Scoring a 760 on the GMAT is a 99-percentile score, and achieving such a remarkable feat requires a well-defined study plan. Valentine knew that, and after scoring a 620 on the GMAT mock test, he started looking for a better GMAT preparation resource rather than preparing from books. He switched to e-GMAT and leveraged the data and insights provided by the Scholaranium and Sigma-X mock test to score a GMAT 760 (Q49, V45) in the first attempt. Take a look at this article, where he outlines his preparation journey and reviews the e-GMAT course.
“E-GMAT is your one-stop-shop for all your GMAT prep needs.”
– Valentin
This article is a video debrief. You can also watch Valentin’s interview with Archit, an e-GMAT mentor, to know about his success story and how the e-GMAT course helps him score a 760 on the GMAT.
- GMAT preparation resources used by Valentin
- Valentin reviews e-GMAT learning architecture
- Books vs. e-GMAT course – an honest review
- Importance of reviewing your understanding of concepts
- GMAT preparation by leveraging Scholaranium data – e-GMAT reviews
- Five things you must do to score a V45 on GMAT Verbal
- How did Valentin get into Harvard with 85% of the scholarship?
GMAT preparation resources used by Valentin
Valentin was sure about pursuing an MBA, and thus the first step towards his MBA application was to take the GMAT. He started his GMAT preparation with Manhattan prep and solved tons of questions provided by the GMAT Official Guide.
Valentin: “I started preparing for the GMAT with Manhattan prep. They have a full set of books covering each of the topics in both verbal and quant. I went through all the 8-9 books and read each one of them very consciously. Post that, I started practicing questions from the GMAT official guide for specific topics. I did it in a very orderly fashion.”
Valentin started preparing for the GMAT in a very orderly fashion. He will start with one section, for instance, GMAT SC, go through Manhattan books, practice questions from the GMAT official guide relating to it, and once he is done with that section, he will move onto another section. He did that for almost 2.5 months.
Valentin: “I had very decent accuracy in terms of what I had done. I had practiced with a reasonable time and was feeling confident about my prep. So, I took a mock test. To my surprise, I scored a 620 on the GMAT. My score indicated that I had a conceptual gap and problems with how to tackle the actual exam.”
Taking a different direction to prepare for the GMAT
After scoring a 620 in his first mock test, Valentin knew he needed to change how he prepared for GMAT.
Valentin: “I had realized that to get a different result, I need to do different things. So, for a few weeks, I wagged with some sets of questions online. However, looking for an efficient GMAT prep resource online is difficult. When you prepare for the GMAT, you tend to get lost online as there is a huge amount of information. The internet is full of the ultimate guide and question banks for GMAT, and none of them quite worked for me. I wasn’t quite sure whether I was making any progress.”
While browsing the internet, Valentin came across e-GMAT’s approach to – “Sort of mistakes you can make at each step of the GMAT preparation, while solving a question.”
Valentin reviews e-GMAT pedagogy: “e-GMAT’s approach was not about practice. They had a framework for me to understand each step of the GMAT preparation process. This methodology clicked with me. It helped me to realize and improve upon my mistakes rather than just solving questions. E-GMAT course architecture told me at which step of the process I made a mistake and how to improve it.”
Understanding which step of the process you falter is probably one of the essential steps across Valentin GMAT Preparation. Students often tend to miss out on this particular aspect, and they keep on solving questions. But they don’t take a step back and identify which stage they are faltering, which is extremely important.
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Archit: “If you want to improve, you got to isolate the problem. You do that only with introspection.”
Valentin: “There is one thing that many people believe while preparing for the GMAT, that it 70:20:10 thing. 70% of doing exercises, 20% of learning theory, and 10% of reviewing what you have done. I would say it’s a 40:60 ratio. It’s 40% of doing the exercises very consciously, and then it’s 60% of reviewing them.”
Valentin reviewed not just the question that he was faltering in but also the correct ones. He went through the complete set of questions and only took out those he was confident in.
Valentin: “I went into the explanation for the questions that I had gotten correct because I wanted to see whether I had missed some odd mistakes. Moreover, I reviewed every problem.”
