99+ %ile gmat EDIT: also, GRE
i guess i'm gonna get a lot of hate for this. i know gmat isn't everything, i know it "doesn't matter" after a 700 (or 720 or 740 or whatever.), and i know too high of a score may even hurt your applications. and it all makes sense. but anyway, there are lots of people supposedly scoring 780s and 790s around here. hey, even 799s...so i thought i'd ask anyway.
i'll keep it simple and hope for answers to my specific questions:
1. what are the best resources for someone aiming for 780, 790 or 800? what are the best sources of difficult questions?
2. i have heard mention of some 780+ gmat forum somewhere, but haven't been able to locate it. can anyone help me out?
3. what are some of the things you (>=780 lot) tried out when preparing? i took a third practice test yesterday and tried to finish 10 minutes early for each section...seems like a good practice. can you recommend anything else?
i took the gmat once about 6 months ago and got 99 %ile. but i thought i had a terrible run on test day. and i hadn't prepared much either. i had taken the two official practice tests and got 770 and 780, and then studied maybe 15 or 20 hours. so i do want to take it again, and this time i want to prepare for it like most other people do - i have some time to kill, maybe a month or so.
can you help me out? (calling me an idiot or troll does not count...)
ps it might not make a difference in admissions, but i think in terms of what it takes to get a 790 vs a 760, there is a big difference. i guess i'm toying with the idea of taking it again because i want to get the score that is right for me, given one more attempt and average preparation...
EDIT: Does anyone have any experience with the GRE? I mean with scoring above 1550? I'm in the same boat with the GRE as with my GMAT (see OP). Have a decent score, low 1500s (800q)...should be 98%ile of something, am just guessing. but again, didn't prepare well for the test and think i can do better (maybe hit 1600). do you think it makes more sense for me to retake this test than to retake the 99%ile gmat? (i'm asking which makes more sense, not for confirmation that neither makes sense hah). i've just been thinking that the gre is now accepted by lots of mba programs, it is an easier test to prepare for (considering i lost most of my points with vocabulary questions), it's cheaper too, and i feel it is probably a less volatile test...much more straightforward quant section...so all my focus can be on the verbal. on the other hand, the gmat is a more well-known and more commonly-taken test.
what do you guys think...any advice from people who have taken the gre, particularly those who have scored 99+ %ile scores, would be appreciated.
recap of my background: i took the gre and gmat last year when applying to some msf and mfe programs. studied very little, and haven't looked at either test since then. i have 4-5 weeks to kill and am thinking of retaking at least one of the tests for the sake of my resume...to mitigate a weak gpa. my sat score did help me for this purpose in the past. of course i'd do other things when studying for the gre, so the "your time can be better used elsewhere" argument is not totally applicable.
thanks again!
What was your math/verbal
What was your math/verbal breakdown? Since GMATprep doesn't clearly show your weak areas, I suggest you use the Official Guide and take Manhattan GMAT's free test to figure out exactly what areas you need to work on.
[quote=islandoffmorocco] i
[quote=islandoffmorocco] i know too high of a score may even hurt your applications.
what?
buthopeful: don't remember my
buthopeful: don't remember my actual test breakdown. in the three practice tests, it's been around the 50q, 45v mark. thanks for the tip, will check out manhattan.
ricochetX - i said it to avoid a shitfest. a lot of people (on the internet) say that a 790 or 800 or whatever hurts cause it makes you look nerdy, and maybe they are right (especially about the 800). and they quote some speech from stanford about rejecting 800s, and so on. now i don't particularly buy that argument, but i didn't want to hurt their feelings haha.
ironically, i may have incited the shitfest in reverse...sometimes you can never win.
any inputs on the original questions would be appreciated.
.... GMAT is a measure of
.... GMAT is a measure of intelligence in specific areas...... It is not a measure of "nerdiness"
I dont think Stanford "tries" to pick out nerds by focusing on those with high GMATs, rather, they are actually looking for intelligence
If anything, I guess a 4.0 with zero other activities could be a bad sign
First, I've never heard of
First, I've never heard of anyone scoring a 799...but maybe that's a new occurrence. Moving past that, there is generally NOT a ton of difference between a 760 and a 790 - both are 99%ile, both are exceptional scores, and both (for most people) will require a generous amount of studying and preparation.
The general understanding with the GMAT is that on any given test day your score can fluctuate 20-30 points given a question in a certain field or another, the order of difficult questions, misclicking a letter, etc, etc. That said, your 760 could be a 790 next time, or a 740 without you believing you've done any better or worse than the first time. Therefore, I don't think you getting a 790 is the "right" score for you. It might be the score you want, but that doesn't make it the score you should have gotten.
With average preparation, I don't see you making a jump to 790 from 760 and frankly it doesn't matter if you did make that jump. At this stage it is far more about your ego and far less about the quality or merit of the score. If that is, in fact the case, you are going to have far more problems in your B school apps (in the form of essays) than your GMAT score being at the bottom instead of the top of the 99%ile.
