Hey guys,
Currently networking for FT recruit alongside my summer internship. I know my grades are a big barrier so I've been thinking about doing the GMAT. My thinking is that if I do really well, I can help de-risk my bad grades to some degree...and that if I interview prep well, and am likeable, my (hopefully high) GMAT score will signal that I'm not an absolute monkey.
I'm following the instructions listed here, and just completed my 1st diagnostic test without any reading or preparation.
As mentioned in the title, I got a 660 on the Manhattan GMAT, which equates to a 78% percentile.
The breakdown was as following:
Essay - Skipped Integrated Reasoning - 5.9 / 5 - 7 Estimated Percentile Quant - 42 / 45% Estimated Percentile Verbal - 38 / 85% Estimated Percentile
I took this in probably not optimal conditions - right after work. Didn't take breaks in between other than bathroom. Didn't answer the last question for the IR, didn't answer last question for Quant. Really, really struggled with Quant IMO - completely guessed some questions, had no idea how to do others. Verbal was a breeze, I finished with 25+ minutes remaining out of the alloted ~1 hour or so.
Is this good? Bad? How am I supposed to interpret these numbers? How much effort am I going to need to put in to get a really good score (what qualifies as really good? >750?)
my gmat practice scores were as follows:
MGMAT 1 620 MGMAT 2 650 GMAC 1 700 GMAC 2 760 GMAC 3 730 Actual 740
As Johnny mentioned, MGMAT CATs are way harder than the actual test. I'd stick with the official practice tests and buy more of them from GMAC. I studied for around 10 weeks at 20-25 hours a week to achieve the above so I wouldn't be discouraged with your 660 diagnostic. I would aim for at least a 730 to offset your low GPA. Go through MGMAT books, the official guides, and gmatquantum.com (amazing quant resource, can't stress this one enough) and you should be fine. Make sure you spend time on verbal - you mentioned it was a breeze but the key to getting high scores is hitting 99% on verbal.
The exercises in MGMAT's books (particularly Sentence Correction) can be helpful for sure, but my advice is to only practice with GMAC practice problems - otherwise you're like a golfer / swimmer / tennis player spending hours practicing bad form.
Also, as you plan your studying, figure out within Quant is Problem Solving or Data Sufficiency giving you more trouble? And within that even, is it geometry, stats, etc... For verbal same thing, figure out where you need to spend the most time between Reading Comprehension, Critical Reasoning, and Sentence Correction.
Also, for what its worth, Verbal can lift your overall score much more than Quant. I had a top 1% overall score with a quant of less than 80%. If English is your first language, no reason why you can't get Verbal up to 95-99% with enough practice.