For those of my readers who are still in the planning phase of their MBA journey it will be very beneficial to learn about the GMAT Scholarship offered by Beatthegmat.com.
Beat the GMAT (BTG) is one of the few internet sites that provide a unique community platform not only for those who are yet aspiring to embark on the MBA experience, but also for those who are already plowing through the rigors of the business school.
I have been perusing their vast free resources and community knowledge at the time of my preparation for GMAT. But it also proved to be quite useful in other aspects of my application process for MBA. So don’t let the name of the site to mislead you. It maybe started as a place for sharing GMAT preparation knowledge, but over the years evolved into something much bigger than that.
I personally appreciate a very supportive and amicable spirit of a close-knit community on Beat the GMAT. If you have been a member of any forums on the internet you have most likely experienced trolling, flaming and other behavioral fallouts mainly caused by anonymous nature of the internet. On the forums of beatthegmat.com you will find support for your intellectual quest first, but also just friendly advice and encouragement from the like-minded members.
The forum and other resources of BTG have earned great reputation with the pre-MBA community at large. That’s why they have been able to establish partnerships with many highly-acknowledged GMAT Preparation companies: Grockit, Kaplan, Knewton, Manhattan GMAT, The Princeton Review, and Veritas Prep. For the four previous years Beat the GMAT in co-operation with these companies has been offering the GMAT scholarship, and this year the GMAT Scholarship Competition is back. Taking part in this competition offers a great opportunity to win a free online or in-class GMAT preparation course offered by these companies. Moreover, they will even pay your GMAT test fee! There will be six people selected to receive a prize this year and the competition ends on May 20, 2010. So hurry up, and shoot for the prize! Visit their site for more information: Beat The GMAT Scholarship Competition.
With all this snow days and hype I almost forgot about one year anniversary of my second attempt on GMAT in preparation for the part-time MBA program. It actually was on February 7-th. In my post about the first taking of the GMAT I already mentioned that the score of 550 that I got that time would fit me comfortably in the GMAT ranges of part-time MBA programs in GWU School of Business and Kogod School of Business at American University. I would be at the lower end of the mid 80% range for part-time MBA program at Smith in University of Maryland, but still it was quite reasonable result for that school, which was at the time my preferred school. Of course, Georgetown McDonough with its mid 80% range of GMAT score in 620-700 would be out of question alltogether.
Even with these quite reasonable chances of getting into MBA program this year, I had a very deep dissatisfaction with my first result on GMAT. Also, I was not absolutely sure that Smith part-time MBA program was a definite top choice for me. I wanted to keep my options open, so I needed to get a higher score on GMAT if I would change my mind and decide to go for Georgetown part-time MBA.
American University MBA program was a very-very last resort. I was planning to apply to it just for a backup, but I remember thinking at that time, and especially after attending their information session sometime in mid-February, that I might as well pass on the whole MBA aspirations if it were the only school that would accept me. In addition to their lowest ranking of the four schools on my list, there was some subjective feeling of resistence to this business school that I could not even articulate rationally. Let’s say, it just did not click for me.
My opinion about the GWU School of Business was not clarified around that time either. I just did not know enough about the program, so I had it on my list of possible schools, but I did not feel either negative or positive about it, other than the fact that it had lower rankings than Smith or McDonough MBA programs.
So, to solidify my chances for the University of Maryland part-time MBA, and to get any chance for Georgetown University MBA I had to get a higher score on GMAT. That’s why a week after my first failed attempt on GMAT I made up my mind to take it again.
My biggest weakness on the GMAT was quantitative part. That’s why in preparation for the second sitting on the test I focused mostly on the math. Almost all my preparation time I dedicated to the quants. Based on my experience with simulation tests and my actual GMAT test I identified one area in the quants where I needed most improvement: equations and inequalities.
By that time I have already heard enough positive feedback about Manhattan GMAT series. That’s why I decided to try out one of their guides:Equations, Inequalities & VICs .VIC here stands for Variables In answer Choices. In addition to quite clear explanations of the principles and GMAT techniques it also included one year access to 6 Computer Adaptive Online Practice Exams and online questions bank for equations and inequalities. If I had to buy the whole set of their GMAT Strategy Guides it would cost me between $150-200, depending on what kind of promotions was running at the time. But the beauty of their flexibility is that you can buy just a book on what you feel you need extra help and that book would give you access to the online practice tests and bank of questions related to the topic of the book. The price for a single book from Manhattan GMAT series -$26, is kind of steep, given that The Official Guide for GMAT Review can be bought for about the same price. But for me it was well worth it.
I mentioned already that I was not doing much of cramming on verbal. So in addition to my cramming on quants, with particular emphasis on the book from Manhattan GMAT, I was doing all practice tests I could put my hands on. And I was doing this under “real” conditions: timed test, with 10-minute breaks between the parts. My actual test this time was scheduled for 8 AM. So my practice tests I was doing all on weekends at that time.
