The GMAT

GMAT was the dreaded first hurdle en route to fulfilling my dream of going to a top business school. I spoke to my mate Jasper about it (PwC alumnus and part of Chicago GSB class of ’09) and he told me it was really nothing to worry about for guys like him and me. He got 760 and, to be honest, I’m not sure I was comfortable with him bracketing us together with “guys like him and me”. OK, I don’t believe that anyone who seriously considers applying for a top b-school thinks of themselves as truly average, and I’m no different to the majority. I’m not superman, but I consider myself to be a pretty capable sort of chap when it comes to intellectual matters. But the advice from a proven high-flyer with a 760 under his belt that the GMAT was nothing to worry about gave me little comfort. I took his advice on study methods and bought the GMAC question book from Amazon. I read through it during the 2007 Christmas holidays and, slightly daunted, took the diagnostic assessment at the start of the book. The grades available were “Below Average, Average, Above Average, and Excellent.” I hadn’t so much as looked at a mathematics question since High School, so it was pretty daunting. I got a mix of Excellents and Above Averages for the Verbal tests and Below Averages and Averages for the Quant section. So, I knew what I had to work on. A few weeks later, I booked the test and, over the first few months of 2008, spent a few hours here and a few hours there getting up the Quant learning curve. As the test came closer, I got cracking with a couple of practice ‘Real Time’ tests that you get sent when you book the GMAT. For the first of these, I scored a 740. Result! The second, only a week or so before ‘G-day’, I scored a meagre 690. Worry set in. I deliberately booked my exam for a Tuesday in order that I could take two days off work and have the benefit of the weekend beforehand to make my final preparations. On G-day minus 1, I walked to the test centre to make sure I knew where I was going, and to make sure the model of calculator I had been studying with was OK to use in the exam. Take note, I was mistaken! I have little doubts that 99.99% of people reading this will realise that this is the case, but for anyone in the dark, you’d better get working on your mental arithmetic pretty soon! After that shock, I seriously considered cancelling and losing my deposit. Then I thought about going through all that studying again – not appealing. I always thought that this test would be a reality check for me – if it went pear shaped, then maybe I wasn’t cut out for b-school. I concluded that I would just go in and give it my best shot. Both essay questions were pretty favourable: something about whether a society should be judged on the merits of its business achievements or its achievements in the arts and sciences, and another about graduates struggling to get jobs as lecturers. Good start. The quantitative did not go well. Unarmed with my valuable defence of a calculator, I felt myself having a complete nightmare. This was going to be a catastrophe. I took a complete beating from that paper. During the break, I felt like I was 3-0 down at half time in a cup final. It was going to take a super second half to turn around the deficit and get the result I needed. Luckily, the wind was at my back in the second half (i.e. I was going in to take care of my forte – Verbal). I went in and absolutely nailed it. I ended up with a 730/5.5 – not setting the heather alight, but clearing the hurdle and setting me on the road to applications!