alicebentley | (no subject)

(no subject)

In May I posted musings about new career paths, and possibly going back to school. In exploration of that, I learned that people applying to the better MBA schools need to take an entrance exam, the GMAT. I bought a study guide for it (Peterson's) and found to no great surprise that this test was going to be pretty hard, and that I wasn't doing very well self-studying for it.

So I signed up for a four session class ($385) at Seattle U about taking the GMAT. Worth every penny, as the instructor not only helped familiarize the oddities of this test [Data Sufficiency?!?] and identify which sections each student needed to work on, but was hilarious the whole time.

I took the test Monday afternoon - complete and official results won't be sent for a couple of weeks, but I unofficially got a 600 overall. So, better than average, but not amazingly so. Most of the points lost were in the Quantitative section. It's been far too long since I regularly factored quadratics.

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I guess it's a Good Thing I became a Librarian, as factoring quadratics is not required in this career field. Do you have to pay big bucks to take the test again, or was that a practice test? Or is this "good enough" to push you forward into Grad School?

I'm told that quadratics are unlikely to surface during an MBA as well, but that it's a useful hurdle to winnow the pack.

There are really only two schools I'm interested in: Seattle U and UW. The two programs are astonishingly different, with points in favor of either. Neither school goes into specifics on their requirements, but a 600 sounds like enough to at least get them looking. The other major factor is my GPA which, I was surprised to realize, I can't remember. I know it wasn't fabulous, and I have some dim memory of 2.7 maybe - but was that out of 4 or out of 5? Can't remember, and the U of I's website says the school was switching from one to another in that time frame. I've ordered a copy of my transcript, it will arrive in another few weeks.

I know the UW mentioned that the lowest scoring applicant they accepted last year got a 550, but the UW uses your GPA, GMAT, work experience, recommendations and personal essay combined to determine admission.

Seattle U relies more on the GPA and GMAT and doesn't even ask for an essay.

I guess I'll know more if I apply and are refused! Both schools say it's fine to apply again afterward.

Well, you did 40 points better than I did.

And, you'd be ok to enter Notre Dame's business school.

Very little of the Quantitative in the GMAT has surfaced in my B-school experience. None of my instructors seem to care about types of triangles or calculating the volume of a cone.

Your "official" results, BTW will be exactly what your "unofficial" results were - why they disclaim that to be the case, I have no idea.

Are there sample GMAT tests online? Be interesting to have a try at one, just out of interest.

I haven't seen any, but didn't really look. The Peterson guide included a practice test and about nine tests worth of sample questions.
But the real test is computer-aided, and adjusts each following question for difficulty depending on whether you were correct on the last one.

Sent, with some difficulty, from my iPhone

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