Possibly the Best MBA Blog Ever

MIT Sloan

2009-10-16T00:07:00.002+01:00

Hello

Continuing my series of business school visits, let me tell you about the MIT Sloan information session that I visited 2 weeks ago.

The event took place at the Nomura building (there are strong ties between Sloan and the Japanese bank) @ Central London. I arrive at six on a Friday, and there are drinks to welcome us. The presentation begins with senior people from the Adcom giving a brief introduction to the school & telling us about their trek across Europe giving information sessions. The Head of Nomura HR briefly talks about the strong relationship between the two institutions, and that Nomura will be looking for Sloanies when they graduate!

After the introductions, the presentation begins. We start with information about the school and its culture. A few things to highlight here. MIT has a flexible & bespoke curriculum after the first semester core. There is also an emphasis placed on the G-Lab and other famous MIT tracks. The integrated campus is another plus point, with Sloanies able to interact with other parts of MIT.

This is followed by information on the admission's process. Nothing new to say here other than (i) The MIT Cover letter question is unique so don't copy and paste from your other essays and (ii) Don't go over the (requested) 2 professional recommendations (bummer! My peer reference is great!).

The talk is interspersed with videos from current students. Since these videos are run off a laptop, a reminder pops up for renewing the anti-virus software halfway through. This draws a couple of laughs from the audience.......

Next is the familiar Q&A session with alumni. With........at least 15 students! They stand in a row and talk about their background/experiences. A very mixed and diverse group of alumni, all doing various different things (with investment banking & consultancy prevalent again). One alumni tells a funny story about driving Krugman (the famous Economist) and his wife to a dinner. Apparently Krugman instructed the alumni to drive through a tight spot........and the car got scraped. Surreal! Drinks follow.

Overall, another useful information event which highlighted the strengths of Sloan and provided some handy tips for the app process. It also felt slightly more informal than the HBS/Stanford sessions. However I think there were too many alumni on the Q&A panel. I would have preferred a more in depth Q&A session with say 5 or 6 alumni, and then invite the others to drinks after. I guess they wanted to have everyone involved!

Finalising my Sloan application as we speak......

Google & Other Thoughts

2009-10-12T19:42:00.006+01:00

Having grown up with the internet - from Netscape to Yahoo to Google - I was curious how highly ranked my blog was when using Google Search:

Searching using the words "best mba blog ever" - resulted in the front page (second entry) - not bad........
Searching using "best mba blog" - not front page - in fact nowhere to be seen........
Using PageRank (Google's search algorithm based on links etc.) - a big fat zero. Not good.

Edit: Searching using "best mba blog" on google blog search - front page! encouraging!

I probably can do more to get my blog "out there" into the interweb - but unsure how. I currently leave the address in my signature while posting on various MBA-related forums and websites but that is pretty much it. Any experienced bloggers have any ideas? If you are currently reading this blog, how did you find it?

Talking about google search - here is a rather nifty blog I found called essay snark. If you are brave, send your business school essay in and have it reviewed (or in some cases destroyed) by an MBA admissions consultant for free. I can say with (some) degree of certainty that my essays are better than those currently posted on essay snark (!) - but still awaiting decision from various adcoms.

Fingers crossed.

BL

Stanford Business School

2009-10-07T20:55:00.030+01:00

Hello once again. Hope you are all well.

Following the HBS information session, I went to the Stanford information session 2 weeks ago at the BP building in St James Square. I was curious to see whether (i) the Stanford alumni were noticeably different to their HBS counterparts and (ii) how the overall information session would compare to the ones I previously attended.

As I entered the BP building (very nice location near Green Park) - I notice sandwiches! Surprisingly I didn't eat one as I was too busy talking to other applicants but a nice touch from Stanford.

The crowd was slightly smaller than the number of attendees at the HBS event. Perhaps reflective of the school itself. Stanford admits around 350 students, compared to 900 at HBS. It is a small school by design. From memory, I believe Stanford has around 3500-4000 applicants for 350 places. So yes I'm afraid......extremely competitive! For the uninitiated, Stanford is a top 5 business school in California famed for its entrepreneurship and strength in technology/media/innovation (amongst many other strengths).

