All posts in GRE Blog

by Stacy Blackman Consulting   www.StacyBlackman.com

“You want to go to business school? So what do you want to learn?”

It seems a simple enough inquiry, but applicants often have a very difficult time responding to it. When we went to college, interviewers might ask us about our intended major, but we could craft a pretty broad answer.

In business school, we’re ALL business majors, so we have to have a more defined message to stand out. It’s not enough to say, “I want to learn more about accounting, finance and marketing.” You will learn about those subjects. And so will the hundreds of other folks who enter with you. They’re called “Required Courses.”

Instead of painting with the broad brush, you will need to put a finer point on things in order to prove that you are a serious applicant who has determined that business school is THE logical next step in a career progression. To some people, business school is just a rite of passage or a brand name to add to the resume. But remember, there are people at b-schools who are spending thousands of man-hours developing course materials and standing in front of semi-comatose students, all in the name of “learning.” So, you better know what you want to learn.

If you have a certain “spike” or element of strength in your candidacy, you may choose to develop it further. You may have worked in marketing for the last four years, but realize you want to further your knowledge of youth brand building and unconventional sales channel development because of a certain entrepreneurial idea you have, for instance.

Or, you may have areas you’ve identified as gaps in your professional skillset. Perhaps you’ve been an investment banker for three years and have developed a deep understanding of valuation and debt finance. But, in order to be a part of the LBO industry after b-school, you want to shore up your skills analyzing industrial operations or navigating business law.

Think about the kinds of articles you click to online, or the ones you tear out of Fortune or Business 2.0 to read later. Talking about those kinds of topics will lead you to develop sections of essays and answers to interview questions that are compelling and well-researched. You may want to introduce your interests in an essay like this:

• “I’m fascinated by the ways brands like Apple have been rolled out in new cultures.”
• “I have seen the power of internal incentives on organizational behavior and I want to understand them as a management tool.”
• “I’m impressed by the way top-flight organizations like Starbucks are able to maintain their high levels of customer service.”
• “In an interconnected world, I want to learn how supply chains can be a competitive advantage.”

Coming up with a short list of subjects that fascinate you can help you research course offerings, research initiatives and clubs at the schools of your choice.

Think about your learning agenda in terms of:

• Subject areas: More specific than “marketing.” We mean “brand development,” “channel creation,” or “pricing.”
• Methodologies: Not “financial modeling,” but rather “valuation techniques” or “earnings forecasting.”
• Industries: Technology, health care or consumer products. Better yet, get a little more specific with market segments like “security technologies,” “new health care service models,” or “branded luxury products.” These are still megabillion dollar industrieswith plenty of opportunities for innovation.
• Geographies: Are you well-versed in organizational behavior as applied to U.S. companies? Well maybe you want to learn about the differences in India, the Middle East or Latin America. Or maybe you want to learn about investing in China or Canada. You will have plenty of classmates and case materials to help you learn about these different economies.

Founded in 2001, Stacy Blackman Consulting (www.stacyblackman.com)has helped thousands of MBA applicants gain admission to the most selective business schools in the world.  The Stacy Blackman team, comprised of MBA graduates, former admissions officers and expert writers, editors and marketers, helps clients develop and implement a winning marketing strategy.  Stacy Blackman clients have a significantly increased probability of admission to top schools and are frequent recipients of merit scholarships.  The company is regularly featured in publications such as BusinessWeek, the Wall Street Journal and the Economist.   Visit the Stacy Blackman blog (www.stacyblackman.com/blog) for daily news updates and admissions tips, and check out the company’s e-publications for more in depth school by school guidance (www.StacyBlackman.com/store).

A guest post  by Stacy Blackman Consulting   www.StacyBlackman.com

“How many schools should I apply to? Which schools should I apply to?”

These are key questions aspiring MBAs ponder during the spring and summer before the busy application-writing season in fall and winter. The answers are different depending on where the applicant is within his or her “window” of applying to business school.

