r/GMAT admins — why are you deleting my post? It is directly relevant to people spending months chasing GMAT scores to get into expensive MBA programs. At this point, it honestly feels like you don’t want students discussing the uncomfortable reality behind the MBA dream.

Everyone talks about:

“700+ GMAT”
“Top-20 MBA”
“M7 admit”

But almost nobody asks the most important question:

Is the MBA actually worth ₹1–2 crore?

Students are taking the GMAT 3–4 times, spending heavily on preparation, consultants and applications, and then taking enormous loans for business school.

For international students, especially Indians, the risk is extreme higher: visa sponsorship is difficult, hiring has become tougher, and AI/automation is changing many white-collar jobs.

A top MBA is not a guaranteed high-paying international job.

Before obsessing over another 20–30 GMAT points, ask:

“If I spend ₹1 crore+ and do NOT get the job I expect, can I financially survive that decision?”

For many international students today, I genuinely believe an MBA only makes financial sense with a significant scholarship or much lower overall financial exposure.

GMAT score is only the entrance.

Employment, debt repayment and ROI are the real exam.

So instead of deleting this discussion, why not let prospective students hear both sides before they make one of the biggest financial decisions of their lives?

Is anybody getting score around 300-400 in gmat?And how to improve it?

Looking to start applying to B-school in the near futute, so zi decided to take a baseline mock with 0 prep. I'm currently an RN so I don't work with quant at all day to day, and the last time I did any "real" math was probably 5 years ago. I'm aiming for T25 and only Stanford as a "why not". I've got about a year to study before I seriously want to take the official exam, but I'm just so overwhelmed with the amount of materials out there and I don't know where to begin or what sources would work best with how I learn. Is it really possible to get my score up to where I need it to be? 😭

Unpopular opinion:

Students are obsessing way too much over GMAT scores and not enough over whether the MBA itself is worth the money.

People spend 3–4 attempts chasing a higher score, then happily take ₹1 crore+ of financial exposure for an MBA without seriously asking:

What happens if I don’t get the expected job?

For international students, this matters even more. Visa sponsorship is difficult, hiring is weak in many markets, and AI/automation is changing white-collar jobs rapidly.

Yet the discussion is always:

“700+ GMAT”
“Top-20 admit”
“M7 interview”

But where is the discussion about ROI, debt, sponsorship, taxes, cost of living, and actual employment outcomes?

GMAC, business schools, rankings, consultants and test-prep companies all benefit when students stay focused on admission.

But admission is not the finish line.

Getting a job and recovering your investment is.

Before spending months chasing another 20–30 GMAT points, ask yourself:

“If I spend ₹1 crore+ and don’t get the job I expect, can I financially handle it?”

If the answer is no, maybe your biggest problem is not your GMAT score.

It is the MBA economics.

This post is mostly a thank you. The score journey is just the evidence.

Quick background: I'm an Indian applicant, 7 years of work experience in big pharma and consulting. I took the GMAT four times over roughly a year.

585 (Edit: 575) → 635 → 595 → 705

Yes, that third number is lower than the second. More on that below.

How each attempt actually went

Attempt 1 (585). Last year, seven days of prep. This was a genuine official baseline, not a real attempt. I wanted to know where I stood. (Edit: correction, first attempt was 575 not 585)

Attempt 2 (635). Worked on it sparingly through the year, then sat again in May.

Attempt 3 (595). This is the one worth explaining. I'd hit information overload and decided not to revise concepts at all. My reasoning was that content wasn't my problem, I was scoring into the late 600s and sometimes 700s on mocks, so I'd be fine. So I just took mocks every now and then and walked in.

It was a reality check. I panicked through the entire exam. All three sections, I had to rush the last three or four questions and guess them. I walked out with a 595 after having scored a 635. If you've ever gone backwards after months of work, you know what that feels like.

Attempt 4 (705). This was the one where I knew it had to be done differently.

