Berkeley MBA Interview Invitation

The smile I had on Monday evening just got wee-bit wider. =)

BW: Admissions Q&A with Pete Johnson & Jett Pihakis
Pihakis: Last year, we created Super Saturday interview days. Tomorrow is a Super Saturday for about 100 round-one applicants. It's an opportunity for us to do a huge number of interviews in one day. We invite people from all around the world so that they can get a day of activities and an interview. They hear from current students and career-services representatives, and they get to meet each other.

Last year, we did it as a result of feedback: People who had come to campus were disappointed with their interview experience because all they had was a 45-minute interview, as classes weren't in session.

Johnson: An invitation to attend a Super Saturday doesn't mean you're offered admission. These applicants are still under consideration.

Pihakis: Of those we interviewed last year, 75% were offered admission.

Johnson: But we expect that percentage to change this year as we move toward interviewing the vast majority of people we consider for admission.

I'm so excited because not only do I get to interview with my alma mater, but I also get to go visit the frat I started and attend a rush event! GO PSP!

This has turned out to be a wonderful week! I wish all my weeks were filled with such great news!!! =)

GMAT Strategy

Here are some general GMAT Strategies that I have shared with my friends and on the BW forums:

1) Learn the basics. Know the 30/60/90 triangles by heart and don't guess on SC, make sure you know "why" a sentence is wrong or right.

2) Learn the strategies from Princeton Review and Kaplan. But use what you are comfortable with.

3) Don't go Test Crazy. You will get burnt-out and you will pay less attention to details when you take the actual test. Take one test a week or so.

4) Use the 10th edition like it was the bible! Start from the back of each section, those are newer CAT problems.

5) Do problem sets in 1.5 hour blocks. Keep track of how many you do in a certain amount of time and make sure you pace yourself.

6) Learn from your mistakes! More important than getting the answers right - and feeling overconfident - is understanding why you got the question wrong.

7) Relax the days leading up to the test. Don't cram.

Learn the strategies, but when you take the test it should become second nature. Pace yourself. Work hard on the first 10-15 problems and then start guessing if you run out of time.

I spent approximately 30 hours studying for the exam over two months. I used the PR, Kaplan and 10th edition books to study and got a 99 percentile score.

Two things to keep in mind about the GMAT.
1) A great GMAT score won't make you! It's only one part of the application process, if you have a 700 stop obsessing and write some brilliant essays!
2) But it can break you. If you are not within the middle 80% of your target school, do it right and get some help with your GMATs. At the very least you won't have the "Man, if I only spent the extra bucks on BLANK, I would have gotten a better score" regret.