The vast majority of MBA students are in their mid-20s to early 30s. Only a small portion come directly from college and only a few attend full-time business school in their late-30s and into their 40s. But even within the, say, eight-year “window” from 24-32 years of age, applicants have a variety of inputs to consider when deciding the portfolio of MBA programs they should apply to.

Age: Many applicants in their mid-20s decide they will only apply to their first two choices this year, figuring they can reapply a couple years down the line when they have a bit more experience. I can understand this approach for some younger candidates, but applicants who are a bit older should strongly consider a different approach. They should apply to a wider array of schools to ensure that they will at least have the option of attending business school in the fall.  Of course, the best scenario involves an intelligent mix of top schools and “safer” schools that will yield a choice of MBA programs for the applicant. Some candidates, frankly, get on an unreasoned “Harvard or Stanford…or nothing!” kick that doesn’t serve anyone’s interests.

Next career alternative: Some MBA aspirants are in positions in which they could continue on for many more years. Others hold roles at places like consulting firms or top investment banks where policy and/or tradition encourage young employees to get further education. In environments where one can continue to advance unfettered, a candidate might consider applying solely to his or her top choice programs. However, candidates coming from companies with 2-3 year analyst programs that don’t allow for much upward progression should probably cast their nets a bit wider, assembling a bigger portfolio of schools.

Career track satisfaction: I have talked to several MBA aspirants who feel they are “locked” in roles that are too technical or too narrowly defined. Yet, some still want apply to just a couple of very highly ranked programs. When people desire to make a career transition to an entirely new role or industry—sooner, rather than later—I highly encourage them to apply to a broader array of business schools. There are incredible programs throughout the top 20 in the b-school rankings (and even beyond) that can provide the classes, career programs and alumni networks that aid this kind of transition.

First timer…or re-applicant?: A candidate who is going through his or her second round of business school applications should almost always apply to more schools. If the candidate is applying a couple of years down the line after dramatically improving his experience base, then he might add a couple of new schools to the mix but still target his top programs from a few years before. However, if the candidate is applying the very next year without significant changes in role, experience or “extracurriculars,” it makes a lot of sense to pursue a different base of schools, with perhaps one or two holdovers from the year before.

Family considerations: Taking two years to get an MBA is not just a “business decision,” it’s a “life decision.” Sometimes, the interests of boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives and children are critical factors in making the decision of if, when and where to apply. These considerations are much more complex and varied than the factors listed above, so it’s difficult to work through them in depth here. For instance, I knew some students who wanted to get through business school quickly so that they could start a family afterward, but I also knew of others who thought that business school (with day-care, low travel requirements, etc.) was a great environment to begin to build up their brood.

Candidates should talk with family, friends and mentors (and potentially an MBA application advisor) early in the application process to determine where they are in this “window” for business school. It’s an absolutely critical step in managing this multi-month application process thoughtfully.

Founded in 2001, Stacy Blackman Consulting (www.stacyblackman.com)has helped thousands of MBA applicants gain admission to the most selective business schools in the world.  The Stacy Blackman team, comprised of MBA graduates, former admissions officers and expert writers, editors and marketers, helps clients develop and implement a winning marketing strategy.  Stacy Blackman clients have a significantly increased probability of admission to top schools and are frequent recipients of merit scholarships.  The company is regularly featured in publications such as BusinessWeek, the Wall Street Journal and the Economist.   Visit the Stacy Blackman blog (www.stacyblackman.com/blog) for daily news updates and admissions tips, and check out the company’s e-publications for more in depth school by school guidance.

The GRE is a Computer Adaptive Test, which means that the test constantly adapts to your ability level, giving you harder questions if you answer questions correctly and easier ones if you get them wrong. Why would anyone design such a test? And how should it affect your test-taking strategy?

Why the GRE is Adaptive: An Allegory

Suppose you decided to test the mathematical abilities of a bunch of 8-year-olds by giving them all a calculus test. What would happen? They would all fail, and probably one or two of them would start crying, and their parents would complain. But most importantly, they would all get the same score– zero– so you’d have no clue which of them were good at math. You’d have the same problem if you gave a bunch of physics PhDs an arithmetic test: they’d all get perfect scores, and you wouldn’t be able to tell which of them were better than others.

