This Year's B-School Scandal

It seems like every year there is a scandal in the MBA world. A few years back, it was the Harvard application decision "hacking" scandal, where students who followed the advice of a BW poster were able to modify the Apply Yourself website to see their decisions early. Harvard rejected them all due to their poor ethical choice (debatable, but I'm not going to get into it). Last year it was the Duke cheating scandal, where several students were expelled for collaborating on an individual take-home test. This year, it is the GMAT cheating scandal.

It seems that a site called Scoretop (which has since been shut down) was selling actual live GMAT questions to potential test-takers for $30. Then the questions were discussed on the site in a forum. Presumably, the MBA hopefuls that bought the questions may have seen them on the actual test, which means they had information that others didn't. GMAC won a court order to shut down the site and claims to have a hard drive that they are searching to discover the identities of those who purchased the questions. They will cancel the culprits' scores and notify the schools that they sent the scores to. So far no schools have come out and said that they would take action against those students, but it's within the realm of possibility that some students may have their offers revoked or get kicked out of programs if they are already enrolled. A ray of hope for waitlisters, perhaps (wink wink)?

In all seriousness, this is scary stuff. I wonder how many people purchased access to the questions without realizing that what they were doing was against GMAC's policy? I doubt Scoretop disclosed that little tidbit. Some people probably didn't even realize they were live questions and may have thought they were buying practice questions similar to those provided by other legitimate companies. I guess ignorance is not an excuse, but I feel bad for those people. On the other hand, I'm sure the majority of people that paid the $30 knew exactly what they were doing. Regardless of whether it actually helped them, I think they deserve whatever punishment is handed down to them, although I'm sure the harshness will vary by school. I guess we'll just have to watch and wait for the fallout.

My GMAT Experience

My GMAT experience is probably going to be pretty different from most applicant bloggers, but I thought I would share anyway in case it is helpful to some folks.

Back in February I started thinking about getting an MBA. It seemed like the smart thing to do competitively, since most people in my department either have one or are working on one. A majority of people did their MBAs part time. In my area, there are many choices for good part time programs: Drexel, Villanova, St. Josephs, Penn State, etc. I decided I'd better get started, since these programs can take 3 years or more, especially for those with non-business undergrad degrees who can't waive many of the core classes. I attended some info sessions and picked out some target programs.

I decided to get started on the GMAT and aim to get my applications in for the Fall semester. The average GMAT for these schools ranges from 550 to 620, so I wasn't too worried about getting a suitable score. However, scholarships are generally based on GMAT scores, so I decided to aim for a score in the mid to high 600's so I would have a better chance of getting some money. I ordered 3 books, and ended up using two of them for the majority of my studying:
The Official Guide
Princeton Review (Cracking the GMAT)
Kaplan GMAT 2007

I started with Kaplan, but stopped after the introduction. There were a ton of typos, and entire sections were repeated on different pages! I thought, if they can't properly edit this book, can I really trust them as a study guide? So I ditched Kaplan and started in on Princeton Review. I really liked PR. Their approach is to teach you tricks based on their extensive knowledge of the test. While I didn't use all the tricks all the time, it really helped to have them in my back pocket for questions that I didn't know how to approach. The tricks especially helped me for the verbal section, where I tended to overthink my answers. There was really only one thing they got wrong: they said the GMAT never requires you to calculate standard deviation, they only ask questions that require you to understand what the standard deviation is. Well - I got a question that required calculating it! I think I guessed on that, but I don't really remember anymore ;) PR's method for AWA is also great. It allowed me to spend only one day practicing my templates so I could spend valuable time on other stuff.

The Official Guide was great for practice questions. Indeed, this is the only book with actual GMAT questions. I actually got a couple questions on my test that were repeats from this book! Both PR and OG have great practice exams you can do on your computer to simulate how the actual test works. This was really important for me, because I discovered I had to really concentrate on moving quickly through the quantitative questions ... otherwise I wouldn't finish! If I knew I could solve a question but that it would take longer than 3 minutes, I had to make an intelligent guess and move on. I tended to practice one section at a time, so the only full practice test score I had was a 670.

So finally it was test day. I was a little nervous, but not too bad. I brought a can of Coke and an oatmeal bar to keep my energy up inbetween sections (which I ended up really needing!). Once I was finished, I took a deep breath and requested my score .... Holy crap, a 760!!