How This Indian Engineer Raised His GMAT Score To An Elite Level

This is the story of how I grew my Graduate Management Admission Test score from a 660 to a 720 in three months, becoming the top GMAT score holder at the Institute of Management Technology in Ghaziabad, India. The difference in those 60 additional points brought me from the 79th percentile of all test-takers in the world to the 94th percentile, effectively the difference between being a competitive candidate at Penn State Smeal, where the average MBA class GMAT is 660, to being in the running for Yale School of Management and New York University Stern, where the average class GMAT is 721 (see Average GMAT Scores At The Top 50 Business Schools).

I had decided to pursue an MBA while I was in Vidyamandir classes, preparing for engineering exams, even though at that time I was not sure how I would get into business school. It was only during my final year of engineering school that I decided to sit for the GMAT, in part to increase my chances of getting selected in a top MBA program outside India as well.

One thing I learned the hard way: Work experience is something that plays a huge importance in MBA admissions, and I had just a year of work experience. But more on that later.

TESTING THE WATERS

As soon as I graduated from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University in Delhi with my engineering degree, I joined UIC Aviotech Enterprises, a leading manufacturer of aircraft refueling and ground support equipment, as a marketing executive. The company provided me with flexible working hours while preparing to take the GMAT.

I began researching how to prepare for the GMAT in the shortest possible time. I kept the official guide by GMAC for the day nearing the D-Day, and came across GyanOne by virtue of the great testimonials that GMAT veterans had given the company. However, before beginning any kind of preparation, I wanted to test the waters — to see where I stood and how far I needed to go. So, because one can take the test multiple times in one year, I appeared for the actual GMAT exam before doing any preparation. And voila! A disheartening 660 appeared on my screen.

I discussed my score with the GyanOne team, and considering my profile, they advised me I would need to score at least a 720 to get admitted to a reputed institute, whether in India or outside. On that day, I remember, I was quite depressed and apprehensive about improving. However, without thinking much — and trusting my gut — I dived in and began my preparation in earnest.

PREPARATION

I broke down each section of GMAT — Verbal, Quant, and Integrated Reasoning — by topic and difficulty level. I also did a deep analysis of each question that I got wrong while practicing; this practice really paid off later. Then I filled my schedule with timed small tests of GMAT every day for the next three months. I also appeared for four-hour mocks, the frequency of which increased to every alternate day toward the end of my preparation.

Initially, I was not able to improve much and began losing hope when my hard work was not showing results for the first two months. But with the help of the GyanOne team, I changed my approach. I spent the next week going through all the rules of GMAT again, understanding the rationale behind them, and not taking them by their word. After doing this exercise, when I again began appearing for small timed tests, I managed to achieve a huge improvement in my overall scores.

Still, long reading comprehension passages were still a problem for a guy who was not in the habit of sitting in one place for a long time to go through long and comprehensive pieces of writing. But I took up the challenge and began practicing the hard level of the test’s RC passages in a timed manner, after which the easy and medium level of passages seemed like a cakewalk to me. By the last two weeks of my preparation, I began appearing for mocks every alternate day, analyzing the same on the days in between. To my surprise, I began scoring in the range of 760-780 — and that too, quite frequently.

THE ULTIMATE SUCCESS

By this time I had decided that it was time to set the date and appear for the real exam. I had set my birthdate, August 31, as D-Day. After a long night of disturbed sleep, I appeared for my exam. After four hours of being grilled, I had the sweetest present on my screen: a 720. It was the combined result of three months of relentless hard work — and help from the GyanOne team.

When I took admission to the post-graduate diploma in management program (the Indian equivalent of an MBA program) at IMT, Ghaziabad, I was informed by the admissions department that I was the highest GMAT score holder at the institute, a fact recognized by the Graduate Management Admission Council.

When I look back on my GMAT journey, I can relate my key learnings with my life experiences: Don’t trust what you experience blindly. Instead, it is very important that one analyzes a situation rationally before making a call. This applies to the way I tackled the GMAT questions, as it does real-life experiences. And the way I prepared for the RC passages can be seen as a way to prepare for the worst so that even the hard experiences seem like a cakewalk.

Aaditya Jain received his MBA in marketing from the Institute of Management Technology in Ghaziabad, India in 2020. Currently a Senior Business Development Analyst at an MNC in the IT industry in India, he has a zeal to learn new skills and utilize them to polish them further, specifically in Martech, which he does by valuing the most precious currency: time.