How does this relate to the GRE? Well, the GRE is trying to test the abilities of a group with a wide range of abilities, from math majors who know everything about math but speak in monosyllables to English majors who know all about dactyls but can’t calculate a tip without an iPhone app. If the GRE were a paper-and-pencil test, this would be a problem: if they made the math section really hard, all the humanities people would get a zero and you couldn’t tell the difference between them, but if they made it really easy, all the math people would get a perfect score and they’d all look the same.

Hence the adaptation! Basically, the GRE constantly adjusts in order to get a good measure of your mathematical ability: if it figures out early on that you kind of suck at math, it will give you easy questions to try to figure out whether you really such or just kind of suck. If you’re really good at English, it will give you tougher and tougher questions to figure out whether you’re the next poet laureate or just pretty well-read. Basically, the whole thing is pretty clever.

How does this affect my test-taking strategy?

Glad you asked! In three ways:

1. You can’t go back. Since your answer to the last question affects what the next question will be, you have to answer every question in order– no saving the tough ones for the end or avoiding topics you don’t know much about, the way you might have on the SAT. Since you’re going to have to answer every question anyway, you should learn to eliminate ridiculous answers even if you can’t figure out the right one: Just because you’re guessing doesn’t mean you have to guess randomly.
2. You can game the system a little bit by spending a bit more time on earlier questions. Broadly speaking, the test will determine your approximate score from the earlier questions, then refine its estimate on the later questions. If you answer the first ten questions right, the computer thinks to itself that it probably has a 700-level test-taker on its hands and starts trying to figure out whether you’re a 720 or a 780. This is great for you, since even if you can’t get a few of the later questions you might still end up with a 720.
3. You can’t really game the system all that much, so don’t bother trying. The GRE wasn’t designed by idiots: If you answer the first ten questions correctly but then fail the rest of the test, you’ll get bumped back down to a lower scoring bracket. So don’t go spending all your time on the first questions and none on the rest. A good rule of thumb: You have a little more than 1 minute and 30 seconds per question; spending 2 minutes each on the first ten questions and correspondingly less on the later ones isn’t a bad idea.
4. Don’t Try to Guess What the Computer is Thinking. Many students think they can figure out whether they’re doing well or poorly from the questions they’re getting: If the question they’re on is easier, they figure they must have answered the last question wrong. This is (1) inaccurate and (2) useless, so stop thinking about it. It’s inaccurate because you can’t really tell which questions the computer thinks are “hard,” and there’s a bit of random chance in which questions you get anyway; it’s useless because thinking about anything besides the question you’re on is pretty much futile. Don’t psych yourself out.

Next Step Test Preparation offers complete packages of one-on-one GRE tutoring for less than the price of a packed prep course.  For more information, see our GRE tutoring page, contact info@nextsteptestprep.com or call 888-530-NEXT.

Photo credit Charlie Evatt under a Creative Commons license.

Many people wonder why, in order to get a PhD program in Romance literature, they need to learn to factor quadratics again. Likewise, many ask themselves why, in order to pursue their passion for physics, they need to memorize the meaning of “temerity.” What is responsible for this miserable situation? And, will the schools you’re applying to even care whether you score well on a section of the GRE that has nothing to do with your chosen subject?

The short answer is: Yes they will, so study up. Why?

