Is GMAT first or last step ?
Million dollar question...atleast to me... more and more I am getting into applying to B schools the more clearer this question and its answer is becoming for me...
If not last giving GMAT is definately one of the last steps....
writing applications, talking with prospective MBA dudes, present MBA dudes and alumnus I have realized that GMAT's weightage is just 5-10% of the total application process...( this is just my conception...may be wrong)....but this figure i feel shud not be taken literally...there are so many factors ...so intermingled with each other that no one can vouch ofthis number...
i feel GMAT score is just a first level filter.. esp if one's experience is less....
i have seen people with 800 score being rejected by top B schools and also people with around 650 getting into the same B schools.
so if I am correct than what is it that makes one a Wharton'ite, Harvard'ian, and the privleged few..
as i am still in the midst of the process I feel I cant hit upon the correct answer....so will talk of what all I have learned till date.
If there is one equation that makes someone a part of the privleged few that would be a very simple equation with N interdependent parameters...now dont ask me the value of N..
I think its one's personality and attitude that open the gates.. I have read essays where peopel say it was my dream to do MBA..frankly i dont think so, atleast I was not sure that I will do an MBA when I was doing my BE...may be i was shortsighted...
but i think a medley of initiative, leadership...mind you a proven leadership, obviously good acads, ability to act for a cause, charity or community service with an unselfish motive is what is required.
Inititative:I strongly believe this is one quality that can do wonders....what weight this single art carries with it is unimaginable...i have not seen a single B school that has missed asking you to express this quality explicitly... you can guage the importance of this ability by considerig this one of the most common questions or I shud say one of the favourite B school questions "Describe the initiatives you have taken over the past two years to develop professionally and personally"...
when i started working on this question, fortunaltely i had couple of instances to flaunt about. But one day I was retrospecting of what all initiaves I have taken till date...though i happy with this exercise but still came across severlainstances when I could have taken initiatives but due to some reason either didnt took the first step or though took the first stpe but didnt took the second step...
obviously you cant show ur initiative taking skills after you give GMAT...unless u r a gr8 planner and planning to apply to B schools after say 2-3 yrs of giving GMAT...

Leadership:Undubtedly the most sought after quality in a B school candidate. Mind you B schools are not there to create leaders they are there to develop leaders...so if you eyeing for top B schools develop this skill. When I first started my journey to MBA people said not having reportees is a definate negative as you cant show ur leadership skills. Slowly i have realized that B schools are not looking for managers they are looking for potential...ooomm do i mean managers dont have potential..no i am not saying that... They are not looking for people who are leaders they are looking for people who have the potential of being a leader.... so does the B school charges $ 100K for developing leaders, yes they do.

Good acads:everyone cant be Bill Gates. so be practical and dont say that what if I dont have good grades even Bill gates was a college dropout... if you are one of Bill Gates breed, obviously a very rare breed, than one need not worry but unfortunately most of us are not that rare breed. So work towards grades. get good grades. and believe me only good grades is also a negative...just good grades and no extracurriculars if a definite curse on ur profile...

Extracurricular Activites:i think another impotant thing B schools are after for. I havent seen any specific essay on this but have realized that B schools are looking for some solid selling point in this domain. Ya its al l about selling yourself, and selling yourself to a very smart buyer who have no dearth of smart sellers to choose from.
also i believe saying that I was part of the college football team wont help. You have to prove leadership in this area. show that you have a passion for this activity not doing it just for the sake of doing it...for eg saying I was the captain of my colleg Lawn tennis team carries much more weitage that saying I was part of the college lawn tennis team.

Passion:Another much sought after quality. I think one shud have the passion to do something big. I have read ample number of places that your passion shoudl be reflected in your essays...is this true dont know..can talk more if i get selected to either Wharton or Ross ( two schools I am applying this year)..

Community Service:With time passing by I have seen this particular pie in the application cake getting thinner and thinner...the more I read the more I realize that Community service is not a ace of heart to get into B schools. What I have understood is that ( unless u r planning a career in non profit) community servie does not mean serving poor, councelling people on aids or somethingits about giving back to community. May be in terms of anything...as I dont have any substantial to talk on thsi in my application I started doing somethign which I feel is community servie. Will talk more on this if i get through.,,,till then let it be a secret... nothign great but i feel this kind of community service will be unique and definately much much realistic.
furthur I personally feel that mentioning that I was a volunteer in this and this organization wotn help. From what I have learnt is that its not participation its action what adcom is looking for. I think u need to prove passion in this, just mentioning that as part of so and so organization i did that...may not sound great...but again ur writing skills can turn the table any time...

For furthur read:
1. Book by Richard Montauk 'How to get into top MBA Programms" is talked abotu a lot. I am still struggling to snatch a copy but not getting it anywhere....
2. Wharton s2s ( studnet to student board) a good place to invest sometime of ur life.
3. keep seraching.
4. Build contacts, keep an eye in your comapny on people who are going for MBA.

as usual all the best...
swaaans

ooom.. my first post on the blog...
so i finally got the impetus of saving my experiences as blog postings when i met a very good frnd and he further forced me to keep posting so that all my experiences and mistakes( hope i don’t make any) can be useful for future aspirants...(wow i am used to think about this word so often when writing essays...)..

anyways lets get started...though I am in the second step of my application process but will try to start from the first step i.e giving GMAT... ..First misconception about MBA....that GMAT is the first step...i would rater say ideally it is the last step...haha am i turning the table up side down.. believe me i am not...

