What GMAT prep course will be most suitable to my needs?

[CriseldaS161]

Hi MPrep team!

Hope you are doing great! There are two things I am hoping you can help me decide on: 1) Will retaking the GMAT benefit me/my score? and 2) If yes, what prep course would you recommend for my situation?

I first started studying for the GMAT in September 2016 on my own. I used the Manhattan 10 Strategy Guides and the OG Quant Review, reviewing for an average of 3-4 hours every weekday. I went through all the questions, but I didn't do timed practices for all of them. The Strategy Guides ensured that I brushed up on all the Quant topics, so that the content of the exam wasn't the main issue. i.e. I know how to factor, apply formulas for solving work/geometry problems, etc.
In the span of two months, I took 4 timed CAT mocks--one on the GMAT Prep software from GMAC and three on the Manhattan Prep online CATs-- and scored 620 (Q36, V40), 590 (Q37, V34), 640 (Q39, V38), 670 (Q39, V42). My Verbal vastly improved, but my Quant stayed in the same range, so the improvement in my scores is primarily attributed to my Verbal. I probably should not have taken so many CATs but I didn't really know how to analyze my scores (spoiler alert: I've read Stacey's article on how to make the most out of the CAT and I still don't ).
In November, I took the exam and scored a 620: Quant (36; Percentile 33) and Verbal (38; Percentile 66). I understand that my low score was due to mismanagement of time. I went over the allotted time for the break right before Quant, and I didn't know that it would be better to guess on every other question rather than to guess consecutively. More than that, however, I still felt uncomfortable answering many problems because each question would still feel new or unfamiliar. I did not get the enhanced score report but I knew I never did very well in Number Properties, Permutations/probabilities, some types of motion/time problems. By December, I was feeling quite unmotivated so I took a break from prepping. In hindsight, this part of my prep primarily served as my review period to brush up on math foundations after a couple years of not doing math. It wasn't completely wasted, but definitely not enough.

In January 2017 I re-started studying using the same materials. This time, I did more timed practice and kept an error log wherein I classified if I got questions wrong because of Content, Technique or Carelessness. It turns out Technique is my most frequent reason for getting the incorrect answer. That is, there are lots of times when I could not a) figure out how to approach a problem, b) figure out an approach that works well enough in two minutes, or c) figure out which of two approaches will solve the question more quickly, so I end up taking a more time consuming approach and panicking. I never really found a way to overcome this and until now, I'm not sure how. I just practiced with more problems until I felt more comfortable with the way questions looked so they no longer seemed "new" every time. I had a better grasp of the topics and felt more confident answering PS questions and making strategic guesses. But for DS questions, I only improved a little. Despite rephrasing the question stem, I would still miss out on certain things or not be able to come up with contradicting answers so I still failed to see some statements as in/sufficient.
I took two more timed CAT mocks--one on Manhattan Prep online and one on GMAT Prep software-- and scored 740 (Q46, V45) and 710 (Q47, V41).

I just retook the GMAT today and scored 720: Quant (47; Percentile 65) and Verbal (41, Percentile 94). It's a decent score, but I would like to aim for at least 740 for Top5 bschools. Looking through GMATClub and Beatthegmat forums, it seems like many test takers are able to score well beyond 720, so I am not sure what I am missing or doing incorrectly. I've read that the greatest score improvements happen on the second time a test is taken, so this brings me to my first question. Considering the amount of time and the method I've used to study, do you think I will be able to improve my score by doing some things differently and then retaking (it would be my third exam)?

Clearly, there are changes that I have to make to my study methods but am not sure how. The Sept-Nov prep was for foundation, the Jan-Feb prep was more focused on improving technique, but I do not know how else to improve my score aside from even more practice. Maybe a prep course is what I need?
I've looked at the data for my score analyses, but do not know what to do with them. So I kind of need someone to interpret my score data and error log for me. And from there, I need to learn how to get things right. For example, I know I take too long to get the wrong answer, and I tend to get DS questions wrong (that's all I can really interpret from my data). Over the months, I've improved slightly by getting the wrong answer more quickly, but in general, to get to a higher score, I should probably minimize wrong answers/guesses in the first place. And this is where I am currently stuck. So, what kind of prep course do you recommend? I am open to taking Interact, online, or in-person courses. Or do you think one-on-one session is what I need?