1. The GRE attempts to test a mythical being named “general intelligence.” If your grad school wants to figure out whether you’re any good at Romantic literature, it can read your papers on the subject. But when a school looks at your GRE scores it’s trying to figure out whether you’re an all-around bright and well-educated sort of person. Everyone knows that the only conceivable way of measuring this is to lock you in a room for three hours and have a computer quiz you on algebra and vocab. So, when schools look at your scores they’re not looking for the specific skills tested but for a more general picture of your overall intelligence. If you just don’t prepare for the section that doesn’t relate to your field, you’ll end up looking like an idiot: if you just don’t review factoring, schools may think that you’re incapable of factoring, and that won’t look good.
2. Even if you’re going to school for physics, you’ll still have to communicate with people in a “verbal” manner. Conversely, even if you’re an English PhD you’ll still need to produce and analyze logical arguments. I was talking to an MIT computer science professor recently about how he chooses his grad students; he told me that initially he hadn’t cared much about Verbal GRE scores, but with experience he had discovered that students with high verbal scores were much easier to collaborate with and ultimately more successful, since they could read and write effectively. So don’t be too quick to think your scores are irrelevant.
   That said, of course your score in your subject area are more important than your score on the other section. For some programs, an excellent score on your subject area’s section is virtually a prerequisite for admissions, while the other section is more of a bonus. This is especially true for math and the hard sciences: 11% of all test-takers get a 780 or above on the math section, so if you can’t do pretty well you’ll be facing tough competition. (Less than 1% of test-takers get 780 or above on the verbal section.) Still, you should make sure that neither your math score nor your verbal score is embarrassingly low; look at the average scores for the program you’re applying to and shoot to beat them. For many people this means spending quite a bit more time studying for the “off” section than for the “on” one.

Next Step Test Preparation offers complete packages of one-on-one GRE tutoring for less than the price of a packed prep course.  For more information, see our GRE tutoring page, contact info@nextsteptestprep.com or call 888-530-NEXT.

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The GRE is changing! It is being “revised” for 2011. What has changed? And what does it mean to you?

The Dates
You won’t be able to take the new GRE until August 2011, and you won’t be able to register for it until March 15, 2011. If you need your scores before November 2011, you’ll have to take the old test. For more information, see the GRE press release here.

If you’re applying to school in 2011, you face a choice: you can take the old test before August 1, or the new test afterward. Which should you do? To find out, you’ll need to know what will change.

The Scores
Right now, each section of the GRE is scored on a scale from 200 to 800 in ten-point increments. The highest possible score is 1600. On the new GRE, each section will be scored on a scale from 130 to 170 in one-point increments, and the highest possible score will be 340.

The Revised GRE Verbal Section
Right now, the GRE verbal section consists of three basic question types: reading comprehension, sentence completion, and analogy/antonym questions. What’s going to change?

1. No more analogies and antonyms. On the current GRE, some questions simply provide you with a word out of context and ask you to choose a word which is its opposite. They will also provide you with two words and ask you to choose another two words with the same relationship. This puts a huge emphasis on knowing vocabulary out of context; an important part of studying for the current verbal GRE involves simply memorizing vocab. This question type will completely disappear in the new GRE, which means that it will emphasize vocab far less than does the current test.
2. New reading comprehension question types. There will be two new question types in the reading comprehension section of the GRE:
    
   • Sentence selection questions. You’ll be asked to highlight a sentence within the passage that does a given thing. So they’ll say “Highlight the sentence that distinguishes between consequence-based and duty-based ethical systems,” and you’ll have to look for a sentence that does that.
   • Multiple-answer questions. This is pretty much what it sounds like: You’ll be given a reading comprehension question plus three answer choices, and one, two or all three could be right. This doesn’t mean that you’ll get partial credit for selecting any one of the right answers; you’ll have to select all the right and none of the wrong answers to get credit.
3. More sentence completion questions. You’re given a blank space and you have to choose which word can fill it. These still test vocab, but provide more context than analogy and antonym questions.
4. Sentence equivalence questions. These will look like sentence completion questions: You’ll get a sentence with a blank space and six answer choices. The twist is that you’ll have to select two answer choices which give the sentence the same meaning. So you’ll have to find two answer choices which (1) fit coherently into the sentence and (2) give the sentence the same meaning. Two words that mean the same thing but don’t fit into the sentence will be wrong, and two words that both fit into the sentence but that don’t give it the same meaning will also be wrong. Again, you can’t get partial credit here: You’ll need to select both correct answers to get the question right.

