Tag Archives: mba

How to Approach the GMAT

A beginner’s guide to GMAT Materials:

The first thing any MBA aspirant should do is visit official MBA/GMAT site …spend some 2-3 hours there. (or even 2-3 days!) & read as much as you can. The information published there is unbiased, genuine, authentic, eye-opener & myth-breaker.

Then you should download a sim CAT GMAT test available there: name is GMAT Prep; it’s of ~25MB size.

The site mba.com will help you understand: what’s GMAT in general terms, its significance, its structure and the way company conducts the test worldwide.

(I will not go into GMAT structure in detail since that’s not the purpose of this article. Let’s focus on resources/study materials for GMAT! )

You’ll obviously need some books to prepare for GMAT. GMAC, the organisation that sets GMAT test, published three books recently, known as official guides.

They are: (Follow the link to read reviews about these books)

they are nicknamed as orange, purple and green guides respectively. (Note that the article first published in early 2007/late 2006; today OG 12th edition & 2nd edition of Verbal & Math guides are available You can check the detailed review in my GMAT books review page.)
Official guide 11th edition is THE book you should start with and end your preparation.

You should trust these guides along with GMATPrep software (mentioned in 2nd para).

Although these guides and a simulation software for CAT (computer adaptive test) are fantastic for the practice problems, they don’t provide study strategies…

In short: when it comes to problems solving in practice sessions, nothing beats above mentioned materials. But for strategies and tactics (read shortcuts! ) you need to look for some extra materials.

Other books I would recommend:

Kaplan GMAT 2008 Premier Program (w/ CD-ROM) (Kaplan Gmat (Book & CD-Rom)) (latest edition with CD : best buy /2006 edition will also do ( both are same) : comprehensive book, covers everything)
Cracking the GMAT with DVD, 2008 Edition (Graduate Test Prep) or Click here for older and cheaper version by Princeton review (Caution: it doesn’t have C A T in its DVD; good strategies & comprehensive, covers everything though )
Kaplan GRE & GMAT Exams Math Workbook: Fourth Edition (Kaplan Gmat Math Workbook) ( very elementary good for starters & weak at math : not recommended )
Kaplan GMAT 800, 2007-2008 Edition (Kaplan Gmat 800) (for advanced students who want to score higher I purchased it; caution: AWA essay section not included )
Sentence Correction GMAT Preparation Guide (Manhattan GMAT Preparation Guides) (PURE GOLD I CANT WRITE MORE :A MUST HAVE BOOK FOR ‘weak in SC’ )
All books from Manhattan GMAT store. Lately I have become a fan of Manhattan GMAT thanks to Stacey Koprince.

(I’ll write an article exclusively for recommended books some time soon.) By the way, these books offer good strategies to attack GMAT; they’ll show you how to approach each section and each problem individually.

But then for taking the test in one go you need to have a patience, faith and stamina. & for that, you need to take as many GMAT simulation tests/ CATs as possible.

[Note: Do not rush and sign up for just any sim CATs available on would wide web.]

Following are the GMAT prep companies you should trust: Reason : they have done enough research to come near to the real GMAT test… (still they are not as near as GMAT Prep or POWER Prep)

[Note that I am not talking about GMAT coaching institutes but the online resources for practice tests ]

mba.com (nearest possible)
manhattangmat.com (?near? quant tough)
800score.com (easier)
kaptest.com (tough)
pricetonreview.com (neutral)

They offer good Sim GMAT tests.

Note that I have not mentioned about other books or other sites for practice tests which simplymeans they are NOT worth your time & money. Caution: This has exception of Veritas Prep. I haven’t had chance to review their products.

Now let’s have some non-brand materials,

Materials those are freely available on cyberspace and have no copyright issues.

BeattheGMAT’s flashcard (best flashcards you could get )

Grammar Notes:

Sahil’s Grammar Notes
Spidey’s Sentence Correction Notes & some more docs such as Rajat-nda’s notes.

You will get above documents anywhere online, just search around on GMAT related forums. The reason why I am so selective in mentioning about the resources is, people just take any darn test or soft copies of books available on internet just to end up in pracitsing non-GMAT questions.

Therefore I am with trusted and reputable resources. I insist…

DONT WASTE YOUR TIME IN STUDYING AND PRACTISING WRONG SETS OF PROBLEMS.

…still if you want more practice problems then download thousand series by scoretop

1000 SC
1000 CR
3000 RC

Again, these documents are available freely everywhere on internet. Note that documents do not have explanations to the problems. You will have to join some GMAT realated online forums to discuss those problems. I am not pro-1000 series doc as such but I feel these documents are one of a kind. You’ll never get such a great no. of questions compiled in a single document and that too absolutely free!

