Why Do Most MBA Applicants Study GMAT For 3-6 Months

If you’re getting ready for the GMAT exam, you probably know by now that most people study for the GMAT in 12-16 weeks. Some get ready for up to a year or even more.

Why such a long period of time?

Expensive $1500 prep programs center around 12-16 week courses that eat up your Saturday afternoons. 12-16 weeks!

Even an rigorous-college course on sub-atomic physics takes only 9 weeks (in a quarter system like at Stanford) or a little longer for semester system colleges.

I’ve never taken a sub-atomic physics class before, but trust me-there’s a TON more rigorous material in a 9 week sub-atomic physics class than there could possibly be on the GMAT.

Most of the concepts on the GMAT were discussed in high school. You’ve seen all this stuff before! So all you really need to do is to review high school math and English and maybe learn a few new concepts. You’d also need to familiarize yourself with the various ways the GMAT guys try to trick you on the exam.

So given that most test takers prepare 3-6 months for this exam that covers high school level material, why then is the average GMAT score in the low 500s? Seems like a perfectly legitimate question!

At first, I thought the only two reasons were 1) the content 2) the exam is very tricky

It wasn’t until my two friends walked out of the exam room with their heads down that I realized there’s a THIRD reason.

I asked them: How did you study?

They gave me a stack of the prep books they read. I took a look, and within minutes, I was totally lost in the reading material.

The prep book was full of grammatical terms like participial phrase, dependent clause, and subjunctive. I can’t imagine studying those fancy terms!

No wonder why everyone takes 12-16 weeks to prep for the GMAT! They spend their time learning these useless fancy grammar terms. The critical reasoning section was also filled with these weird terms I did not understand.

It wasn’t long before my eyes started wandering into la la land as I lost focus and concentration.

The quant section did an equally stellar job of making me fall asleep. As a visual learner, there’s only so much I can absorb by reading a book.

It was a lightbulb moment: my relatively smart friends did poorly on the exam because the inefficient prep resources they used forced them to learn unnecessary grammar terms and confused them further. The prep books taught concepts–which are important–but they were missing something important: an efficient thought process. My friends essentially learned all the concepts, but they did not know how to think through the exam question in a time-pressured environment.

During my two weeks of intense, marathon-like studying, I didn’t waste my time on “concepts” and instead created an efficient thought process with frameworks that help me identify what is being tested.

But I can see how I could easily have ended up studying away 3-6 months of my life had I prepared the way my friends did for the GMAT. I eventually showed my friends my thought process and they retook the exam with success. You can read more about our story.

So back to the original question: Why do most MBA applicants study GMAT for 3-6 months?

1) the material is very rigorous 2) the test is very tricky 3) confusing, inefficient studying techniques

The content is difficult, but it’s not impossible. Yes, the exam is very tricky so understanding the ways the GMAT guys try to trick you is critical.

And yes, learn from the mistakes of my two friends. Make sure you stay away from confusing prep books that can waste away your precious time. Be smart about how you study because remember–how you study is perhaps the most important aspect to getting a good score.