Just out of curiosity… wat type of recommendation letters is requried? from employers or any professional who can write about your attricutes? Also if its from you employers is it about your work or general capabilities? thanks…
Just out of curiosity… wat type of recommendation letters is requried? from employers or any professional who can write about your attricutes? Also if its from you employers is it about your work or general capabilities? thanks…
Congrats on a killer score. I am studying for it right now and somehow I just do horrible in the Quant section. People kept telling me “yea if you can pass CFA 2/2 there is no need to study for Quant” Yea, no need my ass. Anyone else facing the same situation here?
numi: Great job, and all the best with b-school application process. I will pass your study tips to people who are preparing for the GMAT.
vbb – I think different schools have different requirements, but generally you can just ask for recommendations from people that know you in a work-related capacity. $tarving_Banker, you’re correct in that passing the CFA doesn’t have much of a correlation with performing well on the GMAT. Practice makes perfect, as my thread highlights. Don’t get me wrong – I’m a competitive guy and the further ahead I can get from the rest of my field, the better I feel about my chances of getting “picked” (be it for a future employer, business school, or whatever). However, I would never misrepresent my GMAT preparation experience and act like it didn’t take time to prepare. It DOES take time and practice if you want to do well, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either just a much better test taker than me, or doesn’t care to see you do well on the exam. You gotta do what you gotta do. abacus, niraj_a, comp_sci_kid – thanks for the well wishes and as I said, hopefully others can benefit from my testing experience. comp_sci_kid, to your question about needing to get 80th percentile in both quantitative and verbal, I have heard that this is a barometer or cutoff that most schools look at. So yes, if you are contemplating a top business school program, it seems that you want to try to get at least 700 overall, and at least 80th percentile in both quantitative and verbal. Blaze - I plan to apply to Columbia. Not too sure about Cal as I do not know that much about the school, aside from its generally good reputation. Were these schools you were considering or have considered? If so, can we communicate off-line about them? I’m at porcupines AT gmail DOT com. Thank you.
Numi - Can you outline what your studyplan was? I.e M/W/F from 7-10 and Saturday 10-2 etc? Or did you just study whenever you had a spare moment?
$tarving_Banker Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Congrats on a killer score. I am studying for it > right now and somehow I just do horrible in the > Quant section. People kept telling me “yea if you > can pass CFA 2/2 there is no need to study for > Quant” > > Yea, no need my ass. Anyone else facing the same > situation here? I just failed L2 and my practice scores are in the 750-780 range. You just can’t compare b/c the tests are very different.
Hey Numi, congrats! I actually just picked up GMAT books yesterday, plan on studying now until November, and pick up CFA studies around December/January. How long did your prep take? Did you use all of the OG books? As an aside, are you looking into full-time MBA programs only? I wish you the best in your application process, and hope you get into your top choices. Hopefully you get into your alma mater as well.
email sent.
Congrats on the GMAT score numi. Who exactly produces the GMATPrep software that you were using for the practice exams? I saw an application on MBA.com but they only offer 2 exams or something.
I think the CFA and GMAT are correlated to some degree, but the SAT and GMAT are much more highly correlated. I bet you that most people score approximately half of their SAT score on the GMAT, +/- about 20 pts on GMAT. (e.g. SAT=1400 leads to GMAT of 680 to 720) Chuckrox - the GMATPrep software has two exams, but you can retake them many times and generally get mostly new questions through about 4-5 tests, particularly on the quant section. These tests are a very accurate indicator of what you will score on the real thing. Starvingbanker - just keep working on the quant and learn all the gmat “tricks”. It is 100% different from CFA math. I went 3/3 on CFA, work in banking, and found the gmat math to be tricky. The actual computations are simple, but the way they want you to think can be challenging. As far as the 80/80 rule, I’ve heard this as well, but I don’t think it’s set in stone. Ceteris paribus, I’d prefer a high score on the verbal, because quant concerns can be alleviated if you have analytical work experience, high undergrad GPA in quant courses, or the CFA, CPA, etc. Numi - How many schools are you shooting for in Rd 1 and overall? I’m trying to knock out five in Rd 1, and then apply to my safeties in Rd 2 if I need to.
DirtyZ, yeah i heard the same. I have a very solid GPA and i never had less then A- in any math/cs courses, so i am not too worried about proving my Analytic aptitude.
Haven’t decided yet…depends how hard I want to crank 
also not sure how much of an advantage it is to apply to round 1 versus round 2…
how do u have time to volunteer in Asia? you got laid off from your PE position?
I plan to not work during next spring and summer, which will give me free to travel and do “fun stuff” like volunteering abroad. Once I hear back from schools, I plan to enjoy life before getting my MBA (and hopefully during my MBA as well, obviously). There are many other things I enjoy doing with my life besides (or in addition to) going to the office every day, obviously
Numi, did you buy all 8 Manhattan books?
I had all of them but really only used Sentence Correction and Word Translations, as well as Number Properties to a lesser extent. It really all depends on your areas of weakness but most people seem to lose points on Sentence Correction and Word Translations, including myself.
vbb Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Just out of curiosity… wat type of recommendation > letters is requried? from employers or any > professional who can write about your attricutes? > Also if its from you employers is it about your > work or general capabilities? > > thanks… If applying to very competitive programs, I think it’s very helpful if you can find at least one alumnus of that program, even if is not the closest guy you’ve worked with. I know guys who have applied to very competitive MBA programs based on the alumni they know. Make sure you’ve got a strong GMAT score before asking for a recommendation. Some people may not recommend you—specially MBAs—if they think your GMAT is not that impressive.
numi Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Anyway, I guess my key points are that (1) the > only resources you really need are Official Guide, > Manhattan GMAT books and GMATPrep; Did you use the Verbal and Quantitative review books by the Official Guide as well? Did you use the entire series by Manhattan? Where do you get the GMATPprep software? Is it by Prepwizard? Does anyone have insight on the Kaplan books (e.g. Premier and Advanced)?
Congratulations and All the Best man!