The session begins with an explanation of life at Stanford, the curriculum and the application process. Interestingly quite a bit of time was spent on tips for the application process - more so than HBS in my opinion. Very useful for people thinking about applying and just starting their MBA "journey". Again there were some videos showing current students, interesting & genuine but perhaps not as flash as the HBS one.

Moving onto the Q&A panel with the Stanford alumni - I hear "investment banking" & "consultancy" from five of the six individuals when asked to describe their background. Now at this juncture some members of the audience who are not from a finance background, voice their concerns about how competitive their application will be given the composition of the panel. The moderator reassures them that the panel is not representative of the diversity in the Stanford classroom. I am inclined to agree with the moderator here, especially when looking at the statistical breakdown of classes on the Stanford website; but perhaps they could have chosen a more diverse panel? Or are investment bankers naturally the most willing to help? Hehe. From my own point of view, I am heartened by the panel as I am from an IB background. However I acknowledge that my app falls within the "IB pool" and will be ridiculously competitive. I hope I have done enough in my essays to stand out!

The alumni were impressive as usual. As they recounted their stories about their time at Stanford, I could see genuine joy in their faces. They clearly had a wonderful time and stressed the opportunities to try new careers, visit exotic locations, the strong ties with Silicon Valley and of course the Cali weather! I get the impression that the MBA programme is pretty much flat out, and you will be constantly busy. Sounds good to me. In comparison to the HBS alumni - I don't see much difference. Perhaps more international representation (i.e. Europeans, Americans and English) than the predominantly English panel at HBS. But in terms of personality they were all very bright, engaging and articulate. Drinks follow the event.

I have actually submitted both my HBS and Stanford applications this week for Round 1. More on this in future posts!

Harvard Business School

2009-09-19T23:47:00.003+01:00

Hey All. I went to the HBS Information event last week in London! Although it is getting very close to the first deadline (1st of October) I thought it would be good to go down and check it out. So let me tell you about it........

I finished work and headed to the event at the Goldman Sachs building in London @ 7pm. I got there and to my surprise I see a friend from school that I haven't seen for 6 years. Small world! We are at different stages of the app process, he is just starting, but it was great to catch up.

Two people from the admissions board start with general information about HBS and the admissions procedure. Last year 10,000 people applied and 900 or so got accepted. 1800 got accepted for interview. So chances overall of getting accepted are under 10% but if you are lucky to get an interview that gets bumped up to 50%. I think to myself "wow extremely competitive". The other app information I am familiar with surrounding essays and the GMAT, since I have done a lot of research already :P

Next up is a short video which shows the experience of 2 students at HBS. I won't spoil it for those who are planning to go to an event but needless to say its very inspiring. Really makes you feel privileged to be part of the HBS community. This is followed by a Q&A session with 5 HBS alumni. I counted that there were 4 Oxbridge Alumni and one LSE Alumni amongst the panel of five. Top Tier again. I fancy giving the Oxford Alumni some stick, since I went to Cambridge (the best uni in the UK no matter what anyone tells you!) but figure its probably not appropriate! They now work at places like Google, Ocado, Morgan Stanley, Bain Consultancy, you get the picture!

Comparing this with the LBS event, the main differentiator was certainly the Q&A panel. The LBS one felt shorter and not as thorough. All the HBS Alumni were very impressive people - articulate and intelligent. I quickly get the sense of the type of people they are looking for. To use their slogans, habit of leadership and intellectual curiosity are certainly on show here. Overall, the event is less interactive than LBS, but the panel is better and of course it has that slick American presentation with the video. I miss drinks at the end of the event as I have a shocking flu, but I still got a lot out of the event despite being near the end of my application.

The event really brought home what a prestigious standing HBS has and how competitive it is. I've pretty much done the best I can with my application so fingers crossed!

