GMAT Still the Top Concern of MBA Applicants
It seems that little has changed in the MBA admissions cycle since my early days in the field. It’s September and prospective MBA applicants are freaking out about the GMAT. Nothing like looming application deadlines to raise the anxiety level!
When I took the GMAT in 1995, it was only given four times a year and it was still on paper. Ah, those were the good old days! A lot has changed around the format and accessibility of the test, but candidate stress has stayed the same. In fact it’s probably increased as Generation Y (20-somethings) is much more focused on advancement and graduate school than previous generations.
I am no GMAT expert, but having worked with over a thousand pre-MBA and MBA candidates, I am pretty familiar with “GMAT gloom” – when MBA candidates agonize about the GMAT, most often because they don’t feel that it accurately reflects their capabilities. I get it and I sympathize…slightly. My sympathy is tempered because too many MBA applicants with GMAT gloom dwell there and allow the GMAT to overtake them. Instead of one hurdle to get over, MBA applicants make the GMAT a 100-foot wall with a slippery substance dripping down it and venomous snakes crawling out of the holes where one is supposed to put their hands! Stop giving the GMAT that much power; don’t be a GMAT victim!
So what to do…
- Stop saying that you are bad at standardized tests – it will be a self-fulfilling prophesy (if you think and say that you will do poorly, amazingly…you will do poorly. In fact, how about some positive self-talk? [There are a handful of candidates that truly have challenges with tests, but my bet is that you are not one of them.]
- In my unscientific opinion, the factor that most derails GMAT takers is lack of preparation. They don’t know the material cold – I mean knowing at a level that you could teach someone else. Lots of test takers understand the concepts at a basic level, but don’t have complete mastery. Akil Bello of Bell Curves says that you are ready to take the GMAT when you know the material two tequilas deep (@akilbello “Translation: know your stuff so well that you can still recall it after your second tequila”).
The GMAT is challenging. Improving your GMAT score is even more challenging. At the same time, over my years in this space I have seen so much GMAT magic – like 150 point increase GMAT magic (these results are not typical, but they happen too often to be anomalies). GMAT magic happens when test takers get out of their own way – they figure out what they are doing wrong and fix it. Often that’s as simple as looking in the mirror to see who is holding them back.
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