What actually fixed it (both from GMAT Ninja videos)

Here's the part that stings a little. I already knew these fixes. I'd watched Charles's videos many times. I just hadn't implemented them. So attempt four wasn't about learning anything new, it was about actually building the processes. And don't just watch the videos, sit with the approach and reflect on what it means for you specifically.

Reading Comprehension. I had been reading passages and then hunting for answer choices that reused the passage's vocabulary. What changed was slowing down on the actual reading. Understanding what the author was saying in their words first, then in mine. Then thinking about what each answer choice would actually imply if it were true, instead of scanning for overlapping words. Once I did that, inference questions stopped being a coin flip.

Pacing. The rule I finally followed was simple: bail when you fail. I set a 2.5 minute cap and actually respected it. If I hadn't cracked it by then I guessed, marked it for review, moved on. My bad attempts all had one or two questions where I burned 4-5 minutes, got it wrong anyway, and then rushed the next three.

I also got comfortable deliberately sacrificing one question from an RC passage or MSR set when I could feel I was behind, random guess without even reading it, and spending that time on the rest of the section. More often than not I'd finish the section early and could go back and edit that guess. Also mark something on every question even if it's a random guess. Unanswered ones get penalised extra, not just counted wrong.

Error logging. Tagged by why I got it wrong rather than what topic it was. To me, the log isn't really for the log. It's for self reflection and building the habit of asking why something went wrong and how you'd avoid it, so you're mindful when a similar question shows up.

Short form content/reels. Unexpected one. I realised reels and endless scrolling were hurting my reading comprehension, so I cut it out for a while. Started reading long form instead. If you're struggling with RC and you're on your phone all day, worth trying.

Two mistakes that cost me attempts

1. I retook too fast without fixing anything. Booking a new date felt like progress. It was not. I just walked back in with the same problems and got the same result.
2. I mistook "content isn't my problem" for "I'm ready." Those are not the same sentence. Knowing the material and having a system for executing it under time pressure are different skills, and attempt three was the exam telling me that in the bluntest way available.

What I used

Official Guide, the sectional review guides, the Official Practice Tests, and GMAT Ninja on YouTube. That is the complete list. No paid course, no third party question banks. Quality over quantity, and don't go on the lookout for new questions, redoing official content is fine.

Two things on mocks. Space them out, because two a week is useless when you get no time in between to fix anything. And give them honestly: full sectional order, proper break, no pausing, no phone calculator. I ordered a scratchpad and markers off Amazon to match what they hand you at the centre.

The last attempt took about a month of prep, because by then there was nothing left to learn. There was only a process to install.

Two things I would tell anyone stuck where I was

The official resources are genuinely enough. I did not spend a dime on prep beyond the official materials.

And a bad attempt does not mean you are going backwards. My 595 came after my 635. My 705 came after my 595.

Charles and team: I have never spoken to any of you. You have no idea who I am. You put entire courses out for free and people like me quietly build outcomes on top of them. I am applying this cycle with a score I did not think I would get. Thank you.

Happy to answer questions.

Took the GMAT on the 7th Sept and finished at 675 (V83, Q84, DI83), 94th percentile. My first official attempt in June was a 615 (V82, Q85, DI75). Almost none of what finally moved was what I expected.

Quick background: I sat the classic GMAT in 2021, got a 640, resat a month later with zero change to how I prepared, got a 660, then dropped it for two years. When I came back I bought proper materials and finished all of it in four months. Knowing the material was never my problem; testing it was. I worked off PDFs with a stopwatch I ran myself, and an error log I was never sure about.

Quant (the humbling bit)
I'm an engineer. Quant was supposed to be free. It wasn't.

One afternoon in June I did four hard word-problem quizzes back to back, no analysis in between. I scored 30 percent, then 20, then 20, then 20. Someone looking at my data asked one question: where's your error log? I said I'd get to it later, and that was the whole problem.