Reminds me of my dissertation

2009-08-06T23:35:00.023+01:00

Hey sorry haven't blogged for a while been busy with work plus essay writing! Just going to make this a short post. No matter which school you apply to, the essays are perhaps the most important part of your application. It's a great opportunity to put your personality down onto paper. You want to bring out your motivations for doing an MBA, what drives you, what you value and not simply list down a set of facts. (After all you submit a resume for this!)

Writing my essays so far (definitely not finished) has reminded me of my dissertation at Uni. Lets look at the similarities:

Research - reading MBA books, websites, blogs - to find out how to structure a good MBA essay and what qualities to bring out.

Brainstorming - thinking of good ideas and themes for the essays. What makes me unique?

Writing - translating these ideas and themes onto paper. Just like my dissertation, this is a lengthy process!

Review/Revisions - getting people that I know well to read them and offer criticism/suggestions. Refining my essays just like my dissertation.

Final product - hopefully something you are proud of!

Maybe once Ive finished and have more time, I will do a write up of my approach - and of course depending on my success.......to see if I get accepted or not! I would say don't underestimate the time it takes to write these essays, I have given myself 2 months!

London Business School

2009-07-14T19:27:00.006+01:00

With the GMAT out of the way, its time to think about the Schools. Although the MBA application process is pretty daunting, I am (sadistically) looking forward to doing my essays. The MBA process is not for the half-hearted and I am fully committed to the process. Hopefully this positive mindset will help me!

I visited London Business School (LBS) in March of this year for an information session after work. LBS is ranked 2nd globally by the FT and 5th (non-US!) by Business Week. Some discrepancy there but I think it's widely acknowledged as a top 10 business school. Certainly in Europe you would think of LBS and INSEAD as the top two.

The information session began with a member of their faculty showing a list of companies (GM, Yahoo, RBS) against another list of companies (Honda, Google, HSBC) and asked the audience what differentiated the two lists. This developed into a discussion about the importance of management, innovation and ultimately strategy, which in part contributed to the differing fortunes of the companies in the two lists. It was a nice way of highlighting the value of an MBA, and was pretty thought provoking. Some mathematical and verbal "riddles" followed (which I won't spoil for those who are going to an information session). Very interactive so far, just as I imagine a class would be at LBS. Finally it ended with 5 LBS students, being brought to the front and talking about their experiences and answering questions. A nice mix of students, clearly very bright and very driven people! There were drinks afterwards, where people could ask further questions. All in all, a worthwhile session. LBS seems like a very international school with great diversity amongst its student population and strong networks in finance (GS).

I was also very impressed with the "after-care" service. I receive monthly MBA newsletters from LBS and was also given contact details of a current LBS student if I had any further questions. Naturally I called, and she was very helpful in answering my fairly basic questions at the time on the GMAT, references & the culture of the school (this was my first school visit after all!). In conclusion, thumbs up LBS. If you are looking for an "international" school, with good financial pedigree and want to experience life in London - LBS would be a good fit.

GMAT - Section by section

2009-07-10T18:32:00.056+01:00

As promised, here are my thoughts & experiences regarding each section of the GMAT:

Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA)

As I am a native speaker and have written countless essays at University, I did not prep much for this section. To start with, I read the sample essays in the OG books. Then remembered the following structure for my essays, which you can read in the link here. Fairly standard stuff, just remember the following:

Use standard essay construction - introduction, points and conclusion.
Use evidence & examples to reinforce your point.
On the Issue section - take one view - agreement or disagreement
Proof read your essay

As practice, I wrote the GMAT prep essays 1-2 weeks before the exam. On test day itself, I spent 20 minutes writing on each section, then the remainder of the time proof reading. Proof reading is pretty useful so as to (i) eliminate typos (ii) correct your grammar so that your phrases read well and (iii) to make sure you aren't repeating points or words.

I scored a 6.0 on this section.

