GMAT Strategy

Hi All,

Yesterday, I appeared for official GMAT test and unfortunately I could score only 660 (49Q, 31V). I am not happy with the score and I know this is not a good score to target top 30 USA business schools. I am from India and have 6.5 years of IT industry exp.

I need your advice on retake of the test.
How should I prepare for retake? I have already gone through all Manhattan books (all quant and SC books- except CR book)?
How many practice test should I give? As I have already used Manhattan CATs, GMATPrep CATs, all major online free tests (Kaplan, knewton etc..)? Which CAT tests will be more usefull?

I want to apply in first round and the deadlines of most of the USA schools is in first week of Oct 2010. Keeping this in mind I should give the retake within a month so that I have some time to work upon the application. Please give your suggestion on this too.

In MGMAT and GMATPrep practce CATs, I got average of 690 (range: from 660 to 730).

At the moment I am totaly confused about what should I need to do. I request you to direct me in the right direction. I will highly obliged to you.

Thanks

Thanks for your question. If you can get a 660, you can get a 700. Not sure if you have looked into instructor-led courses, but they might be just the ticket to get you to the tipping point. While a 660 is a great GMAT score, you are correct in that coming from your applicant pool (Male Indian IT), you should try to stand out as much as you can and there are a lot of 700+ GMAT scores in that pool. Good luck.

Hi Bryant,

Thank you very much for your reply.

As the deadlines for first round of applications are very near. I have max. of 1 month to retake the test so it is difficult to take an instructor-led course.

I have done extensive study for three and half months. I was confident to get 700+. Could you please suggest me to follow the strategy to improve my score to 700+ level?

Also, I have taken almost all free online tests and all MGMAT tests. Which tests should I give before retake.

I am well prepared for quant. Please suggest me to improve my verbal score to score atleast 80 percentile.


Please give an genuine advice on the time duration - is 1 month sufficient to improve my score to 700+ level?

How do schools mind retake of GMAT?

Thanks