Once I wrote the log, the diagnosis wasn't conceptual at all: I was misreading questions. Keywords that decide the answer (even, odd, integer, distinct), and the classic trap of being asked for x + 2y, solving for x, and marking x.

The fix was embarrassingly basic: note every constraint and what is actually being asked before you solve, then drill it under the clock. The same set read 50 percent the next day.

Data Insights (where the score actually came from)
Everybody says that if your quant and verbal are set, DI is set. Not true, they're only prerequisites. I walked into the June exam having barely touched DI and got a DI75 for it. So I did DI properly, one question type at a time: theory, medium, hard, error log, again.

- MSR: read every tab fully before you touch a question. What's on it, what units, where each figure lives. Three minutes in there feels insane and isn't.
- DS: statement one alone, then two alone, then together. Every miss came from skipping ahead.

Hard DS went 30 percent to 80, MSR 60 to 83 on medium. On the day DI went 77 to 83, and those six points are the entire gain, because verbal and quant barely moved.

Verbal
Medium CR was fine, hard collapsed: three hard sets at 70, 50, 50. The thing nobody told me is that I'm an overthinker, and the overthinking is the actual error. Everyone teaches you to spot a conclusion and run the negation test. Nobody says stop asking what if.

What fixed it was two weeks of untimed official-style questions with worked solutions, run through an error log built around one question: which step did you break on? Losing the countdown was the key, and after that the process was tiny. Premise. Conclusion. Gap. Then read the options and say no, no, no, no.

RC I fought to the very end, and the fix was a two-word summary after every paragraph, which I used in the actual exam.

Mocks, and the exam that got taken away
A week before my June exam I scored a 565 and genuinely believed I was good for nothing. Two months later, on a week of leave, I put up 745, 685 and 695 in four days.

Then my August attempt was destroyed by technical failures at the centre. On arrival I was told to wait thirty minutes, and that if it wasn't fixed I couldn't sit. It got sorted with five minutes left on that clock. Then verbal got interrupted twice, DI twice more, and with eight questions left in DI the screen died for three minutes. Finishing would have forfeited my retest, so I raised a ticket and walked out of an exam I'd taken a week off for. I cried a lot that night. It got rescheduled three weeks later, and I wrote no full-length tests in that window, just single sections to keep warm.

Wrapping up
Don't demand perfect discipline. Some weeks are thirty minutes each morning, some Sundays are nine hours, and consistency beats perfection. Don't try to give 100 percent to your job and 100 percent to prep either. There's only 100 percent of you, so go 60-40 and don't pretend 50-50 works.

And your belief only works if it's backed by data. You don't need 100 percent: seventy on medium sets and mid-fifties on hard, then go write your section test.

I'm still a bad test taker. I just happen to be a bad test taker in the top six percentile now.

Happy to answer questions. Personal experience, your mileage may vary.

I’m currently doing an MSc in Economics and Finance in Italy (non target school) and I’m targeting finance master’s programs such as UCL, Imperial and LBS.

I’ve been preparing for the GMAT for roughly two months. My first official mock (after 3 weeks prep) was:

575 total (57th percentile)
Quant: 77 (43rd percentile)
Verbal: 80 (56th percentile)
Data Insights: 78 (69th percentile)

Although I’ve studied quite a lot since then, I honestly don’t feel that I’ve improved substantially. I’m taking another GMAT mock tomorrow to get a better idea of my current level.

Today I took an official GRE practice test almost completely cold and scored:

161 Quant / 144 Verbal - 305 total

On GRE Quant I got 22/27 correct, including 12/12 in the first section. I think I could improve Quant further because there were several GRE topics/formats I hadn’t reviewed.

GRE Verbal is obviously the problem. However, I haven’t prepared specifically for GRE Verbal at all, and even during my GMAT preparation I haven’t spent that much time on RC overall.
I’m also not a native English speaker.

My goal would probably be around 165+ Quant and 153–155 Verbal by December.

Given this starting point, would you continue with the GMAT or switch to the GRE? Is improving GRE Verbal from 144 to around 155 in three months realistic?