Problem Solving

My general sentiment on problem solving is don't get lulled into a false sense of security. As I worked through my OG book, I got almost all the questions right.... if given enough time. There in lies the problem, if given enough time. As I started the Prep software, I still maintained the same mentality of wanting to solve every problem, yet time pressure and the ramp up in the difficulty of questions did not allow for this. So get into the habit of doing questions timed & if a question appears to take ages to solve there is normally some kind of shortcut (whether its prime factorisation etc).

For general tips in speeding up your PS skills check out the flashcards on beatthegmat and also have a read through GMAT hacks. You will pick up lots of useful tips from these 2 resources. I found them especially useful regarding factorisation which was one of my weak points. Also remember your DST Triangle (i.e. Distance = Speed x Time)! If you get into the habit of quickly translating word problems into equations, such as DST and similarly the PRT Triangle (Rate = Production/Time) it will definitely save you time on the real thing. If you read my last post, you will see I had a nightmare on my first question! So don't be afraid to let the occasional question go, even if you have been eating them for breakfast in your prep!

Also find a strategy that works for you, whether its plugging in numbers or treating everything algebraically, do whatever comes to you naturally.

Data Sufficiency

Ahhhhhh good old data sufficiency. Gave me so many problems when I first started. Again the 2 resources I posted will give you many tips but let me quickly reiterate the fundamentals:

While reading the question, write down what you are required to prove sufficient. Is it a specific value or a Yes/No equation?
Learn the answer stems A,B,C,D and E. A complete NO BRAINER.
Treat each answer stem separately. NO BRAINER.
Don't waste time trying to solve the actual equation! You just need to prove the information provided is sufficient to solve!

Now obviously, knowing the answer is better than guessing. But I found DS to be one of the topics where educated guessing can reap fruitful benefits. Now don't see this as my endorsement to go into the DS section and simply try and "wing" it. Do as much prep as possible. But if you are stuck/pressed for time on the real thing - this is the section where you can make up time. Chances are, you are doing well on the exam and are confronted by a difficult DS question. If you are able to eliminate, say statement B, you are left between (A, C or E). Similarly if you can eliminate both you are left with (C or E ~ a 50% chance). In my experience, especially difficult diagram questions, the answer is rarely E. Statements often look more sufficient than they actually are. So bear this in mind if you have to make an educated guess.

As you do more and more questions, I recommend you Google the questions you got wrong (especially from the GMAT prep). You will pick up loads of neat tricks by reading the forums, I know I certainly did! Let me just use an example to illustrate:

Question:

Each employee of Company Z is an employee of either Division X or Division Y, but not both. If each division has some part-time employees, is the ratio of the number of full-time employees to the number of part-time employees greater for Division X than for Company Z?

1). The ratio of the number of full-time employees to the number of part-time employees is less for Division Y than for Company Z.

2). More than half the full-time employees of Company Z are employees of Division X, and more than half of the part-time employees of Company Z are employees of Division Y.

Daunting at first look. But not if you know this tip:

If a data set can be split into two groups, and one of the groups has a ratio HIGHER than the overall ratio (the weighted average) for some 2 characteristics, then the other group has a ratio LOWER than the overall ratio for those 2 characteristics - and vice versa.

This makes intuitive sense (to me at least) as if one ratio is lower than the weighted average then the other ratio should be higher to compensate for this. Statement 1 simply states that Yf/Yp ratio is less than the Zf/Zp ratio, using the rule above we know this to be sufficient. Similarly Statement 2 can be interpreted as Xf/Xp ratio is greater than the Yf/Yp ratio. So the ratio for X will be greater than the ratio for both. So Sufficient. Answer is D.

Now the question above is just an example of the types of DS tips you can pick up while researching your weak points. There are many others out there that you will pick up as you work through your questions.

One other thing to note is in the OG, as you look up your answers, they almost always solve the questions. Don't get into this mindset of solving. Think sufficient. If you solved every DS question you would run out of time! Think in terms of "Right 2 unknowns, ahhh statement one gives me one equation, the other equation is presented in the question. 2 simultaneous equations, 2 unknowns, sufficient. Same for statement two. Ahh ok D".

