful writer (in case you hadn't noticed reading my blog :-) So what I have going for me is my demographic (female mechanical engineer is not very common), a fairly high GPA from a pretty good university, and with any luck a 750 GMAT! (there are other accomplishments that I'm proud of but very few are career related)
After reviewing the exam I definitley saw very specific weaknesses and I will concentrate my efforts there. So in the end, there is some benefit to my failure at the practice exam!
Thank you again to all who commented, it does help to see rational people out there in teh blogosphere :-)
Honestly, stop "score shopping." That is, putting the notion into your mind that "you have" to score a 750 feeling that it is a be-all-end-all score.
Scoring a 750 on the GMAT, in and of itself, is not a going to get you into any school.
The GMAT is only part of your application and schools often accept those with lower-tiered GMATS (e.g., 500 - 680) because the applicant had a compelling APPLICATION.
You have to tell a compelling story about yourself and paint yourself as someone the AdCom MUST admit. The involves your essays and your recommendations.
One of the biggest mistakes people make is writing essays that the AdCom's want to hear and not writing essays that are truthful.
One of the other mistakes people make is submitting essays and letters of recommendation that do not mesh together or communicate the same principles or points.
As my admissions consultant put it, "the applications process is suffering from severe 'grade inflation'." That is, people are fluffing everything up and not showing any flaws... NOTHING in this world is flawless!!
In my opinion, your high undergrad GPA and chosen profession (i.e., engineering) should more than compensate for any discrepancies in your GMAT score because you obviously have the quantitative abilities.
Your task is communicating to the AdCom that, despite a low GMAT score, you possess and consistently demonstrate (school and in your profession) superior quantitative abilities.
The AdCom knows that there are a great deal of highly intelligent people who are not good diagnostic test takers. However, if these people cannot communicate this to the AdCom's then they might possibly be rejected simply on those grounds.
If you had a low GPA and were not in a quantitative-field or were in an applicant pool whose applicants had high GMATS, then obviously, your GMAT would need to be high.
Tell me about it. ! Princeton sucks ! Try something else. Powerprep is the best to take rite now. It will aleast boost your confidence besides telling your your truer score.
I suffered this blow a week ago and now i have stopped looking at score. My aim now is not to get a 45+ on the Quant or 40+ on the verbal. The key is to get as many questions correct as possible. The score will follow.
Just an honest advice ! Quit Princeton. It got an sick CAT algorithm.
I took a Veritas Prep course. the instructor once worked for Princeton review as an instructor, but subsequently left...
His take: Princeton review SUCKS.. They teach you short-cuts and that's about it.
Hey,
Thanks for leaving comment on by blog.
I think what happened to me is an aberration where Adcom did not have anything substantial to point out. Maybe it was that adcom member's first feedback session :(
I echo others' comments. Dont be hung up on GMAT for a very high score. Also, enjoy GMAT and you will by itself score good.
At the end it will all work out. As a person who wasn't satisfied with the first GMAT score, I really want to believe that if I put my heart to it, it will turn out as I want. :)
Cheers!!
I just took the Manhattan GMAT prep course and passed the 700 barrier. I had taken the gmat twice and was scoring in the mid 600's. Just took the course from Manhattan, took the test and got a 720. Their test prep course teaches you the actual content. Check them out!!!!
BTW - Veritas Prep Sucks.. waste of my money. stay away from them!
Veritas Prep fraudulently claims that its instructors have all scored in the 99th percentile. At least in one instance, the instructor who taught the course at DC area had not taken the GMAT ever. Veritas prep also falsely claims that it updates its materials by working with GMAC. GMAC has denied any such association with Veritas and is proceeding against Veritas Prep and its principals. Don't get suckered by Veritas deceptions. Know the facts.
Manhattan GMAT and Veritas Prep are shams. MGMAT relies on OG11, which is about questions RETIRED, not active now. They do not cover half the stuff that is currently live on the GMAT. Veritas Prep is a joke: they falsely claim that their instructors have all scored in the 99th percentile: I applied for Veritas job and stated that my score was in the 95th percentile. They said, no problem, come on board. They buy tests you can buy directly from Arco, 800Score.com for less than 10th of the price they charge. I have taken the MLIC Turboprep course and was actually trained with questions that are relevant to the current GMAT. They make you show them that you have mastered the concepts and procedures. Check it out at http://www.mlicets.org and read about the comparison with other courses. They are so true.
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