The Beginning

Welcome to my new blog I like to call “The GMAT Adventure!” I don’t know how many people will stumble across my postings, but I have read that blogging about the GMAT experience can be a great way to keep a focused, add a little bit of accountability, and blow off some related steam.

This is going to be my first time taking the test, and honestly, the first test I will have taken since graduating in 2006. Although I am going to call today “day 1” in my studies, I have already done a good amount of research. I want to thank Eric from BeatTheGMAT.com for his insightful blog that I happened to stumble across a while back. It was a great motivational tool for me to get the ball rolling on the whole process. I was pleased to see so many people out there on forums such as beatthegmat.com and testmagic.com that are happy to tell their success stories. Just hearing the advice and experiences of people who have spent a lot of time preparing for the tests gives me the right level of excitement to tackle what seems to be a very big endeavor.

After looking over the test format and taking a practice test a few months ago, I have set my target to be 740. I would like to score higher than that but I feel like 740 will be plenty challenging yet obtainable. I know you may be thinking that aspirations in the mid 90^th percentile are quite ambitious, but there are a number of reasons for picking that number.

1. I do well on standardized tests. I can’t exactly pinpoint why, but it has always been that way. Coming out of high school I didn’t have what you would call an EXTREMELY impressive SAT score, but it was a great score with little to no studying. When I have sat down and studied for a standardized test I have always performed extremely well.

2. I have a strong mathematical background. Although I graduated with a business degree, I had 3 years of engineering prior to that. I found the math in my last year in engineering to be complex and challenging, but doable. Not since leaving engineering have I had many problems with anything math related (by no means am I not rusty right now though!).

3. Time is no concern. I do not plan on applying to business school for quite a while and have developed a study plan that will give me plenty of time to get it right.

Speaking of the study plan, I have decided on a 10 week plan. Reading through some blogs and taking a look at my base level, this seems like a pretty good amount of time to fully master the subjects while keeping from burning out and losing some retention. I have broken it up to a couple weeks per section and keeping my studying between 2 and 3 hours a day (a bit longer on days I take practice exams). I will most likely have to make some minor adjustments as I get going but I am confident that I have drawn out a good plan for myself. I will expand on the study plan a bit more in later posts.

I was going to begin discussing what study materials I have settled on and why, but I think I will save that for my next posting.

For now, please feel free to contact me with any questions and advice. I would love to hear some great success stories and tricks anyone may have. Also, if you find that I have failed to post in a while, give me some hell. The more people I have behind me the more enjoyable it will be to report back a great score in the end!