So, do lots of prep. Pick up tips. Be exam smart. Conquer DS.

Sentence Correction

Initially I found sentence correction to be an incredibly frustrating/annoying experience even as a native speaker. The saying is true to some extent, "GMAT English is not normal English". If I wasn't a native speaker, I would recommend investing in some 3rd party books such as the Manhattan Sentence Correction book (which seems to get good reviews) as well as checking out Spidey's SC Notes. Over time, you will begin to recognise certain clues which can help you decipher SC. Look for the following:

Subject-Verb agreement
Learn your idioms
Parallelism
Does the modifier make sense?

I found it best not to try and over complicate matters. I tried to focus on the four things above and in doing so was able to eliminate answers which were patently incorrect. This often would lead me to the correct answer. If I was in some doubt, say between two answer choices, I tended to go with the more succinct/concise answer. In general, I would advise you to read all the questions and eliminate, eliminate, eliminate till you have the correct answer.

Critical Reasoning

Not much to say here. Other than write down what the question is looking for before reading the passage - i.e. assumption, strengthen, weaken, infer etc. Then actively try and think of what a sensible answer would be as you read through. Sometimes you will find this answer (or something similar) in the answer choices! If not, go through a process of elimination, as many of the answers are outside the scope of the passage (i.e. irrelevant), and choose the answer which makes most sense to you.

Reading Comprehension

Some people like to write brief notes as they read through. I did not. My reasoning was that it (a) wasted time and (b) was unnecessary as my brain could remember the general structure of the passage without the need to write it down. In terms of mindset when approaching these type of questions I would recommend the following:

Do not skim read. If you read a sentence and it doesn't sink in - read it again!
Try to keep a mental framework of the passage as a whole. For example paragraph one is the theory, paragraph two is the counter-evidence, paragraph 3 is an alternative theory.
Read as if you are interested in the passage! What do you mean you don't find Native American land plots fascinating???
Avoid answers that have STRONG words in them (i.e. the author's argument is seriously flawed). Try and go for the more BALANCED answers (i.e. the author's argument is well founded though incomplete).

Well, I think that's it. Hopefully my ramblings were of some use to you! Time to move onto the "hard part" - the essays! I am still happy to answer questions so make a post at the bottom if you have one.

Test Day (!)

2009-07-08T20:56:00.017+01:00

Hi again.

Just going to give a quick-ish account of how my actual test day panned out. I will in my next post try and give certain strategies specific to each section (AWA, Numeracy and Verbal).

Right where to begin.......okay lets start with what you should do with yourself the day before your test! Now ideally before your test, you want to be well rested, in a positive frame of mind and focused. I ran through GMAT Prep 2 the day before my exam (for the second time) to keep my mind sharp. I scored 760. After going through the questions I got wrong, I decided to relax and spent a couple of hours watching the Wimbledon Final. It was a great match, felt a bit sorry for Roddick, but great to see Federer make history by winning 15 grand slams at the age of 27. Especially liked Roddick saying "Sorry Pete (Sampras) tried to hold him off as long as possible!" in his interview. I did a couple of SC questions in the evening, and went to bed early at 10pm.

You know yourself best, so do whatever relaxes you, whether its going to the gym, watching a movie or listening to music. I couldn't see any harm doing a couple of questions or running through a prep the day before just to keep the mind sharp. I would not suggest a massive cramming session either. After all, the GMAT is just not the type of exam you can "cram" for. There isn't a mass of information to digest. You either know the principles and techniques or you don't.

My test was scheduled at 12.45pm and despite sleeping early, I woke up @ 9am feeling TIRED. I think I had a broken sleep, waking up a couple of times, it was probably unconscious anxiety - nevertheless these things cannot be avoided sometimes! I proceeded to have a shower, and ate a hearty breakfast (eggs bacon mushrooms mmmmmm). Bought a Coke on my way to the test center for caffeine and sugar and also a Red Bull (open in case of emergency - I thought to myself).

