signed up for the GMAT!

after weeks of hesitation and doubting myself time and time again, i finally signed up for my GMAT exam. the d-day is monday, april 7. now i really have no excuse but to study like there's no tomorrow. i am a little nervous because i feel like i locked myself in to a date that i may not be completely ready for. but reading past entries from fellow applicant bloggers reassured me that no one feels 100% ready for the test and that you just have to go for it. my dreams and hopes are high, so the stress level and anxiety are that much higher.

too bad there's way too much going on in my life. (isn't that the story of everyone's life? =P) of course, life would be dandy if we had all the time in the world to devote to GMAT studies, schools research, applications, and interview prep. but given the situation i am in right now, this will be a true test of my ability to multi-task, manage my time super wisely, and (hopefully) conquer it all.


ALL THE BEST TO 2008 APPLICANTS WHO ARE INTERVIEWING/HEARING BACK FROM SCHOOLS!

experimental section- say what?!

i took a practice GMAT exam hosted by Kaplan this past weekend and one thing that the proctor said to the class really bothered me. according to this proctor/teacher, the actual GMAT exam has four sections- the writing, the quant, the verbal, and an experimental section that can either be quant or verbal. now, i've been looking into the GMAT for a few months now and have read countless blogs and discussion boards... and never did anyone say that there was a whole experimental section on the GMAT. i've heard of experimental questions spread out within each section, but having a whole another section is brand new news to me.

can someone please advise as to whether this is true or not? i'm really hoping that the kaplan teacher guy is wrong, because building stamina for an additional 75 minutes on the actual GMAT day is something that i am definitely not prepared for.

crankin away...

quick update on my GMAT studying:

things are going fairly well. i've been studying little bits and pieces during the weekdays and taking full practice exams on the weekends. i was a little concerned at first, because timing was a BIG issue for me on the quant section. on one of the very first practice exams, it took me over 2 hours to finish just the quant! i quickly had to calm myself down and started to focus on time management. needless to say, this past weekend's practice exam was a LOT better; i only went over the time limit by about 5 minutes.

my practice exam scores have been slowly rising up as well... this past weekend i scored a 710. not too bad, but i can definitely do better. since my goal is a 750+ and my exam day is still over a month away, i'm gonna start crankin it up a notch and go deeper into my studies.


on a last note: i just realized i was added to the mba applicants blog list. if this is your first time reading my blog, welcome! feel free to drop by anytime and leave a note or two. i've been one of those anonymous lurkers of many mba blogs for a couple months now, so i will probably know a lot of you already. =)

schools

in the midst of studying for the GMAT, i have been researching schools and narrowing down the list of schools that i would like to apply to. because i want to go into marketing/brand management with an international twist, i looked for schools that have 1) a strong marketing emphasis(both in curriculum and recruitment) and 2)an opportunity for international exposure. now the second point is important because i do want to have an int'l learning exposure of some sort while i'm in school. many schools have classes that allow students to take a 1-2 week trip to a foreign country to help a company solve an issue that they are currently facing. i think experiences such as these are very special and i must take advantage of them. so with that i present to you my school choices as of now:

Round 1
1. Wharton
2. Kellogg
3. Ross
4. Fuqua

Round 2
1. McDonough
2. Anderson
3. Marshall
4. Haas(?)

I broke down the schools into 2 rounds just because there's too many to do all at once. for now, i'm 99.9% sure that i'm applying to all the round 1 schools, which are my top school choices. then given whether i get accepted to them or not, i will apply to the round 2 schools. all of my round 1/top choices are the best in the country for their marketing programs, and there are a lot of recruiters that go to those schools for marketing related internship/post-mba recruitment. i'm super excited about the possibility of attending any one of those schools. hopefully, my top 4 will be good to me so that i won't have to apply to any schools in round 2. hahaha, it's a nice thought for now. =)