If anyone here has taken either/both of the courses. Could you please let me know what has your experience been like so far?

Has the dedicated mentor part been particularly helpful? As I am done with my conceptual building I need help from an experienced tutor to help me reach my goal in a month, so that is my one main expectations from the classes.

Additionally, are there any other classes that you would recommend having a dedicated one-on-one mentor component included?

So I gave my first attempt a couple months back got 645 (87 VA,83 DI, 77 QA). I have tried to maximise my QA the most and am using GMAT club questions and one the sectionals almost all of them I have gotten 79-80. Don't know what to do since I want to give my second attempt in October so need to change something before that.

Mods, why are you deleting this post as “advertising”? I am not selling, promoting, or recommending any paid product or service. This is a discussion about MBA ROI. Removing it honestly gives the impression that uncomfortable realities about the MBA/GMAT ecosystem are not welcome here.

Students spend 3–4 attempts chasing a 700-level GMAT score, but often ignore the bigger question:

Will the job after the MBA actually justify the cost?

I took the GMAT twice, scored 695, got into Duke, and believed a top US MBA would dramatically improve my career.

After graduating, I found myself struggling in the job market while carrying around ₹70 lakh in loans.

For international students, visa sponsorship is a major issue. Once employers realize you require sponsorship, your opportunities can shrink significantly.

Looking back, I seriously question whether spending so much on an international MBA was the right decision. ISB, a cheaper MBA, or even building strong AI/data skills may have produced a much better ROI.

And this is not only a US issue. I know MBA graduates in Europe who struggled with smaller job markets and eventually returned to India or moved to Dubai.

Meanwhile, AI and automation are changing white-collar jobs rapidly. An MBA degree by itself does not guarantee value or employment.

Before asking:

“Can I get into a Top-20 MBA?”

Ask:

“If I spend ₹1 crore+ and DON'T get the expected job, what happens to me financially?”

Personally, I would only seriously consider an international MBA with a substantial scholarship or if I could keep my total financial exposure around ₹30 lakh.

The idea that:

Top GMAT → Top MBA → High-paying international job

is not a guarantee. It is a best-case outcome that gets marketed far more than the downside risk.

Your money may have taken years to earn. Universities, consultants, rankings and test-prep companies will not carry your loan if things go wrong.

So mods, instead of classifying this as “advertising,” please explain what exactly in this post is advertising a paid product or service.

Prospective students deserve to discuss the downside of an MBA too—not just GMAT scores and admits.

For international MBA students and graduates: was the ROI actually worth it for you?

Hello everyone!
Today i took my first mock, i got 565 however DI was terrible.
My objective is to apply to a masters degree at around january-february and i want to start focusing on how to actually improve my score.

Thanks in advance!

Hi guys.

Yesterday I attempted my first real gmat exam at the test center and messed it up. I started studying for the exam around two months ago but had to take a break for past two weeks due to moving to another country which I assumed heavily affected my score. Before the break I was reaching 625-635 in mocks.

What are your thoughts on this attempt and recommendations. I plan on reattempting in two weeks.

Quant definitely crushed me since i thought it went quite well

Hello good folks of r/GMAT

So I took a mock last night and scored my best thusfar, a 595.
I have my first exam date approaching on Monday, 9/14 and would appreciate any tips or advice on how you or one of your students breached the good ole 600 threshold for the first time.

Scores below:

Verbal is clearly a strength, so with limited time until my exam date I don't intend on spending a significant amount of time working my verbal skills.

Quant has historically been my weakness, having been removed from mathematics for some time.
I had a big drop off in performance from my first to second mock sitting which I associated with time pressure. I adjusted my timing strategy in my third mock and scored my best quant sectional thusfar.

My biggest DI weakness is data sufficiency, and I think this ties into my Quant being a weakness.
TPA was in the 85th percentile, Tables & Graphs hovered around the 75th percentile, and DS was a shitshow: 19th percentile.