My local test center is in London. I got there an hour early and they asked me if I wanted to take it early as they had free slots. I thought "Why Not?" and decided to go for it. To my shock......I was not allowed to take any drinks in. No Water, no Coke and no Red Bull. They suggested I could drink during my breaks. I then asked for some ear muffs to block out any noise and to help me concentrate. They had run out. I also asked for an additional notebook. I wasn't allowed. Now I assume these annoyances are specific to the London test centre (aka Prison) as I had read these little tips from other test takers on the GMAT forums. I didn't get particularly rattled but it wasn't exactly a warm welcome.

I sat at my seat. Took my shoes off to relax. No my feet didn't stink! AWA section. I had written a couple of practice essays on the GMAT prep software but nothing marked. I followed a fairly traditional structure on both argument and issue questions (will talk about this more in later posts). Nothing dramatic to report here, wrote each in about 20 mins and proof read for 5+ mins. Still awaiting the scores, but it felt like it went okay. Now at the end of the AWA section I wrote the following on my notepad:

Now the above is a tip I picked up from www.beatthegmat.com. The left side represents the numeracy section and shows on question 5 you should have 66 minutes left, question 10, 56 minutes left etc. The gap here is 10 mins per 5 questions. The right side represents the verbal section and is exactly the same principle instead the gap between 5 questions is 9 minutes. Timekeeping is very important on the GMAT. You get heavily penalised if you do not finish the test so referring to the above is a good way of keeping track of how much time you have left.

Right onto the numeracy section. Question one - seems like a simple algebra rearranging problem. Do the workings on my pad, and look up.......cannot see the answer listed! Redo my workings......still cannot see the answer. I think to myself "this is the first question, 50% get it right, 50% get it wrong, surely you can get the answer". Before I know it 5 minutes have elapsed. An important lesson here is sometimes you have to let go of your pride and just make an educated guess. That's exactly what I did but I wasted far too much time before doing so. I also don't buy into this "get the first 10 questions correct at all costs" business. You have to devote an equal amount of time/effort to all questions and it is imperative to finish the test (at all costs). I managed to make up the time on some easier PS questions and some DS questions where the principles came to me quickly. Whenever I saw a difficult question from that point on, I did not spend too long on it, 1-2 mins max, then making an educated guess. I did not notice the test getting progressively harder either......I felt it was a mixture of easy/moderate and difficult questions throughout.

Who knows if I got that first question correct? But by referring to my notepad for timing, making educated guesses where I needed to, and nailing those questions I knew how to do, I finished in time and scored 49 (88 percentile). Now of course......I didn't know this at the time. I was glad I didn't lose the plot after the Question 1 debacle and was able to finish the test but it did not feel like I had aced the section either.

Took a break. Went outside drank some Coke. Went to the toilet splashed my face with water.

Now onto the verbal section. I don't have a great deal to write here. It felt slightly harder than the GMAT prep but I am certain that was more down to the pressure of exam conditions rather than genuinely more difficult questions. My timing was fine and I worked through the test. There were 2 long RC passages and 2 short ones. I scored 40 or 89 percentile. I'm sure many of you out there are perfectionists. But sometimes you have to realise, you cannot get every question on the GMAT correct so don't fret if you are not 100% certain of an answer. Choose what you think is best and move on.

I click "finish" on my screen. My initial assessment is......."Please Please over 700" but I am not certain at all. The score comes up.........730 - Q49 V40 overall 96 Percentile. Happiness. Relief. Silent fist pump. I am.........Roger Federer (for about 2 seconds).

The GMAT defeated - 730

2009-07-06T16:59:00.028+01:00

Hello All. As you can see I have not posted for a little over 2 months. However I return with good news from my hiatus. 730 on the GMAT!!! Woop!!!

In my upcoming posts, I will dissect my entire GMAT "experience" which hopefully will provide some useful insights for aspiring candidates.

