How the GMAT Fits into your Business School Application by M

How the GMAT Fits into your Business School Application by MHow the GMAT Fits into your Business School Application by MThis isthe third and final installment of a three-part series on the GMAT from master of business administrationPodcaster on Vault.com. In the first segment, we talked about GMAT preparation,and our experts gave advice about how to get ready for the test. In thisarticle, we will discuss the GMAT in general and how it fits into your businessschool application package. We will also talk about how to approach the test,different studying options, and what to do to get the score you want. Ourexperts will also share their personal experiences taking and teaching thetest. As always,this is Diana Jordan with MBA Podcaster, here with our GMAT experts, ChrisRyan, director of ManhattanGMAT Brian Galvin, director of academic programsfor Veritas Prep Lisa Weale, executive director of the GMAT program at KaplanTest Prep and Admissions Jon Denning, director of operations for Power ScoreTest Preparation and Jose Ferriera, CEO of Knewton. The pressureis on to get the best GMAT scores you possibly can. There has an unprecedentedincrease of prospective MBA students taking the GMAT in the past year. JonDenning is the director of operations for PowerScore Test Preparation. Jon, howis competition impacting applicants? At no point ever, perhaps, has it beenmore important that people do all that they can to prepare themselves as wellas possible to take this test. Be it with a tutor, a class, a bookbut gonecertainly are the days when people would just go in and take this test andsay Ill see how I do and hopefully thatll be good enough. That doesntfly anymore. Liza Weale isexecutive director of the GMAT program at Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions.Liza, did you take the GMAT? Actually, the first time I took it I did not doso well. I took it right out of college and I got a 590 on it and fast-forwarda few years later, I was committed to making a career change and knew that Ineeded to get into a top-five business school in order to do that. So I knew my590 was not going to cut it. So I said, OK, Im going to change the way Iprep for this exam. Well before I came to Kaplan, I enrolled in a Kaplancourse and my score went up significantly. I ended up getting a 740. And I wasaccepted into MIT Sloans MBA program. So, Liza, how important is the GMAT?Fifty-five percent of business school admissions officers that we surveyedtold us that the GMAT is the most important factor in an application. So youwant to get the highest score that you can. And to do that you need to prepareadequately. Most people study for 100 hours or more, which assuming that youwork full-time translates to two or three months or maybe more depending onyour schedule. Jose Ferrierais CEO of Knewton. Is anybody a natural at this? They dont really have tostudy? No. These tests are unnatural acts. So its like bending your elbowbackwardand thats true in just about everybody. Some people who app ear to begood test takers have essentially done a lot of the test prep work alreadyintuitively while they were just going about their daily lives and thats justthe way their lives work but I have never honigwein anyone who came out of the wombgood at standardized tests. Liza withKaplan, how tough is the GMAT? Not only does it test you on things likeisosceles triangles and subject verb agreement, things you likely havent beentested on since high school or earlier. But the GMAT exam is also in a formatthat is probably unlike any other test youve taken. Its a computer adaptedtestor CAT, as it is often referred to as. And that means it adapts the questionsto your performance. But its a time test, so responding quickly is just asimportant as responding correctly. So you have enough time to get through thefull test. Jose, letsput the GMAT score in perspective. The most important criteria for businessschool are work experience (number one) and GMAT (number two). And if your workexperience is pretty good, above the average for the schools you want to applyto, you can probably get in with a GMAT score thats a little below theaverage. On the other hand, if your work experience is just average for theschools you want to apply to or even a little bit below average, youre goingto want to get that GMAT score higher to give yourself some insurance thatyoure going to get it. Brian letssay an applicant keeps getting mediocre scores, is it better to re-take theGMAT and risk getting that bad score over and over (showing determination), oris that detrimental? If Im the admissions director and I look at the GMATtranscript that says this person every other month for the last year has scored620, Im going to ask myself Well, why didnt they learn from the first threeof them and realize that they should have done something different? Or if theywerent going to do anything different, they are just going to repeat the saatkornmistakes and, quote-unquote, study harder but not necessarily s marter, then whynot realize that if youre only going to do the same thing over and over again,youre not adding any value and find a better use of that time? Liza, whatare your thoughts? If the scores are low, is it better to keep re-taking thattest or go with what you got? If your GMAT is close to or matches your targetschools average and you feel like