Given the fact that we have already touched upon more important aspects of GMAT and business school education, this post on GMAT score range indeed comes quite late. But the old age adage goes, better late than never, and therefore, we are here with a discussion on the GMAT score range. Interestingly, we have already discussed the concept of GMAT percentile for admission to the business schools. Thing is that nobody talks in terms of percentile when it comes to business school applications. It is always the scaled score that is talked about.

There are three main sections in the GMAT exam, namely Quantitative Section, Verbal Section and the Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA). The first two are scored in the range of 0 to 60, with most of the students getting between 9 and 44 in verbal and between 7 and 50 in quant. It is very rare for anybody to score below 9 or 7 and above 44 or 50 in Verbal and Quant respectively. Read more…

Currently, I’ve come across a lot of students who have apparently taken a break (six months or more) from work in order to prepare for GMAT and dedicate more time towards college admission process. Well, to sum it up in the most euphemistic way, “this approach is going to reflect negatively upon your admission prospects.”

I agree that business school admission procedure is rather tedious and involves close to 10 months (3 months of GMAT preparation on an average, then filling out application forms, writing admission essays simultaneously, college visits, scholarship essays and forms, taking classes for extra credits and many other things). Read more…

We aren’t talking about the career break that will result from joining business school for the MBA degree program but about the career breaks that you may have taken in the recent or distant past, owing to reasons such as lay-off during the recession, company closure during recession, unavoidable circumstances leading up to near-crisis situation on the personal front, career switch or any other personal reasons that called for the break in the career.

These career breaks are very conspicuous in your MBA admission resume, at times given more importance than your successful tryst with leadership opportunities at a Fortune 500 company. This is so because almost everybody is curious as to what made you leave that coveted job or more importantly, what did you do during the break to add significant value to your life and professional career.

It is then advisable that you introspect the real reasons for the career break and also make sure that the adcom members see that as a tactical measure on your part towards your career goals fulfillment. In case the break was a forced one (due to recessional layoff or company closure, then the admission committee members expect you to have not wasted time in mulling over what happened. You’d stand to distinct advantage if you show it to the interviewer as to how you went about improving your career prospects:

• Did you look for a new job?
• Did you take up online certificate courses so as to enhance your professional skills in the meantime?
• Did you take it as an opportunity to start your own entrepreneurial project which you had wanted to do for a long time?
• Did you decide to switch career then and if yes, then what is it that led you to the decision? (apart from the job loss due to recession or any other primary reason)

We will discuss more about the career breaks and business school acceptability in the subsequent posts and also see the best way to convince the admission committee and the interviewer that you indeed did not waste precious time while away from work or the career switch was a well thought upon strategy.

You are quite sure that you want to do an MBA and an MBA degree will work wonders for your professional or entrepreneurial career. How?

Stanford GSB is your ultimate aim! You are working hard to get 750 plus on GMAT and satisfy all the prerequisites of admission at Stanford. Why Stanford?

Oh don’t be irked with me because I merely want to say that sooner you find questions to these answers, the better it would be for you. MBA in the US is not only about getting 700+ GMAT score or showing your leadership qualities through three or five years of work experience. It’s a complete package of requirements of which admission essays form an important part. These MBA application essays are not Statement of Purposes (which are pretty much enough for other Graduate Master degree programs) in the US. Read more…

Insert the 16^th letter of alphabets (P) in the acronym IIM and you get IIPM, the oh-so-famous Indian Institute of Planning and Management, which is nothing more than a sham, deceiving MBA aspirants by providing them low standard management education. Owned by Arindam Chaudhary, a famous media personality in India, IIPM targets MBA aspirants from affluent Indian middle class. These are either those who have not scored high percentile on CAT, XAT or other difficult standardized tests or are looking for easy MBA degree, just in the name of adding that to their resume.

The worst victims are the students who fall for the advertising bait of IIPM, enroll for its MBA courses and at the end of two years discover that the worth of their degree is not more than $4,000. Employers refuse to recognize their MBA degree, indeed the AICTE has not accredited it. The aggressive internet marketing and full length print advertisements in the leading national dailies and magazines has created a credibility for IIPM. Despite repeated attempts at exposing the IIPM fraud by some of the publishing platforms with conscience and concern, students continue to enroll in the courses offered by the institute. The brand ambassador of IIPM, Sharhrukh Khan realizes little as to how degrading it is for the morale of the student who has incurred a debt of close to $20,000 to study at IIPM, only to find later that the degree is a sham. Read more…

The astute Indian academicians and educators believe that blatant commoditization of higher education, particular MBA, has dampened the B-school boom that rolled through the country in the initial years of the new millennium. The post globalization era witnessed rising demand for Indian MBAs in all sectors of economy, with the result that business education became highly attractive. This led to mushrooming of more than 3500 small and big business schools and MBA institutes in the country, trying hard to lure the students to the campus. Since, advertisements in more credible media such as newspapers, business school journals etc was expensive, these business schools resorted to internet advertising, email marketing and tele-marketing in an over-aggressive way. The lead based marketing is telling heavily upon their success, with the result that most of the seats in the B or C grade colleges are going empty and more and more MBA aspirants are feeling disillusioned with the viability of the MBA education in general, mainly after the economic crisis of 2008, which saw many of them losing their jobs or suffering a payment cuts.