Lets get cracking.

How important is the GMAT?

As I have mentioned previously, the GMAT is only part of your application. If you score extremely high but your essays are woeful you probably will not get into your school of choice. Conversely, if you score slightly below par and your essays are outstanding you still have a shot. The main thing to take away, is try your best to get a decent score (700+) and focus on making the rest of your application (essays/references etc) really stand out. Also bear in mind, even if you get a terrible score you can always retake. Thankfully, I managed to get a 730 first time round.

My background

You can read about my background in my first post. I would say I'm a pretty smart guy but not exactly a genius. Regardless, being smart certainly does not guarantee a good GMAT score. You need to have adequate & thorough preparation and "learn" how the exam is tested. I would say that I am equally strong in both maths and verbal and my score certainly reflects that (49 Quantitative and 40 Verbal). For non native speakers I can imagine that the verbal section might be quite tricky and so you may have to prep more on that section than I did. To put it plainly, being smart will not guarantee you a good score but thorough preparation will. (NB being a genius certainly does no harm. So if you are one, well done.)

Preparation

As you can see from my last post I began studying for the GMAT in mid-April. So a preparation time of 2 and a half months. However my first 2 months of study would be what I describe as "casual". Not in terms of effort or time spent, but in terms of approach. Let me explain.

Typically I would spend about 40 mins to one hour after work, from Monday to Friday. I normally started around 9pm, and would do a series of questions from my official guide book. My approach was casual, as I did not actively note which types of questions I got wrong and I did not time myself. I also listened to music as I did my questions (Pop, Rap and RnB if you are interested). On weekends I would do about 3-4 hours a day, again just running through questions. This approach is initially acceptable, to familiarise yourself with the types of questions asked, but in hindsight is NOT an effective way to study. I would recommend only doing this for a month or so, lets call it the "familiarisation process".

Once this process is over, its time to devise a proper revision plan, which strategically identifies which areas you are weak in and to strengthen those areas accordingly. I strongly recommend visiting www.beatthegmat.com and reading through their Strategy section. Here are my general tips:

a casual familiarisation process is fine, but do not maintain this approach for too long!
begin timing yourself while doing GMAT questions and note which types of questions you typically get wrong. Study these weak areas accordingly.
do lots and lots of questions - eventually you will begin to recognise the "style" of question enabling you to answer it quicker and in extreme cases make educated guesses when stuck.
download the CAT software from www.mba.com and take the practice exams.
read www.beatthegmat.com - they have lots of useful resources including free flashcards for all topics and recommended study plans.

I only started adopting this approach in the last 2 and a half weeks of my preparation. Data Sufficiency (DS) and Sentence Correction (SC) were my weak points (like most people) whereas I had few if any errors on Reading Comprehension (RC) and Critical Reasoning (CR). I began focusing on specific areas where I had problems such as complicated factor and rate questions in DS. I will go through my thoughts on each section later on. First lets look at my prep material.

Having read the forums extensively, I have seen candidates that use around 10+ GMAT prep books. While I am not necessarily saying this is over-kill, I did not adopt this approach (after consulting with several MBA students). By all means if you feel you are especially weak in certain areas, such as SC, feel free to buy books that cover this material in more depth. Nevertheless, this is the prep I used:

Official Guide 11
Official Guide 12
Official Guide Quantitative and Verbal Review
GMAT Prep software off www.mba.com

That's it folks. In some ways my prep is slightly unusual in comparison to other candidates as I decided not to flesh out my revision with any 3rd party books. Let me re-iterate that I am not saying this is the best approach but rather this is the approach that I found worked for me. One thing that I will say though, is, there is no substitute for the OG books. They replicate the same principles and "types" of questions you find on the real test, and although their difficulty is somewhat easier that the test itself, they are an invaluable resource.