Valentin reviews e-GMAT learning architecture
Valentin: “I am grateful for the e-GMAT mentorship program because when you go to e-GMAT, you have everything that you need. It’s a one-stop-shop. You don’t need to get anything else to prepare for your GMAT. You need to go to one link and get everything you need there. It’s very orderly, structured, and it’s evident what you need to follow.”
Valentin e-GMAT Journey overview
Once Valentin opted for the e-GMAT course, he first took a mock test to know his baseline – Where exactly he stood and his weaknesses. Once he took the mock test, he connected with Archit, an e-GMAT mentor, who Valentin’s hyper-specific GMAT study plan. Know your baseline score.
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Valentin reviews e-GMAT: “When you go to e-GMAT, you prepare your personalized study plan. You input the score you want to get and how much time you want to dedicate per day. Basically, it gives you a rough estimate of when you can take the actual GMAT exam.”
Learn how to save 60+ hours of preparation through a personalized study plan.
After crafting a personalized study plan, Valentin talked to Archit to review the main things that were faltering in his preparation. He started with the verbal section and followed the three stages of learning by e-GMAT for each Verbal/Quant module:
- Review the concept file: here, you learn the concepts related to a topic
- Go through the application file: here you know about the best way to approach a question
- Complete the practice file: here, you practice solving the question
Books vs. e-GMAT course – an honest review
Earlier Valentin did have a plan when he prepared through the Manhattan books. However, with e-GMAT, he got a milestone-driven plan.
Valentin reviews e-GMAT: “I did have a plan when I was preparing through Manhattan books, but it was not a milestone-driven plan.”
How did a milestone-driven plan by e-GMAT helped Valentin?
Valentin reviews e-GMAT: “So first, I had an obvious list of what I needed to cover every day. Moreover, the plan told me how much time I would be putting into my prep. The plan also told me to follow a process where I first learn the concepts and their application. The key about it is to make sure that what I have learned is good enough and is above the threshold that I had selected, for which I was able to create quizzes.”
The more you invest in the initial preparation phases, the smoother you tend to be at the later parts of the preparation.
– Valentin
Valentin: “So if you invest in learning concepts, doing the practice quizzes, reviewing your prep, and making sure that you hit the thresholds set for you by the study plan, you will be able to do well in the actual GMAT.”
Importance of reviewing your understanding of concepts
As pointed out earlier, Valentin followed e-GMAT’s 3 step learning process to ace the GMAT. When we asked him about the importance of reviewing his understanding of the concept, this is what he said:
Valentin: “Every time you do an exercise, review it. That’s the bottom line. You don’t practice without reviewing. I reviewed every time I did an exercise which I did every day. Moreover, you need to review after each exercise on the e-GMAT platform. And that’s non-negotiable, even if it’s a section in which you feel very confident. You don’t do new exercises, but you need to go over your error log or notes to make sure that you have covered all your weak areas.”
You review the questions you got correctly/incorrectly and capture your learning in an error log. This will help you identify the trends in your mistakes. And once you identify that, you can mitigate those gaps as well.
It’s a terrible idea to prepare for the GMAT without an Error-log. – Valentin
GMAT preparation by leveraging Scholaranium data – e-GMAT reviews
Once Valentin was done with the first two stages of learning, he took around 4 Sigma-X mock tests and few quizzes on Scholaranium to know where he stands. Rather than taking the mba.com mock test, Valentin preferred to take the Sigma-X mock test because it gave him data about his performance.
Valentin reviews the e-GMAT course features: “I found both Scholaranium and Sigma-X mock better than practicing questions through mba.com. Scholaranium is an invaluable resource. It allows you to create quizzes based on the question type and difficulty level from a particular topic or subsection. And that’s valuable. Moreover, the insights from Scholaranium helped my GMAT prep.”
Check out the new and improved version of Scholaranium – Scholaranium 2.2
Valentin reviews e-GMAT: “The data is completely useless unless you analyze it. E-GMAT course gives you all fantastic information about tracking your progress and how you’ve been doing. But if you as a student don’t use it to analyze your prep, then that data is going to have very little use.”