The upshot: The new verbal GRE will test roughly the same skills as the old GRE, but vocab will be less important. What does this mean for you? If when you take the current GRE and you miss mainly vocab questions, you should consider waiting to take the new GRE if possible. If you do well on vocab questions but miss a lot of reading comprehension questions, you should shoot to take the current GRE.

Note for ESL Students: Many ESL students find the current GRE especially tough because it tests a lot of obscure vocab. They’re good at figuring out what a passage means overall, but individual words out of context give them trouble. For these students, the new GRE is great news. If this is you, you should wait and take the new GRE if possible!

Next Step Test Preparation offers complete packages of one-on-one GRE tutoring for less than the price of a packed prep course.  For more information, see our GRE tutoring page, contact info@nextsteptestprep.com or call 888-530-NEXT.

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The GRE is changing! See our previous post for more info, but basically, the new test is coming on August 1, 2011. If you need your scores before November, you’ll have to take the old test, but if you don’t need them until later you may want to take the new one.

What has changed on the GRE math section? Superficially, quite a bit– but really, not too much. Here’s the deal:

1. They give you a calculator! There will be a calculator on the screen when you take the test, so the GRE no longer tests whether you know your times tables! This will likely be quite significant for strategy on certain question types, since it will become much quicker and easier to test various responses.
2. Less basic math, more data interpretation and word problems. Instead of giving you an algebraic equation to solve, the GRE is now more likely to give you a word problem which cleverly disguises an algebra problem. So you’ll still have to know the math, but you’ll also need to know how to apply it.
3. Weird answer formats. The revised GRE is doing very strange things with its question types. On the new test, you’ll see multiple-answer multiple-choice questions, where more than one answer may be right. You’ll have to choose all the right answers and only those to get the question right. You’ll also see numerical entry questions, where you have to type a number in instead of choosing from among several answer choices–so educated guessing won’t help you on these questions.

What does this mean for you?

As far as we can tell, the new GRE math section will test the same skills as the old one: remembering and creatively applying the math you learned in high school. However, the changes will make the section more difficult overall; more word problems and less multiple-choice will make it a tougher test. It will likely be tougher to get a perfect score on the GRE in the future. But don’t worry– this doesn’t affect you! When you take the GRE you’re being judged relative to other test-takers; what matters is not how many questions you get right in absolute terms, but where you rank compared to everyone else who takes the test. Since the new GRE math section tests the same skills as the old one, it shouldn’t matter too much whether you take the new or the current GRE.

Read the official description of the changes here.

Next Step Test Preparation offers complete packages of one-on-one GRE tutoring for less than the price of a packed prep course.  For more information, see our GRE tutoring page, contact info@nextsteptestprep.com or call 888-530-NEXT.

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Most people don’t get to choose whether to take the GRE or the GMAT: They have to take whichever test their program demands. For business school types, that usually means the GMAT; for most other people doing masters or PhD work, it’s the GRE. But an increasing number of MBA programs are accepting the GRE as well as the GMAT, which means that many MBA students now have a choice of which to take. You can find a list of MBA programs that accept the GRE here. It’s a long list and includes many big-name schools (Wharton, Stern, Harvard), and this trend is likely to continue.

So why does it matter? The GRE and the GMAT try to test almost exactly the same skills, but they do so in slightly different ways. So choosing the test which tests your strongest areas can improve your admissions standards. I’ll review the basic considerations here.

1. The GMAT has a harder math section. The GMAT asks students to apply slightly more complex math quite a bit more creatively than does the GRE. If you haven’t studied math in a long time, you may be able to cram and do reasonably well on the GRE, but attacking the GMAT will be tougher. So if math is your greatest fear, go for the GRE.
2. The GRE tests vocab way more than the GMAT. Starting in August 2011, the GRE will be revised to de-emphasize vocab, but until then, knowing a ton of vocabulary is an important part of doing well on the GRE. If your vocab is terrible, or if you’re an ESL student, you should consider taking the GMAT.
3. The GMAT tests grammar. The GMAT verbal section contains questions that present you with a grammatically incorrect sentence and ask you to correct it. If grammar isn’t your strong suit, then this is bad news! Try a few of these questions. If they give you trouble, you should consider attacking the GRE.