The best business schools in the country let their successful students and alumni speak for them and had stringent admission procedures, creating again a realm of exclusivity to enhance their popularity. On the other hand, the diploma mills targeted the 20 year old kids of The Indian Middle Class parents, with enough money to finance a higher education MBA degree for their children. They adopted the Lead Generation advertising model, targeting applicants directly through emails, tele-marketing calls and text messages. Read more…

Are you looking for MBA in the US without having to appear for GMAT? Well, for regular full time MBA programs from the top, accredited business schools, the only way to skip GMAT exam is to give GRE instead and submit GRE scores! Yes, that was what had happened in 2009 when a news report read something like this:

“No GMAT? No problem, says Harvard” and inside it turned out that “HBS is accepting either of the GMAT or GRE”. So, see, there is no skipping the standardized tests, at least if you want to complete your MBA from a well recognized and accredited university.

There are many diploma mills and unrecognized universities that offer MBA programs without GMAT. Please do not fall for them. (I am not saying that all such universities that offer MBA without GMAT are non-accredited. In fact, if you know of a good, accredited business school that does not require GMAT or GRE scores for admission to regular full time MBA programs, then do let us know about it. )

MBA without GMAT is possible in case of Executive MBA programs and online distance learning MBA programs. These two are very much in demand. In case of executive MBA, the working professionals get to complete an MBA degree without having to forego their work and at the same time reap the benefits of campus education through weekend classes. In case of online MBA, students and professionals get to acquire business education at a cheaper cost, without having to relocate to another city or country.

It is not as if all the business schools that offer Executive MBA have done away with the need for GMAT scores. Wharton and Duke still insist that professionals and executives applying for their executive MBA programs submit GMAT scores, (usually 680+). On the other hand, business schools such as NYU Stern and Kellogg have scraped the need for GMAT scores, the rationale being that the professionals, usually with 10 or 15 years’ experience behind them do not need to be adjudged on the basis of GMAT scores.

Similarly, majority of the online MBA programs do not require the applicants to take GMAT exam or any other standardized tests. But again, there are business schools that state GMAT scores as important admission eligibility requirements. These are usually the best business schools in the world that insist that their online distance learning MBA program is on the lines of the full time MBA programs and hence, there should be no difference in the cost or eligibility requirements.

George Bernard Shaw quoted: “Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad” Oh am well on the way to being another Don Quixote (mind you, not Quixotic!)

Reading comprehension and sentence correction questions are an integral part of the GMAT exam and one way to master your reading skills is to read a lot: not only trade journals and magazines but classic and contemporary literature too, by which I mean the amazing world of books (fiction, adventure, philosophical, political, epics, poetry, classics, history, law etc)

Wondering what reading big, fat, ancient (and modern) tomes can do to your GMAT verbal score? Well, for starters, you come across new words and new usages for the words you are already familiar with. There are various new phrases, complex sentence structures and you get used to reading write and correct grammar. The direct result of the last part, that is getting used to perfect grammar sentences is that whenever you comes across a sentence with only slightest grammatical errors, your ears perk up in attention, a great instinct that comes in quite handy to solve sentence correction questions.

It is a great way for non-native English speakers to improve their English comprehension skills. As they read books from diverse genres, they become more aware of more and more words and grammatical structure. GMAT test takers have reported an increase of 50 to 100 points in their GMAT scores, based totally on the improvement in their verbal skills on account of reading classic and modern literary works. Read more…

An ideal MBA application comprises GMAT scores, admission essays, college GPAs, recommendation letters, personal interviews and a couple of other requirements that may vary from one business school to other. Needless to say, to get into one of the top 10 or let’s say top 15 business schools in the world, you need to get 700+ GMAT scores, superb application essays, recommendation letters that credit you for being a great team leader or applauds your decision making skills etc.

But even those who had it in them to be at the best MBA institute in the country, somehow failed to get to realize their dream, their reach school and had to settle for something less, nevertheless good. Like, if you aspire to study at HBS, but due to some calculations gone wrong, you have to do with Yale or Cornell. All are Ivy League schools, but we know the difference, don’t we? Read more…

Unlike SAT, ACT, IIT-JEE or any other globally reputed standardized testing program, GMAT is offered throughout the year at various testing locations around the world. The testing locations are determined by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), which also provides the details regarding GMAT test dates and availability of appointments on those dates.

It is not necessary that there will be a GMAT center in your city or even state, though the popularity of GMAT has spread far and wide and mostly probably there will be a GMAT testing center at a location near you. Nevertheless, the official GMAT website, mba.com provides the prospective test takers with all the information that they requires regarding the GMAT test dates and appointments at designated test centers around the world. Read more…