I have been planning on taking the GMAT before I go to NY for my SA stent this summer to just get a baseline score. I wasn't planning on doing any prep for it. However, I was unaware until recently that when you send your score, you automatically send every score you've ever earned.
I'm only looking for firsthand experience here, but I am assuming most people take the GMAT at least twice. I never prepped for the SAT or ACT and did very well on both.
Do B schools even care about anything but your highest score?
Even if they do see two or three scores, how terrible would it be to have something in the 600s as long as you improve on it on your subsequent attempts?
Thanks for any input.
Just take a practice test if you want a baseline score. What's the point of spending the time and money if you know it won't even be close to your best?
You can get a pretty good idea of what your score will be by taking a GMAT Prep practice test on mba.com. There are two of these available for free and are considered the most accurate. If you have money to burn and think that the testing environment will affect your score then sure, take the actual test, but otherwise I'd stick with a GMAT Prep practice test first.
I wouldn't waste the money on a throwaway test. As chocotaco99 said GMAC provides two free practice tests on mba.com that are just like the real thing. I just took the GMAT and my actual score was within 10 points of my last practice test. The format and difficulty level felt exactly the same.
I agree with everyone else. There's no reason to go in completely blind. However, I took it with only about three days of prep and got in to my school of choice. Just get the Kaplan GMAT Premier and GMAT Advanced books. Run through them, take a practice test, and you should be fine.
you will not do your best because you won't understand the test's format, specifically DS. Speed in analyzing a DS problem will affect your quant score.
Thanks for all of the replies guys, this is exactly what I was looking for
Most of the blogs/forums recommend that you take a initial test using the GMAT Prep software. This will give you an idea of your baseline score. From there you will see how much you need to improve and plan a study program based on your desired score. There is plenty of information available on the subject on this site as well as GMAT club. Unless you are the smartest person you know, I think that taking the test cold will cost you $250 and some frusturation when you fall short.
The people who typically take the test cold are the ones who are trying to get into a 50+ program, and taking the GMAT is just a formality.
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