On the morning of the GMAT test I felt quite prepared, though I knew that conquering the quants was still going to be an uphill battle. During the test I did not really know how I was doing, as I was too consumed with the questions. At the end of both sections I had to answer a few questions without really thinking, because I was running out of time. And as everyone knows with GMAT it is better to not have any questions unanswered, because you are penalized more for those than for the wrong answers.
When I saw my results at the end of the test I had mixed feelings. Even though I improved my score by 60 points, I was still short of my minimum target of 620. Here are my results for the second take of the GMAT test:
Total score – 610/69 percentile
Verbal score – 39/87 percentile
Quantitative score - 35/42 percentile
As you can see I improved my verbal score by moving from 78 to 87 percentile. My quant improved somewhat, even though not as much as I hoped. Still, with this score I have strengthened significantly my standing for Smith part-time MBA. I got a slight chance of getting into Georgetown part-time MBA, and I knew that I would not need to apply to Kogod whatsoever, as I felt that GWU School of Business would suffice as a backup. So I was in the game again, and all I had to do now was to finalize my choice of the program, if I got accepted to more than one. That process was not finished until I actually had two acceptances and one waiting list letter on my hands later. But that’s a topic for another post.
There were many interesting articles touching upon various aspects of business education in general, and MBA in particular, that I came across in the last almost two years. But as far as I could remember there were two specific events that attracted the most of media coverage. Moreover it was not just a short outburst of coverage from various media outlets, but it was a relatively extended period of time when the event stayed in the spotlight. It also seemed that it got coverage in national mainstream news media, not just from the columnists of Businessweek and the likes writing about business education.
Here is just a short recap of those events. You can find tons of material on the internet to learn the details.
The first event was the scandal about cheating on GMAT test that erupted in June 2008. A lot of students, prospective, current and even graduated, were affected by the discovery made by GMAC, the owner of the GMAT test, that thousands of GMAT takers have been perusing the services of infamous website scoretop.com. Once GMAC seized the assets of the website through the court order, they got access to the database of users who paid money to get access to the “live” questions, as well as correlated that information with users who posted “live” questions on the website. Both of the actions are against GMAT Non-Disclosure Agreement and General Terms of Use. This discovey resulted in cancellation of GMAT test scores for those users. The business schools were left with decisions how to deal with the cheaters.
The second event was the Harvard’s MBA Oath. It draw media attention in June 2009. In a nutshell this was an oath taken by the Harvard MBA 2009 graduates who pledged “to act with utmost integrity” and serve the purpose of the greater good. This oath came in the wake of the financial crisis that shook the nation and the world at the end of 2008. The greed of the MBAs who were the integral part of the abuses on the Wall Street had been often cited as one of the main causes of that near collapse situation. The importance of that oath was that it was quickly supported by graduates from many other MBA programs not only in the US, but internationally.
I think that these two events and their timing is a significant indicator of the changes that have been going in the MBA education recently. The first one shows the MBA degree perceived by the applicants as a highly desirable designation, so much so that they would resort to the use of the illegal sources to get an upper hand and get admitted to their choice business school. The second one illustrates the budding change in the attitudes of the MBAers, and business schools who want to demonstrate to the outside world that they are not all about making a big buck at any price, but they “feel the pain” of the society at large and are willing to change.
Whether this second event is a lasting trend and not just a nod to the order of the day is yet to be seen. However, I think it is a remarkable shift of emphasis that is taking place in the MBA programs these days. The MBA programs try to stay relevant, and I believe they will manage to adapt to the “new world order”
Speaking of cheating on GMAT by looking up the “live” questions. Not only it is a questionable moral choice, it is really plain stupid. The GMAC says that the questions banks have thousands of questions, and the chance of running into particular question on the actual test is really very miniscular given the computer adaptive nature of the test. It’s really much more reasonable to try to learn the concepts than to brute memorize the answers to unlikely questions. And if you want to get the feel for real questions, just use The Official Guide for GMAT Review, 12th Edition from GMAC that have hundreds, and cumulatively thousands of real GMAT questions that have been retired.
P.S. After I finished this post I found out that GMAT cheating case made a come back again, this time on China soil. Apparently much less coverage this time around as I missed it before.
Here is a short followup on my yesterday’s GMAT post. In my preparation for GMAT I did not use any in-class or online prep courses. The reason is quite obvious – I was not applying to top 10-20 full-time MBA programs, which have a very high break-in GMAT score. Part-time MBA programs available in Washington, [...]
Today is a one year anniversary of my first attempt on GMAT. To be more precise, it was not on the same date, but the same day- Saturday after Thanksgiving a year ago. On Friday before the test I knew it was not one of my brightest decisions to schedule the test for that Saturday. [...]
GMAT is one of the major hurdles to overcome in pursuing admission to an MBA progrram. No wonder then that a big deal of attention is paid by every applicant to scoring high on this test. I’ll talk a bit about this as now is high season for GMAT taking, because of the second, and [...]
can be bought for about the same price. But for me it was well worth it.