Next Step Test Preparation offers complete packages of one-on-one GRE tutoring for less than the price of a packed prep course.  For more information, see our GRE tutoring page, contact info@nextsteptestprep.com or call 888-530-NEXT.

Photo credit Travis Warren under a Creative Commons license.

You shouldn’t try to cram for the GRE! You should plan a three-month study schedule and allow plenty of time to work on improving your scores.

But, let’s say that your GRE is in, like, a week, and you haven’t studied, and you’re desperate. What do you do? Here’s a step-by-step plan:

1. Take a free practice GRE! Two are available from the GRE website, here: http://www.ets.org/gre/general/prepare . Take each of them, in timed conditions, in a single sitting. This will get you familiar with the test format and instructions, so you won’t be surprised when you show up for the test.

2. Learn and apply basic test-taking strategies. Don’t just give up on a question if you’re not sure how to answer it– try to eliminate a couple of answer choices, then guess. Practicing elimination strategies is one of the quickest ways to improve your score.

3. Focus on the math section! If you only have a few days to prepare, you probably won’t be able to pull your verbal score up that much, since it tests knowledge and skills that are either the product of a long educational development (critical reading) or very time-consuming to acquire (vocabulary). The math section is quite different: many of the skills you’ll need to succeed here are basic math techniques which you studied in high school but may need a refresher on. Once you have begun studying the math, you’ll be surprised at how much you already know and merely need to be reminded of.

4. Get enough sleep and stay calm. You’re not going to improve your score by staying up all night cramming more math skills into your head. The best way to do well is to remain calm, cool and collected so you can apply what you do know on the test.

Next Step Test Preparation offers complete packages of one-on-one GRE tutoring for less than the price of a packed prep course.  For more information, see our GRE tutoring page, contact info@nextsteptestprep.com or call 888-530-NEXT.

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With the GRE, unlike other standardized tests, you can schedule a test for whenever you want. Since it’s computer-administered, you can choose a test date that fits your schedule. So how should you choose? Here are some tips.

Your first step in choosing a test date is to find out what the admissions deadlines are for the schools you’re applying to. If you don’t know, you should stop reading this post and find out immediately. These vary quite a bit, though they tend to cluster around December-February. (i.e., if you plan to matriculate in September 2012 you should plan on having applications ready around December 2011-February 2012.)

Whatever your admissions deadline turns out to be, you should shoot for a test date six months prior to the deadline. So if you’re planning to apply in December of a given year, you’ll want to take the GRE in the Spring or Summer of that year. Why so early?

1. It will help you choose schools. Knowing your GRE score will help you decide which programs you have a shot at getting admitted to. You don’t want to waste time applying if you don’t have a chance, and you don’t want to apply to several “safety schools” if you’re sure you can do better. There are many unknowns in the admissions process, but taking the GRE early will eliminate at least one of them.

2. You’ll have time to retake. If for any reason you don’t do as well as you expected to on the GRE, you’ll want to allow yourself time to retake it. You should never plan on retaking the GRE– if you prepare well once will be enough. But if for whatever reason you leave the test feeling as though you could have done better, it will be nice to know that you have plenty of time to retake it.

3. You won’t have to worry about deadlines. We have had any number of students who took the last possible test before their admissions deadline and had to lie awake at night worrying about whether their scores would come in on time. Don’t let this be you! Allow plenty of time for your exam to be scored and returned.

Another important consideration: You should plan to take the GRE at a time when you’ll have plenty of time and energy to prepare effectively. For full-time students, this generally means the summer: it’s very hard to prepare for the GRE with a full course load. Plan accordingly!

Next Step Test Preparation offers complete packages of one-on-one GRE tutoring for less than the price of a packed prep course.  For more information, see our GRE tutoring page, contact info@nextsteptestprep.com or call 888-530-NEXT.

Photo credit Leo Reynolds under a Creative Commons license.