[OK! After some time getting into GMAT prepeparation/studying environment, you should start realising the easy methods to solve the problems, you should be able to discover some shortcuts. Key is you should examine the strategies that are discussed in prep books and use them according to your needs & study-style.] If you see these signs you know that you’re going in the right direction. All the best 🙂

Post GMAT course for getting admission into MBA programs

While prepping for GMAT you should also be aware of the b-schools you want to apply. You must have a long term plan & You should do some research on the b-schools that suits your long term goal.

For such informations you have b-schools’ own web-sites which give all information about MBA programs you desire/along with plenty of other good sites:

Dave’s MBA Journey

Hjort’s b-school corner from GMAT Club Forums :

There are MBA admission consultants, ready to give you free advice & assessment. Check them out!

Accepted.com

ClearAdmit

Stacy Blackman Co. blog

Above blogs update several times a week; keep tab on all these site & be informed. I think that’s enough for now. Feel free to comment. & yes, subscribe, spread the word! for world peace!
PS: If you like this article, you might like to take a look at this one too: GMAT in a month: strategy.

What it takes to be the best B-school

3 Replies

dear b-schools, DO YOU HAVE IT IN YOU? (lolz :p)
Check this out!!

I have a question. People normally talk about “Top Business Schools”. My question is which exactly are the top business schools around the globe ? What qualifies a school to fall in this category ?

Baccardisprite answers:

It’s a good question.
My answer / definition, both arguable and debatable is – A top business school (below in no particular order):

is almost immediately recognized and recalled (instant oohs… and aahs…) i.e a well-known university or legacy brand that has built itself over many years of the success enjoyed by its alumni (both of the university and the business school)
offers it’s students a superior allround academic, social and cultural experience
(in a stable/good economy) opens professional doors for the students in the form of strong access to its closest job market with less regard to a students back-ground, origin, or citizenship or in some cases even pre-MBA experience – in other words the opportunity to change elements of one’s career (industry, function and geography). Example – a Top US school to the US job market. An INSEAD all over Europe and the UK. An LBS in London.
has a strong, legacy network of alumni who are known for their willingness to help current graduates
has career services that possesses the street-credibility to bring top companies from various industries to campus; therefore the oppportunity for MBAs to meet, network and interview with; and offers the right king of training, advice and guidance for students to confidently go off-campus to find their jobs
offers you the ability to experience a program with smart (or smarter), ambitious, knowledgeable and wise peers.

These are the things I wanted from my school. Below are the schools that largely fulfil these criteria. These regularly turn up in the rankings NOT because the magazines think so but because they have built themselves over years of success and investment of time, money, and effort to the criteria stated above:

USA – Stanford, Harvard, Wharton, MIT-Sloan, Chicago, Kellogg, Columbia, Michigan, Tuck, Duke, Darden, Haas, Yale and a few others I might have missed.

Canada – Richard Ivey, Rotman, Queens and York – good because they’re good schools and I understand that Canada has recently started offering MBAs the opportunity to work in Canada for 2 years after graduation (this needs to be confirmed).

EU – INSEAD, London Business School, IMD + more recently the European schools that made it to the UK Government’s HSMP list of school’s whose MBA graduates are eligible for a work-permit (NOT tied to employer) in the UK.

Asia Pacific – IIM (A/B/C) – now with the PGPX which is likely to be a success, ISB, INSEAD (Singapore), U-Chicago (Singapore EMBA for more experienced people in the region), Ivey (Part time in Hong Kong), CEIBS (Shanghai).

Notice that I would NOT rank the top 2 Australian Schools here until /unless Australia offers a good opportunity for Internationals to work in Australia after the MBA. Currently not the case as Australia is generally unwelcoming to non-Aussies or non-permanent residents. Unless the country offers an automatic opening to work there or at least a short term chance to work without having to be sponsored, this is NOT a good place to study.

If someone has recent updates that show an improvement to this, please share.

Given their weak career services I would also NOT rank NUS & NTU (Singapore) and CUHK and HKUST (both in Hong Kong).

Hope this helps everyone.

COURTESY NOTE:
Taken from B-schools-Assistance desk thread of pagalguy.com. (very heavy and informative thread by the way!

the thread is mostly controlled by the big-guy.

This guy, (calls himself baccardisprite) lives in Switzerland (spelling check :p).
Whaterver he writes is pure gold, product extracted from is wide work-experience (more than hundred months of international work-experience.) and twelve months of heavy duty MBA from one of the top b-schools in the world. JohnyCAGE recommends to go through all articles he posted.
I have extracted some of his thoughts on what it takes to be the best business school.
(reference link)

MBA Stanford admit taking queries. Senapati @pagalguy