Additionally, my IR score has peaked at 4, which is only the 40th percentile. I don't focus on IR because I am prioritizing my Quant, but it would be great if I could raise that too. My current strategy is to guess immediately whenever I see the multi-source type of question because I tend to get that wrong anyway, and spend more time on other questions. Obviously, this strategy hasn't gotten me very far

Thank you very much for your time and I look forward to your reply!

Sincerely,
Cris

[StaceyKoprince]

I agree that your prep last year was not wasted time at all. I think looking at it as your review / getting up to speed time is exactly the right attitude.

Wow, I just go to the part that says you got yourself from 620 to 720 on the official test. Great work!! That's really fantastic. (And that's a *great* score, not just a "decent" score!)

I know it seems like lots of people have scored well beyond 720, but that's really a function of the fact that people tend to cluster together and talk about this stuff online. A 720 is the 94th percentile, which means that you scored better than 94% of the people who have taken the GMAT in the past 3 years.

A 730 score is 96th percentile—ie, only 4% of all test takers score 730 or higher.

So: you are already very high up and in great company. It's unlikely that a school would look at someone who has a 720 and say, "Nope, we aren't going to accept you, but if you had a 740, that would change everything." At this stage, you have a good enough GMAT score for any program.

That doesn't mean, of course, that you can get into any program. It depends on the rest of your application. If I were you, my next step would be to talk to some admissions consultants to see how they think my full profile stacks up for those top b-schools and what they advise about everything (not just the GMAT). MBA Mission offers free 30 minute phone consultations—I would take advantage of that.

If it is the case that they think there's some reason you need more on the GMAT (there aren't many reasons why this might happen—but there are a few), then you can decide how to move forward from there.

Given your case, I think your best path forward would be private tutoring. You already have a 720 and you've gotten there by yourself—in other words, you've demonstrated a good ability to move yourself forward, stay motivated, etc. You just need some very targeted outside help / expertise to help you over some places where you've gotten stuck, that's all (including that data interpretation). A class would be too general at this point (and most people would be working at a lower level than you, so you might be bored a lot of the time). Interact is great, but you're already past that point. You need a live person to give you customized feedback.

How much studying have you done for IR so far? It sounds like not much. We offer our Interact lessons for free for IR—so do those if you haven't already! And if you do some tutoring, you can get more help with that, too, if you need it.

[CriseldaS161]

Hi Stacey!

Thank you very much for your reply! Yes I did take your advice on getting some opinion regarding my score, and it does seem like I should raise my overall score a bit. I did get differing opinions though, on whether I should focus on raising my Quant or Verbal. Does the Scaled Score matter more than the Percentile?

I'm glad you mentioned that a prep course may not be right for me. I tried out a first session for an online class and realized the same thing you said--that it might be too general. I think I will go ahead with private tutoring.

I have dedicated probably less than 6 hours to IR, so that's why I didn't do so well. I've gone over the IR Interact lessons, but only once. It's a bit more difficult studying for IR, at least for me. I'm not sure if that's typical?

Again, thank you for your support!

Best,
Cris

[StaceyKoprince]

Most schools at this point know that percentile is not the best way to look at the scores (because the percentiles change from year to year, while the scores always mean the same thing—if you earn a certain score, that represents a steady level of ability for that area, regardless of when you took it).

From what I know / have heard from schools and admissions consultants, both Q47 and V41 are excellent scores. I haven't heard of anyone getting dinged because the schools thought that either of those scores was too low. So if you have gotten advice to go for a higher overall (3-digit) score, then it shouldn't matter whether you pick up those points on the Q side or the V side.

So, to be practical, I would aim to try to pick up another 1-2 points in each section. That's easier than trying to get all of the gain from one section.

For IR, yes, lots of people find these weird / hard to study. I think that's primarily because you've likely never taken a standardized test before that mixed Q and V skills on one question. But here's the good news: This kind of "mixed" thinking is something you do all the time in the real world. So you want to take more of a real-world, practical mindset into this section of the test.

Since you're thinking you'll probably do tutoring, start with Q and V with your tutor. Study IR some more on your own and see how much you can pick up. If you hit a wall there, you can have your tutor help you.

Also, I want to add one thing: I hear lots of people say that they immediately skip MSR—I think that's the most popular question type to skip. When I took the real test in January, my MSR passage / questions were really easy (and other stuff was a lot harder). There are so few questions on IR that if you want to hit a 6+, it's important to have a little more flexibility in your plan. Know how to do all of the types and then gauge based on difficulty. If you get a hard MSR, by all means, skip those questions. But be prepared to know what to do if you do get an easier one.

Good luck; let us know how it goes!