When I was well into the application process, writing essays and likes i realized that if one plans his MBA 2-3 yrs before actually giving GMAT how easy it would have been to write the essays.
Anyways I promise this would be my second post soon.... but for now lets not digress and come to "How to play GMAT GMAT".. Its easy to say play now but to prevent GMAT playing a game with you on G day (common acronym for GMAT day-G day) one need to be well prepared.

Lets be succinct and try to finds points to proceed to GMAT preparation.

1. Start building network. With whatever little experience I have had, I can vouch that this will always stand as my first bullet everywhere. And by build network it does not mean visiting orkut daily and search for people, to me it means finding people who you think are good and can be resourceful...i know i know u never know who can be of help someday, so be generic and concentrate on finding people who are biggies...i.e. if you find out people like Vice President in a company, some one in higher management and likes you would realize that talking to these people how perspective changes.... (This is one of my fav topic....I dream to write a book on this...lets see when the dream comes true...)...ok to summarize in Hindi " be jugado" haha let me translate....... jugado = resourceful.

to be specific to GMAT on this bullet, find people and friends who have given GMAT and HAVE DONE WELL ( i hope i am clear as what i am trying to say).

2. First thing first. Don’t think twice and buy the book "Official guide to GMAT" I suggest buy both 10th and 11th edition. Many people say and I second them that this is the bible for GMAT ( for Christians reading please pardon me for comparing Bible to any other book)

3. Have a fair idea on when you think to give GMAT. if you planning to apply to US B schools the first deadline for all schools is October mid types and for the second round Jan first week types. So think accordingly and plan. Have read somewhere that adcomm (admission committee...believe me u will come across this word 100 times a day while working on applications) correlates when u gave GMAT and when u r applying. I don’t agree, so don’t want to write more on this.

4. So if you have read some pages of Official guide and you still want to read further that’s time to celebrate. Just kidding... Have a idea of what is the exam pattern like.

5. Now the best part. INTERNET. Dive into the plethora of information and catch some gold fish, what I mean is that there is so much information available that its easy to drown but try to figure out some discussion forums where like minded people do like minded talks in a like minded fashion. Some of the sites I comprehensively followed are www.scoretop.com, www.sentencecorrection.com, www.testmagic.com . For me scoretop was the best frnd, even beating my wife in terms of the time I spent with scoretop.. hope she doesn’t read all this..

6. In retrospection i feel scoretop was the best thing that happened to me. I sincerely want to thank for such an amazing initiative.

7. Start reading posts and start participating in discussions. This i believe is the fastest boat to catch to reach the destination. Reading posts you will realize what GMAT is all about and what direction u need to take ur preparation. One good thing I liked about scoretop is that the posts people post are obviously questions which either they cud not solve or some magnanimous guy (can even be a gal) think he ( might be she) can share with fellow scortopians. Simply this helps..

8. Ok so what about the material. Spent time to collect all the material you can fetch from whatever resources u can. Are you understanding the significance of bullet one. Some of the material i used was:
-- Official Guide 10 & 11 edition No doubt, best material.
You might feel the questions are on a easier side but dont make the impression that GMAT will be same. these are sample questions. Most important take away from this book s the explanation of the questions. I read somewhere " each and every explanation must be on urs tips on the G day" and I can vouch for the truthness of that statement.

--Kaplan. CD and Book.
In terms of the toughenss of the material, no doubt this is tougher than actual GMAT but u also need things to scare you ...dont you...
I think this is a good material to practise. CD has lot of practice questions with decent enough explanations.

--princeton. CD and Book.
i think CD is better. Again not correct representation of exact GMAT questions but good for practice.

-- Manhattan guide to sentence correction.
Undoubtedly the best book ever written on Sentence correction preparation. (please don’t sue me for overemphasizing on this book, there might be better material but I am not aware). I think there is a soft copy of this book floating somewhere on www.scoretop.com
Amazing book for idiots like me who don’t want to read Wren and Martin. Just kidding, this book explains the common errors GMAT tests.

-- now some misc material. Most of this material drove me crazy and tried to flounder me until someone rescued me by telling that these material are not so good and don’t do them diligently. Anyways if you like to take chances the list goes like this.
Barrons, powerprep, novas, 800score.com, crackGMAT, GMAT soft and so on the list continues until u reach moon.

Don’t run corners finding these material. If you are flirting with scoretop properly you will find all the relevant and good material from these misc items as part of some discussion thread.

-9 Now back to www.scoretop.com. I am sure I am still in love with this beauty.
Link to debrief I had posted on scoretop after my GMAT ( by the way I have scored 750 in my GMAT)
http://www.scoretop.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=31070&KW=620+to+750

-10. so if you are still reading and not cursing me I must say you have a quality to write in your application essays “determination”.

So that’s all, I hope I can be useful to one and all. Hope you had a great time and best of luck (you bet with me u will need lots) for your sojourn to MBA.

Disclaimer: Each and every though and expression is this blog is my view and are not intended to breach anything or hurt anyone. I cant guarantee on any of the above suggestions but can vouch that the same worked for me.