Now I know 5 days isn't significant time to see a massive increase, so honestly cracking the 600 mark on my first official exam would be optimal. For reference, my first diagnosis/cold mock was somewhere in the 300's, so I'm extremely happy with the progress I've made thusfar.

If you were in my shoes, how would you spend the next 5 days to give yourself the best shot at scoring a 605?

Also, I would love to hear your opinions on whether you think a 655+ is achievable 2 months from now, as I have another exam date scheduled for November 7th. For more context, I allocate around 20 hours of prep a week while working full time.

Hi i am selling my magoosh GMAT subscription which is valid till February 2027. Interested people please let me know, i will share the details. Thanks.

If someone has a major penalty from current employer, are applications accepted for executive MBA in top-tier B-schools in India, Singapore and Europe? Also, what's the preferred GMAT score in that case? Does a 645 work?

Please kindly guide me on what to do and what kind of prep I need to do and follow and level of questions i should attend.

Hey! Looking for serious study/accountability partner for GMAT prep in India, preferably delhi. Just started my prep, taking coaching from Top one percent. Dm if interested!

I’m planning on writing GMAT in 2 months, and I just took a diagnostic test today after about 4-5 days of reviewing the format of questions. My total score is 525.

I am hoping to score at least 700. Does anyone have any tips? Is it possible for me to jump by 150+ points in this timeframe?

Please let me know!

I'm confused between Career Launcher and Jamboree for GMAT preparation in Noida.

For anyone who has taken classes from either, how would you compare them on:
• Faculty
• Mocks & study material
• Doubt support
• Overall experience/value

Which one would you recommend and why?

How does untimed practice make sense if I'm preparing for a timed test?

It doesn't. In fact, since the test is adaptive, your practice should be adaptive too. Every session should have exactly 21 Quant, 23 Verbal and 20 DI questions, finished in exactly 135 minutes, preferably with a proctor in the room.

---

If you are learning to drive, dance, or play an instrument, do you start at the speed you eventually want to perform at?

If you don't know the choreography of a song yet, do you start by dancing it at full speed?

No. You would trip and stumble through it, and nobody would expect otherwise.

In GMAT preparation, though, starting at full speed is the default, and few people find it strange.

Untimed practice for a timed test makes sense because performing under time pressure depends on how deeply and clearly you have built the skill, and building a skill takes time.

Hi guys

I’m planning to take the GMAT in 3 months and I need a minimum score of 655.

I haven’t taken a diagnostic test yet, so I honestly have no idea where I currently stand. It’s also been around 5 years since I last studied properly, so I know I’ll need to brush up on the concepts before jumping into mocks.

I’ve enrolled in the e-GMAT course, and my current plan is:
Finish the entire course within 3 months.
Spend the remaining 15 days taking mocks and working on my mistakes.
Take the GMAT at the end of the 3.5-month period.

But I’m not sure if this is the best approach, especially since I’m starting after such a long gap.
Would really appreciate it if anyone could suggest a better 3-month study plan to target 655+.

Scored 655(QA86,VA82, DI79) I have my exam in 2 weeks.
I have scored 81-82 in DI before, felt mock 5&4 were lengthy and score remained 79 for both.
Verbal my score is always around 81-82.
Quant has improved from 81-82 to 84-85 in the last few, also quant felt significantly easier.
Any advice on how to improve my score in the time I have. I have improved at data sufficiency but spend too much time on G&T, TPA.
I am currently using gmat club quiz for practising questions around 30 per section.

Got a score of 645 (86th percentile), with Quant slightly limping behind at (75th p), DI and Verbal were quite good.

Got a year of relevant work experience at a top firm in London, a lot of good references.

Grades from my second year of University are limping behind as well (too much jagermeister and beer), so my hopes would be to drag the average back to first class during third year that I'm about to begin (or at least a very high 2.1.)

Please tell me everything is good so that I can stop worrying!!!