This leads me onto my second point. The real GMAT exam and the GMAT Prep Software contain more difficult questions than the OG books. I only realised this 2 and a half weeks before my exam, when I took the mock prep exam and found it noticeably more difficult than any questions in the OG. This was a bit of an "Oh crap" moment for me, and I did not even finish my first mock exam, quitting out of frustration. However I found a useful document from www.beatthegmat.com which provided a large sample of numerical questions used on the GMAT prep test with suggested workings (link here - couldn't find the original source on the forum). I studied the approach adopted on the questions I struggled with (DS), and slowly but surely began learning how the GMAT was trying to test (or trick) us.

So I recommend working through the OG but bear in mind, the prep software contains noticeably more difficult questions, and accordingly is more representative of the real thing. Also run through the prep software a couple of times as different questions will pop up. I ran through Prep 1 twice and Prep 2 twice. Like many people have suggested it is probably a good idea if you sit through the Prep and treat it as a real exam, doing the AWA section and not to take any breaks. I will admit though.........despite my best intentions I did not manage this. I typically did the AWA took a break. Then did the numeracy, took a break (30 mins to one hour) then did the verbal section.

From my previous experience in Uni, I knew I had the stamina to take 3 hour exams, so deep down when the pressure was on, I knew I was not going to fade away or have a blank mind. Also in my defence, the summer has been incredibly hot, and I was unable to physically sit by my computer 3 hours straight! Nevertheless good sense dictates, sit down and treat your mock exam as the real thing. (Unless like me you know you can sit 3 hour exams and would rather just endure the pain once, rather than 3-4 times over). My scores from GMAT prep were from the 740-760 range. This gave me confidence but I was fully aware they had been achieved in a relaxed environment with ample breaks.

So in summary:

OG books are a must. But remember the real thing contains harder questions.
GMAT Prep Software is great preparation. Do this multiple times over.
Using these 2 resources identify which areas you are weak in. Keep practising until you can quickly interpret what the question is asking for, the best methodology for solving and how the GMAT is trying to trick you (because its evil).

The GMAT

2009-04-12T23:45:00.004+01:00

Well its getting pretty late now. Its 11.45pm. I have spent a large portion of my day running through practice GMAT questions. For the uninitiated, the GMAT is a numerical and verbal exam that is part of your MBA application. I have spoken to plenty of MBA alumni and the general consensus is that Essays matter more than the GMAT. Nevertheless, you should still aim for a solid score. I believe 700+ is a decent score for a top school (720 and above would be nice). I aim to take my GMATs in June/July & then get cracking on my essays.

Now time for a little rant. The data sufficiency section on the GMAT is pretty tricky but it pales in comparison to the sentence correction section of the verbal reasoning! As a native speaker in English (and having taken a Politics module as part of my degree no less!) I am finding this section very difficult! I swear sometimes, the sentences do not make any sense at all. Sometimes I think, "Why would any sane human being choose to write a sentence like this? It makes no sense." Anyone else doing the GMAT share my thoughts?

Anyway lesson for the day. Practice makes perfect.

An Introduction

2009-04-12T12:44:00.004+01:00

Welcome all, to what some people (just me for now) are calling the best mba blog ever. Hopefully this will be a useful resource for all aspiring MBA applicants. The MBA Application is a pretty "thought-intensive" process, so this Blog will be the home of my thoughts, when (or if) they appear.

First of all, an introduction. My name is BL. I am 25 yrs old and am from London. I studied Economics at a "lovely" Oxbridge institution and have worked for 3-4 years or so for an Investment Bank. I will get to my motivations for doing an MBA in a later post perhaps. My current goal is to get all my applications done for the first round of deadlines this Fall.

Btw we don't use the term "Fall" in England, but I am embracing American terminology seeing as I will be applying to some US Schools. I believe we call it Autumn term. As some of you will know, schools typically have 3 application rounds. The first round in Fall, typically has the highest acceptance rate. Your chances get progressively slimmer with the second round (~January) and the third round (~March/April).

Anyway, I am currently studying for the GMATs and thinking about my essays. That is all for now.

Peace out.