GMAT Horror Story

I once heard GEN Barry McCaffery describe US Army Ranger School as “a horror movie where you are the star.”

Well, the GMAT doesn’t compare to Ranger school, but his quote echoed through my mind as I went into the Munich test facility to do battle with the GMAT for the fourth time. It was a horror story and I was the star. If I didn’t get a high enough score on this try, my entire life would be up in the air.

It was February and I had gotten back from a long and tough 15 month deployment the previous October. I was an infantry officer, and during the tour my squadron had borne the brunt of the fighting in Sadr City. We finished up the deployment moving to Adhamiyah in Central Baghdad and then to Mosul in northern Iraq. Our operations’ tempo rarely slowed. Needless to say, studying and getting applications ready was the last thing on my mind.

To compound the stress of the test, my wife accepted a job in New York City while I was deployed. We had planned for her to work while I went to business school. If I didn’t get into school, however, getting a job in NYC while I reapplied was going to be very difficult. If I didn’t land a job, I would have to reapply to b school with a hard-to-explain one year gap of employment on my resume. Thus, the added consequence of doing poorly on this GMAT, meant that I would likely stay in the Army another year. That would be another year of separation from my wife and possibly another deployment.

I walked through the glass doors of the Munich Test Center and said “Gruss Gott!” to Fraulein Anna. This was an inside joke referring to the area I was stationed in, known by city Germans like Fraulein Anna as the “Bavarian Congo.” Fraulein Anna was in charge of GMAT in-processing and, yes, I had seen her enough to have inside jokes. We went through the eye scan and finger print ritual preceding the fun times ahead.

I thought about my first test, which I took the month I returned from Iraq. I BOMBED it. I hadn’t studied enough and I was overconfident in my ability. Further, I had to take the test in Prague, several hours away from my base. I remember my intelligence officer’s words of warning “Whatever you do, DON’T park your car on the street, cars get stolen ALL the time.” Unfortunately, when I arrived in Prague, the only place I could find to park was right on the street next to a very shady spray-painted building. Frequent car-theft checks during the test, one about every 15 minutes, further contributed to my lackluster performance.

I put my healthy snack, my watch, and my wallet into the safe behind Fraulein Anna’s desk. She looked at me. I looked back. She said “Yohr…ahm….gum.” Oh, I was chewing gum. I placed the gum in the waste basket and briefly fantasized about how easy the test would be with some Copenhagen and a cup of coffee. But, alas, the GMAT was not designed by infantrymen.

I thought about my second test and third test, taken in Munich. Munich was closer and much safer than Prague and I did much better on the tests. Still not where I needed to be, but close. However, I had already missed the deadline for first round applications. Missing the deadlines was a double edged sword: I had hurt my chances by waiting but I also had more time to study. So, I took a Kaplan course. I learned about all the little GMAT tips and tricks and really dedicated myself to getting my score higher.

Fraulein Anna escorted me down the familiar path to the test center. The same old butterflies returned and I thought, “Two deployments, firefights, IEDs, rocket attacks, and you still get nervous at this test.” The butterflies remained unimpressed with my combat experience and fluttered around. I took some deep breaths, said goodbye to Fraulein Anna, and sat down.

I finished my fourth GMAT and I stared at the computer screen. It had the nauseating mulligan message “Would you like to accept or delete this score?” If I deleted the score, I would never find out how I did, but neither would the schools I was applying to. The program displays the message after your test, so that, if you know you did poorly, you can pretend it never happened. Of course, that was not an option for me so, with my heart in my throat, I clicked accept. THE SCREEN REVEALED MY BEST SCORE EVER! All my stress dissipated and I knew I would be able to get into the school of my choice. From my first to my fourth I had raised my score a full 100 points.

I would rather take a 4 hour GMAT than repeat Mountain phase any day of the week, but it can be a very difficult and trying test. Rest assured, though, it is something that you can learn. It is not impossible, but merely another hurdle you have to leap on your race to business school. If I can raise my score 100 pts over a few months with hard work and test prep, so can you.