That Bad

I rescheduled the GMAT exam for January 16th after taking my first full-length practice exam and getting a score that wouldn't qualify me for entrance into a business program at a community college. I've never been great at standardized testing, but I really, really bombed that test. I actually gasped when I saw the score come up on the screen. As in, "Really? That's what I got?" I've never been in that quartile before.

I immediately called my reinforcements, also known as people who are amazing good at standardized testing and could kick my butt any given day at trivia. The consensus among the reinforcements was to move back the date of the test to give myself more time to study. Apparently my geometry skills are really that bad. Let's not even mention my ability to determine the sufficiency of data. That's a skill set that I failed to cultivate during my existence. I've always gone with the, "If someone nice tells you something, then it must be true" mantra, which has only let me down five or ten times.

The folks in the admissions department recommend giving schools six weeks from the date of your test to receive your score. This includes receiving the scores for the graded essays, which are evaluated by a computer and a human. A second human is called in to force a peace treaty between the two entities if the scores on your essay are more than .5 off. Anyways, January 16th gives the schools approximately 5 1/2 weeks to receive my scores before the second deadline in late February. It was the best I could do.

Since my first practice exam I've studied and raised my score 40 points. With that score, I could actually get into the local community college, although I still probably couldn't get a MBA. AEP reminded me that it was ok to be on the low end of a range of scores. I reminded her that it's important to have a score that is at least in spitting distance of the range. Somehow I think my pity factor is on the low end. A single Mom with a liberal arts degree and a non-profit background probably isn't as rare as it used to be.

I hate standardized testing. Review courses for the GMAT cost anywhere between $600 (online) and $1,700 (in person, over a weekend or spread out over three months). I would have to infer from this data that the more resources you have, in terms of time and money, to devote to the test, the higher test score you will receive, unless you are a natural genius that remembers every lesson from 8th grade geometry and 10th grade English.

It all just makes me feel behind. I feel like I should have started studying back over Thanksgiving when I got my first book from the library. One of my reinforcements started studying for her standardized test three months before the actual exam date. Every day, for three months, she studied. I'm looking at two weeks and wondering how the hell I'm going to convince an admissions officer to let me in. I imagine saying something along the lines of, "I promise that I'm not stupid! Promise" in my admissions interview.