you have a top-notch application outside orbeyond the GMAT, youre probably OK. But if the gap is pretty big, as it was inmy case, or if you really want your GMAT to help you stand out from the crowd,its worth your time to think about taking it again. Most schools willencourage you to take the exam again because it can show dedication andcommitment. But, theres a big if here, if you show that improvement. Chris, whatif your GMAT score keeps coming in low? If its 10, 20, 30, 40 points belowthe average at the school that youre targeting and you just cant seem toget it up beyond that point, well, you should probably focus on the otherasp ects of your application and send it in. If its well below that, then youmight want to think about getting a tutor or getting some professional help fromthe likes of our company or wherever you go in order to try to crack the case.But there is some point ... at which you should probably say, You know, I amnot seeming to improve on this, I should look at the rest of my application. Chris, how doyou know if you should take the GMAT again? Getting a 750 versus a 760 doesntmatter at any of these schools. I can tell you that, flat out. If youre belowthe average then, yeah, you should think about taking it again. And if you feelthat its too low, then definitely take it again. Now, you have to wait 31 daysbefore you take another GMAT. You cant take it any sooner than that. So youshould re-prepare if you do decide to take it again. You should absolutely dosome reflection on where you think you went wrong. Unfortunately, the GMAT doesnot provide any feedback other than a math and verbal brea k down (a sub scorein each section), but it doesnt tell you what question you got right or howlong you spent on them. Nothing like that. So you have to just kind of reflecton where do you think you went wrong, and less about content and more aboutprocess. Did you manage your time well, that sort of thing. And then set upanother focused preparation plan and re-prepare. Jon, ifstudents arent doing well, should they try tutoring? For some people, itsalmost magical how much they can improve with tutoring. The whole patina of itchanges. I think the student who can benefit the most from tutoring is astudent who either just doesnt learn well in a group environment or has atougher time, perhaps, concentrating and dealing with the inflexibility of abook. That person is really going to benefit from tutoring because its sopersonalized. I also think, too, that somebody is going to get the most of itif they can come into that tutoring situation with a high degree ofself-awareness, self-knowled ge about what they need help with. Brian, howwould tutoring help? The best part of having a one-on-one tutor, someone withthat kind of expertise, is the ability to diagnose. OK, you do have a pacingproblem, you are taking too long but you really only tend to take too long whenits a word problem that you cant set up quickly or its a data-sufficiencyproblem and you second-guess your answer three or four times. Or, lets justsay you re-read reading comprehension passages two or three times beforegetting it. Here are the steps that you need to take Try to figure out wherethose problems are coming from and then maybe enlist the help of someone tohelp you diagnose even more specifically what youre doing wrong and how youcorrect that quickly. If timemanagement is your issue, what is your advice? The GMAT is really challengingin that you are penalized if you run out of time before completing the exam. Soleaving a few questions at the end unanswered is worse than answering thosequestions in correctly. So in order to prep well for the timing aspect, you needto practice pacing. Thats not always easy when youre working on a computeradaptive test. Every time you get a question right, the GMAT will present amore difficult question. So imagine this the better you do, the harder itgets. Its really hard. Its a really hard mental block to get over. Thats whypracticing with computer adaptive tests as well as using pacing and targetquizzes is really important, because you cant skip questions on the GMAT or goback to previous questions. You will get into a situation where you were stuckon a given question. Its just because it keeps getting harder, its going tofind your limit. So part of performing well on the test is being able to make astrategic guess let it go and move on. So if youre not seeing a bigincrease, you need to get smarter about your practice and gaining comfort withthis approach takes practice and evaluation and then practicing again. Brian, how doyou handle practic e tests? Tests are good for experience, but they are alsoreally good diagnostic tools. So over the course of eight to 10 weeks, towardthe latter half, take one to two practice tests a week It tends to give youthat confidence and experience with the test, and also allows you to shore upthose mistakes and make sure that youre not giving away points that reallyshould be yours. For moreinformation, advice or to read a transcript of the full show, visit MBAPodcaster.com. Im DianaJordan with MBA Podcaster. Thank you for listening and stay tuned next timewhen we discuss another topic, it will help guide you through the MBA processand your career beyond. To learnmore about how to get ready for GMAT, read the other MBA Podcaster articles inthis series about GMATprep and testday advice on Vault.com.