Five things you must do to score a V45 on GMAT Verbal
According to Valentin, these are the five things you must do to score a V45:
- Planning
- Consistency
- Support
- Reflection
- Patience
Planning
Planning while preparing for the GMAT is crucial. It should be your first step. Have milestones to track your performance and decide on your time to achieve your target score. Moreover, have tangible metrics. Valentin was able to plan his preparation with the help of a milestone-driven GMAT study plan, which also incorporated his hectic work schedule and gave him a timeline to achieve his target score.
Consistency
The second thing is to be consistent with your GMAT preparation. One of the significant pitfalls of GMAT is the lack of consistency.
Valentin: “Keep the wheel spinning. If it’s a day when you can’t put any effort towards your prep, invest half an hour in reviewing notes. Consistency is the key.”
Be consistent but simultaneously, find a pace that you’re will be able to sustain.
Support
Support is vital throughout your GMAT journey. You will get frustrated, or there might be times when you do not perform well on your mock test. At that time, you need someone to walk you through.
Valentin: “Support from my mentor was beneficial. That goes without saying. I mean, it was vital because he was a person who helped me with the preparation. Also, support from your partner, family, and friends is useful. Don’t go into a cave to prepare for the GMAT; keep your social relations going as well.”
Reflection
It’s not about just reading the concept file or practicing. It’s about reflecting on what you have done as well, which is vital because that allows you to make that qualitative jump into a whole new level of performing.
Valentin: “My reflection was done basically with my notes and error logs. Throughout my GMAT preparation, I reflected and reviewed what was necessary, which helped me know what I was doing wrong. So don’t go light on revision at all. Everyone is unique in their way of solving questions. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, and unless you pinpoint that, there’s no way you can improve on those things. So, provision of your mistakes, like the error log, is essential. “
Patience
Go slow if you want to go far away. You need to be patient and don’t want to jump into the mock as soon as possible. Be patient while doing the cementing of the concepts and then practicing them. Also, do plan your preparation well in advance so that you are not rushing through your GMAT prep to make it to the application deadlines.
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How did Valentin get into Harvard with 85% of the scholarship?
With a 760 on the GMAT, Valentin got into Harvard with 85% of the scholarship. Here is an overview of his profile:
Job profile: Management consultant
Years of experience: 3 years
Education: BA in education science
Why Harvard?
Valentin: “I love the case method approach. It allows you to get into someone else shoes and make a decision in real-life business. Moreover, the class size is big, offering great exposure and interaction with people from different backgrounds and experiences. Also, Harvard has a great community that supports you beyond studies.”
Learn about the seven steps to get into Harvard?
Know about the latest class profile and employment report for the Harvard MBA program and learn the GMAT score required for Harvard MBA.
How to write Harvard MBA essay?
Valentin: “I enjoyed writing the essays. It had to do with writing about your history and introspecting. It was a creative part of the application, which made it easier for me. The idea of the essay is to convince the admissions committee why you are the right candidate. I think my diverse background helped me to stand out. I came from the education world, had worked in the public sector with the Argentinian ministry of transportation, and for some time, I had worked in a professional service firm. Moreover, my interest is in the field of social impact/education.”
Valentin’s essay focused on his purpose in life, been told through seven specific moments in his life. It took him around one month to get done with his Harvard MBA application.
3 Tips to MBA aspirants for acing their application process
Here are four tips from Valentin to ace your MBA application process:
- Decision: If you are going to embark on the MBA journey, be sure about it. Learn why you should pursue MBA?
- Enjoyment: You are applying for a course that you want to do, and it’s going to be a long and tedious process. So, enjoy the entire process
- Authenticity: Admissions committee is hoping to know you through the application, so try to be honest about yourself. Be genuine and communicate your story. Create an authentic and compelling story
- Support: Have people supporting you. Don’t cut out ties while going through the entire process.
Are you planning to take the GMAT? Take a free GMAT mock to understand your baseline score and start your GMAT prep with our free trial. We are the most reviewed online GMAT Prep company with 2100+ reviews on GMATClub.