No matter what anyone says, you are still going to see things the way you want - so, all I can say is good luck and I wish you all the best on your path to earn the 790. Just ask yourself what happens if you take it again and get a 750...will you retake only to get a 760 again...will you retake again...and again...
IBanker
BankonBanking.com
I guess you could sign up for
I guess you could sign up for Knewton's 50+ point guarantee. I studied for about 2 weeks and scored a 730(Q:51, V:38) and I plan on taking it again in a couple of years after Knewton's course so I suppose they guarantee me a 780+ or I get my money back.
Good luck with that 799. B
Good luck with that 799. B schools will be impressed if you are the first person in history to break the scoring algo and thus not get a multiple of 10.
I highly suggest you read Montauk's book about getting into business school. In it, and in other interviews with top adcom members, you will read that retaking after such a high score reflects poor judgement, in their view. 690 to 720 is one thing, but 760 to 790 is irrelevant, to put it kindly.
im sorry but is this some
im sorry but is this some type of joke? this is worse than ricochet...
cartwright, the 799 was a
cartwright, the 799 was a reference to an epic thread on here "799 gmat - worth retaking?". i thought the tone would have made clear i was being sarcastic. ps i'm not going to bschool anytime soon. i might not even end up going within five years of my existing gmat score. when i do apply, i'll give montauk a read.
bankon, i don't think that 20-30 range really applies at the higher end. i can see how a score can fluctuate 660 - 690 or something, but a 790 is exponentially rarer than 760. the chances of pulling that off by getting lucky are slim. similarly, unless he really screws up on test day, a person who scores 780-790 consistently won't be scoring 750, though i guess that kind of downward fluctuation is more likely than the upward one. i appreciate your response though. i retake it once, if at all.
people are quick to judge...fair enough. my original disclaimer was that retaking may be counterproductive/moronic/about nothing more than ego/whatever else, but that that was not the topic of this thread and not what i was seeking advice on. i may be doing it for my ego, or for my resume, or to mitigate a low ugrad gpa, or any other reason - but all this irrelevant. i was actually asking questions about how to go about getting a higher score. can anyone recommend any other resources?
thanks a lot
islandoffmorocco wrote: the
the chances of pulling that off by getting lucky are slim. similarly, unless he really screws up on test day, a person who scores 780-790 consistently won't be scoring 750
if you miss 1 or 2 questions at the end of either section, you will find yourself in the 750 group and not the 780/790 group.
i think you have to accept that maybe you are pretty smart in theory but are not able to perform well in high pressure situations. this is clearly not an issue of whether you had adequate practice.
where did this conclusion
where did this conclusion come from?
It can easily fluctuate 30
It can easily fluctuate 30 points at the top of the range due to random chance (I know from experience with the real exam and the 2 real tests available on mba.com).
At the higher end of the range, it is probably even more vulnerable to random chance - miss 1 more verbal and your score will fall 10 points.
I'm not going to beat a dead
I'm not going to beat a dead horse, but here's a quick example - one of my friends scored 730 and 740 on the practice exams and then got a 770 on the actual exam (practice official GMAT exams). Another friend scored between a 760 on both of his practice exams and then hit a 740 on the real exam.
In short, it goes both ways, and it fluctuates at the high end and low end. Don't let your desire/ego/poor sense, however you want to label it, lead you to believe that your score can't go down.
IBanker
BankonBanking.com
bankon: cool, will keep that
bankon: cool, will keep that in mind when deciding whether i want to take it again. like i said, if at all i retake it, it'll be just once, and only if i'm very confident.
can anyone recommend any other resources apart from knewton's?
what about this 780+ aspirants or whatever forum i've heard tell of...? anyone know about that?
The only way a high score
The only way a high score could feasibly hurt you is if you retook the GMAT like seven times to go from a 760 to a 780. A 780 is obviously better than a 760, but it is a serious misallocation of resources.
I would argue almost any reasonably intelligent person could study their way into a 720ish score. As you get into the 760+ realm, even thoroughly studying the most difficult Kaplan / Manhattan / etc. questions will not prepare you. The questions, especially the data sufficiency, become ridiculously convoluted. Scour GMAT forums for people trying to get Q52 on Quant and you'll find legit Math majors / PhD candidates talking about how they spent 15 minutes on the last quant problem and still got it wrong.
Some people actually enjoy the GMAT, I would never take it again. Even if I was past the five year score horizon, I'd probably guess that my career was at a strong enough point to forgo the MBA experience altogether (took it this past November, Q49 V45).
^ good advice. so that was a
Firstly, your time is better
^ damn that's gangster.
and btw, thanks again bud.
@island funny i'm sort of in
Does anyone have any
This is crazy. I also got a
islandoffmorocco wrote: ^