Phew !

The GMAT is done and I should tell y'all that during the test I did not think I got anything wrong and was promptly surprised when the big 8-0-0 did not pop up. Just kidding (a bit); all I can say is that my score is not going to keep me out of any school. But my application could.

So I have started working on the rest of the package. Though I put down five schools to send my score reports to (when the computer asked me before the test started), I am not very sure about all five of them. I am planning a few talks with some of the professors and students in a few select schools before I finalize my list.

With the GMAT now firmly behind me (unless GMAC calls to tell me that mysteriously lost all records of my test and cannot report my scores to anyone) I feel like sharing a few observations that I have made so far.

As the days wound down towards my GMAT, I wasted a lot of my time. While I wanted to gather GMAT info, I was actually reading the excellent MBA blogs that are available. It used to be the case that the closer I got to the information I needed, less was the chance of me getting sidetracked.

With the MBA Blog phenomenon, that is no longer the case. Moreover, these blogs were worse than reading stuff on espn.com or on the BBC in that they distracted me with things that are related to my MBA and and contributed to a big time loss in focus.

So those who are set to take the GMAT, do not get lost reading the blog entries that DO NOT talk about the GMAT. As for the test itself, there is no need to get bogged down with various books. The OG and the Manhattan books are enough actually. I started with the Princeton Review from the local library and lost interest in a couple of days. Then I heard about and bought the OG and Kaplan's 800 book (I highly recommend both, though I read only half of the Kaplan 800).

I had the Manhattan GMAT books on Sentence Correction, Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning. The last two topics are in one book and I never read it. The Manhattan books are good in that they walk you through the problems in the OG though that is not necessary. In all, I did not read any book in its entirety except the OG.

Also, test day mechanics are very important. If you are well rested and wake up on the right side of your (or someone else's) bed, you will do pretty well.